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A recent report by USAID offers a brief but insightful view on some of current research on 'Youth Bulge' hypothesis. Some of the key take-away are: The common thread across the latest research is that youth bulges alone do not cause conflict. Rather, when unstable politics and social deterioration are combined with large numbers of disadvantaged young men, ...

I think there's a selection bias at play. A ruler that did not care about acquiring more land would typically end up avoiding conflict with the neighbors, and would tend to not be noticed historically. Just because the historically notable rulers were a certain way does not mean that the average rulers were the same way.

There are many factors: Economic motives: Many people saw colonies as markets for their finished products, and suppliers for their raw goods. Colonies provided raw materials that often could not be grown or found in the parent country. For example, England's colony in India. India was a good place to grow tea and opium, things that the British could not ...

Note: this is an opinion question (especially the second part) and probably off-topic here. I'll try to answer it nevertheless. I'm not sure there is a single rationale behind this. One reason is psychology. Humans build hierarchies instinctively and try to climb up. A country ruler is no exception, he will also instinctively try to amass more power and ...

Think about the global power balance at the time. Imperial Japan was a rising power that wants to expand against older, more entrenched alliances. Towards the south, it faced the maritime power of the United States which has a strong interest in keeping the Pacific and SE-Asia under her control. Towards the north, it faced the USSR. The Japanese leadership ...

The argument for the northern expansion doctrine, was that Japan had beaten Russia in 1905, and perhaps could do so again, whereas Japan never had a history of beating the United States. Also, Germany was attacking the Soviet Union (and not the U.S.), meaning that even if Japan lost a fight against the Soviet Union, it might weaken the Soviets enough to ...

A (male) youth bulge sometimes occurs when the birth rate is FALLING. That's because most men prefer to marry women younger than them. So if the birth rate is falling, there are more older men of the earlier period than younger women of the later period. This happened with American cohorts born in the 1960s (and in certain other parts of the world). One ...