There is something terribly wrong with a species who, in the infancy of their space travel, spends so much time and effort considering the matter of making war in space.
To make peace you must prepare for war. Also, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.
For a particular definition of 'better' that probably involves survival but not ethics.
Literally anything in space almost by definition is a weapon. Blame physics.
A species that, in the mature age of their warfare, spends so much time and effort considering the matter of extending war to a new location.
acting in an inexploitable way is a nash equilibrium or do we think the aliens don’t understand game theory or evolved without a survival instinct?
The history of progress is largely the history of warfare. War pushed technological development and pushed state formation in the direction of ever larger ever more centralized states.
in comparison to which other species?
The Daleks. They spend no time at all considering war, they just get on with it.