> I'm not actually clear on what's incorrect about this logic
It's this same logic that gave us The Cold War.
It's this same logic that gave us The Cold War.
Without an absurd premise (eg pretending war isn't an ever-present threat for any nation-state), and without requiring some Oracle or superior governing body to determine behaviors without the fog of war, what superior and general logic should have been applied that would have avoided the cold war?
That this particular bit of logic leads us to the Cold War is well and fine; was the Cold War avoidable with some other reasonable mode of operation?
The logic that the entire population is stuck on this planet (then and now for the time being), and the resources/ideologies being fought over don't mean a thing if everyone is dead.