Well you could do what switzerland did

just make invasion such a nasty prospect that there's no reason to invade.

and then make trade and co-operation too profitable

if it were a weaker nation maybe but a nation of comparible military power on the other hand. and based on the goverments around equestria I have my doubts her biggest geopolitcal rival is a liberal democracy

Well again

Liberalism is probably what is making equestria great

make your country great

Like Meiji japan

if it were me personaly probably but I doubt a emperor or empress would be so willing to give up too much control

Well honestly I think a saber ratling dictator like that would deserve a bit of humbling

I'm honestly of the opinion that equestria is pretty much the miltary power in that world

Even without the WMDs that are luna and celestia

I disagree I think equestria was the main military power of the world but their military seems to be collapsing. canterlot has been taken a few too many times

storm king almost won same with the changelings before they effectivly enginered a coup to put a puppet into power there

I suspect most of these successes are mainly through surprise attacks, catching equestria off guard

I think at worst, equestria might have grown fat and lazy

but so was pre ww1 and ww2 america.

which for a strong aggressor might be a sign that equestria is ready to be conqured.

of course, but I reckon that strong aggressor would only have so long before equestria gets it's act together.

You'd probably have to strike while all the princesses are in the same place, os you can take them out

because if you take out celly and luna, you've got twi and cadence to deal with.

probably a big enough crisis might get equestria's military reinveigorated no offense to shiny but he's a pretty incompetent head of the army to allow canterlot to be taken twice.

perhaps

I think Tirek is a special case

sorry my bad three times

he seemed pretty invulnerable to anything ponies threw at him

what was number 2?

I know the changeling invasion was 1

storm king invasion

but even then, he was being mind raped by the changelings

Is he even captain of the guard then?

I thought he was Cadence's husband then

it's a good question I think he might be head of the crystal empire's defense force

maybe?

so he was probably too busy blowing his load in cadence to be bothered with advancing airships.

figuring that was someone else's job that day

based on some tiny quirks about equestira I'm convinced that it was once an imperialistic power

Well my theory is that ponies used to be a sort of a balkanised group

and mostly racially segregated.

I imagine Celly and Luna basically did a god emperor on everyone's ass

to play devils advocate a throw away line from shadow play might offer an explanation. they mentioned they sent the guard all over equestira looking for the pony of shadows and they basicly left the capital unguarded for the storm king to march in