Originally Posted by Ezekiel
...I have already stated that I think economics IS the MAIN motivation for war.
The reasons are, as others have said, that there is always some economic component, which I think is the main component because power always seeks to entrench itself and guarantee, not just its own survival (as Scout aptly pointed out), but growth (as a form of "immortality"). Political power IS economic power and, in today's world, economic power IS political power. So, by extension, increasing economic power is increasing political power.
What is your current evidence? I find your definition of "economic motivation" to be either vague, or perhaps too all-encompassing, to work with.

Maybe you need to start with a hypothesis about economics being the motivation for everything. That appears to me to be what Scoutgal thought your hypothesis was.

You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.
R. Buckminster Fuller