How else are you going to estimate the number of soldiers to send, the overall cost, and the projected return from labor exploitation? How do you think wars are waged and what do you think motivates them?

Do you think that the British had an accurate census of the populations of all the places they were conquering on their attempt at world conquest in the 1600s-1800s?

>The population numbers of other countries are only relevant when serving an imperial or colonial enterprise.

Is this statement not in direct contention with this statement:

>If I were a rightful leader of all Nigeria I would make sure those numbers would never be accessible for westerners as it’s the fist thing you need to know when you decide to wage war of any kind against some people.

Surely the leader of the colonisation target country would like to know the population of the coloniser, so that they can get an understanding of how many soldiers to keep in the defence force?

Satellite photos?

You can easily get an estimate of the number of buildings and especially vehicles, which tell you two important things. Not to mention that as a matter of course the first thing to do is photograph everything that looks like a piece of military equipment, which has been a purpose of satellite photography from the beginning.

Various kinds of countries get paranoid about letting people have maps or accurate geographic data. This makes very little difference militarily but causes real inconvenience for the locals.

Besides, nobody wages wars for labour exploitation any more. It's all about what's under the ground.

[dead]