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Strategically and Economically the end of the 4th war came about the right time a number of points that might not be apparent but were in effect at the time.
1. Jumpships: In his leap frogging and pushing deeply into the CC while dropping 2 to 3 regiments on top of the battalion and single regiments they ran into the FedSuns was facing a critical Jumpship repair problem (this is a little over stated but with combat going the way it was they did need repairs they couldn't get while in the field)
2. Losses Even with the CC facing horrendous losses the FedCom had a number of losses, fatigue and repairs to make that a longer war would have only made far, far worse.
3. Intirdication With Comstar turning off all the HPG's in the FedSuns, the Economy fell into a depression. They couldn't talk to thier Commonwealth partners about their offensive, request relief or anything else. Orders were taking weeks and months to reach the front and war requires the more rapid communications possible.
4. DCMS The Kuritians were finally starting to snatch up, more and more worlds as they stopped focusing on Wolfs Dragoons. While pushing on to Sain might have been possible, they would have probabably lost something very dear to be able to attack a world where the entire population would throw everything (from the kitchen sink to Autocannon shells) at them. That would have forced the rest of the Cap Con to either be conquered, or allowed to setup a rump state if the Liaos got off Sian. Candance would have attacked as well from what Nightstalker said.
5. FWL At the end of the War the Leaguers were finally starting to get an idea of what was happening, instead of leaving the Commonwealth in possesion of 14 worlds and the Tikonov Free Republic sitting there in the Terran Corridor. The Leaguers would have found out (probably through Waterly) just how wrong they were about the Fed Suns and LC troop deployments. Then turning around the FWL could have retaken Oliver, and invaded the nearby industrial worlds of New Earth, New Kyoto, Gienah, and Wyatt. With the LC and FS busy with a angry Combine they could have crushed the TFR and taken Nanking. With Styk leveled they might not have taken the world, but it's still a factory planet they might have gone after.
6. War damage Even though the FS broke the back of the CC armed forces they still had done a tremendous amount of damage to the worlds they took over. Sarna, Tikonov, Styk, and a host of other planets we're litterally leveled in their taking by both sides.
7. Refugees Outside of the 'War Damage' you have millions of ppl displaced, homeless, jobless or now unsure of what to do. You can try to tell them you'll fix it later while you keep pushing forwards towards a war but that leads to alot more problems.
8. New Governments The St. Ives Compact and Tikonov Free Republic both had come into existance at this time. You don't just ignore something like that, Tikonov especially was a loose cannon in the Terran corridor at the time. Also with the StC and TFR either attacking or defending themselves the nearby factory worlds had to be secured and/or reinforced.
9. Citizens Citizens on both sides were tired of the war, instead of the normal raiding and counter raiding followed by a small campaign to take a planet here or there. The entire Inner Sphere was changing, economies in both the FS and CC were depressed or collapsed (depending on the region) and the people were suffering a tremendous amount. With more and more body bags coming back from the front, people quickly start hating a war.
10. Pirates For whatever reason this REALLY isn't stated, pirates during major actions like this push deeper and hit richer targets then ever before. Panpour, Macintosh and Tancredi IV are all near the Periphery. Lady Death and the Tortuga Dominions must have been going nuts at this time hitting world after world on the FS periphery border when the FS had called up every regiment it could think of to invade the CC.
11. ComStar The FS already was facing an Interdiction, and didn't trust comstar BEFORE the 4th SSW started. With everything that was happening I doubt they wanted ComStar having their agents be able to speak while thier own coundn't comunicate.
12. Diminishing Supplies I don't know how big of a part this played in the end of the war, but as the Helm memory core hadn't really been decoded even a tiny bit at this point I believe the factories were overtaxed. Specialized spare parts for the dozens upon dozens of designs in the Fed Suns military and her mercenary commands were probably drying up at such a rapid rate that commands must have been reporting they couldn't go forwards without ammuntion. It's all well and good if your factory makes 10,000 tons of armor a year, but if you've already consumed 17,000 at this point and it's only going to get worse do you really want your supply depots totally bare incase a counter attack happens?
13. Replacements This is my final point, commands can only go down so far before their ability to fight is destroyed entirely. And some units are finished simply by taking out their commanding officer or a really popular officer. That and troops don't grow on trees, even with the academy unit sending replacements I seriously doubt it was enough. Also for Mercenary commands it's even worse, if they don't have a few extra pilots sitting around (dispossed working as techs, trainees or retired warriors) they can't replace a mechwarrior who's down because of extensive injuries. And a mech maybe a powerful weapon, but without a pilot for the machine it's just a big barrier.
I know it's long, but I was bored and if I'm going to start posting here again I thought I'd come back with a long post. *grin*[/b]
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There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to chance. It is: to use the means at hand to inflct the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum of time.
-George S. Patton, Jr., War As I Knew It
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