No one really knows how the parties get to yes

So I heard.

If everyone involved is very lucky, they'll get out of the mess that left them in without losing anyone, and you'll have a chance to put things right then.

If you are aware already that their course of action is reckless and dangerous, that I counsel them against it, and that I cannot aid them in undertaking it, then what do you gain from telling me that they will regard me as responsible for it? All right. I have taken note that the people who keep trying to start a civil war with me regard me as responsible for the deaths from negligence that will assuredly result from their next action, one which I am trying to dissuade them from. Did they specify the means by which I will be held responsible, or did they leave that to my imagination?

They're not planning on warring against you, if that's what you mean.

I didn't ask for a survey of whether they blame you for their situation more or less than the Valar, but you do in fact make the list. What they're hoping is that when they arrive you'll be prepared to meet them with food and supplies, since they will have just come from across the Helcaraxë after all.

If there is any chance at all that my firm refusal to provide food or supplies deters them from attempting a stupid dangerous crossing that will not help the war and that they should not be making, I do them no favors by promising them food once they make it. Also, we don't have any and under the conditions cannot grow any. Convey to my half-brother that I would not see him throw his peoples' lives away for this.

If you don't have food you don't have food, but I have enough confidence in your capabilities to still think your assistance would be worth more than nothing. Deterrence doesn't come into it. I doubt you could deter them if you tried, with the possible exception of threatening to massacre them all.

Your half-brother's people definitely think whatever amount of resources and attention you spend being wary of each other would be outweighed by the reinforcements against the Enemy. Is there some reason unknown to them why the Enemy having more enemies wouldn't help the war?

Coordination matters more than numbers, my time matters more than almost anything else, and the war may not be winnable through force of arms at all, I have no idea if any of these principles are unknown to my half-brother.

The third one is. If they know the others they disagree with your assessment of the tradeoffs.

...no one on the other side mentioned this question, but do you have the concept of comparative advantage here?

The concept you're referencing isn't familiar.

I've heard you're the best at practically everything—except, in their telling, at being king—and also the best chance at winning the war if it turns out it can't be done by force. Where I'm from, someone that good at everything would wind up specialized wherever they're the most irreplaceable. Even if they'd be the best king imaginable, they'd delegate ruling in their name to whoever's second-best and focus on doing whatever someone else can't. Like finding a way to fight a war other than force of arms. They definitely wouldn't be out personally fighting on the front lines, let alone further. Not because they're too valuable to risk, though they might be, just because their time matters more than almost anything else. They'd be wasted as a soldier even if they're a better fighter than anyone else available. And yet here you are.

The Enemy killed my father.

I'm sorry to hear that.

You have more than enough reason to hate him. If personally sticking sharp bits of metal in his servants isn't the most effective way of fighting him, is revenge going to make you do it anyway?

Also, that's a very understandable reason to want to oppose the Enemy. If only there were some other group with a similar reason, it's good to know Fëanáro would be sympathetic. Right.

Obviously I am pursuing the most effective avenues of destroying him available to me, and learning as I go.

You're here, fighting in the front. Maybe this is the most effective means you have available at the moment, and you're planning to switch to weapons development or something as soon as you have an executable idea. But if that's true it's not obvious.

Or I can think about weapons development while using weapons to do things that I might eventually need better weapons to do better.

Maybe. But it didn't sound like you're here today for research purposes. Maybe you could even think about that while also thinking about long-term strategy and politics and whatever else you have on your plate.

It's not that it's impossible to handle everything yourself. It's that other people can do some of it and leave you free to do whatever has the biggest gap between you and the second-best person.

That's fine advice in general. My half-brother was not just inferior at everything but actively a drain on my attention and resources.

Then let him be a drain on the attention of whoever you delegate leadership to. Resources this won't help with.

I still don't know what you want me to do. If there were a way to pass safely over the Helcaraxe we'd have done it ourselves.

If that was the general you, I don't think anyone expects you to be able to help ahead of time. Just to provide support when they get here to whatever degree you can. If nothing else, sending me means they'll know ahead of time that that won't mean food.

All of the plants are dead because there is no light. They can eat orcs; that is what we are doing.

That part is actually going to be bad news. I hoped you'd have found some means other than relying on what the Enemy sends you.

If not food, shelter? Warmth? Medical attention? They will have just arrived across the Ice; food won't be the only thing they lack.

Whatever borders we've secured will be open to anyone who isn't actively expressing a desire to overthrow and kill me, and they can have shelter and medical care because anyone can.

I'll pass that on.

Anything else you want to say to them, aside from "don't"?

They aren't needed here, we'll win faster without them, and we will get them out of Valinor as soon as it is feasible.

Given that they're going to do it stupidly, I would I had the means to help them do it safely.