World War 1 was a gimmick war. The English carefully maneuver the Germans into a weakened political position before the war. WW I didn’t just happen it was planned. The English really hate a fair competition. The English couldn’t beat the economic power of the Germans but the English could crank up their propaganda machine.
The gimmick part of the English strategy was the naval blockade that would have prevented the Germans from getting saltpeter (fixed nitrogen for gunpowder and munitions) and other critical war supplies. The British thought they had an unassailable advantage and so they started the war.
The Germans developed the Haber Process for fixing nitrogen and the “gimmick” which would win the British the war became irrelevant.
WW 3 looks like another gimmick war. The Americans are falling behind their competitors in critical factors like overall manufacturing capacity, military research and development times, and bloated, costly, and unsuitable weapons systems. In a standard capitalist driven war (meat grinder) the costs to the Oligarchs would vastly outweigh the gains. Oligarchs don’t start wars that they might lose.
Except the Empire thinks they have a gimmick (technological terror?) up their sleeve that will assure them of Space Supremacy. This gimmick would theoretically make the empire’s forces unbeatable. War is fought on the Earth and not in space. You can have great communications and intelligence but that does not automatically give you superiority in all other aspects of warfare. You can still be outnumbered and strategically out maneuvered.
The Empire would use the American Space Force and their new technological breakthrough (gimmick) to start WW 3. The Oligarchs would turn America into a wasteland before they would risk giving up their power.