Why didn’t the Northern Water Tribe involve itself in the war?
There are a few canon facts to work with. Firstly, the last time the North acquired a Fire Nation uniform was 15 years into the war. Actually, that’s the only fact I have to work with. My own additions are that:
a) the North would have been able to seriously damage (or even defeat) the Fire Nation if they had wanted to – but something stopped them.
b) the Fire Nation was slipping into economic trouble on the homefront. I’ve never gone into it, but Sozin’s war time economy plan was failing, even when his armies were victorious. This is why Azulon would “put the war on hold” to get the Fire Nation back on solid footing.
Why did Sozin attack in the first place?
Invading the North was always a part of Sozin’s plan, but it was something for the distant future. His unexpected successes in the Earth Kingdom made him believe that the Fire Nation could take on any threat.
In 13 ASC Sozin ordered the bulk of the Fire Navy north in preparation for an invasion. It’s worth noting that while he (thought he) had the ships to launch an invasion, it’s debatable whether or not he had the ground troops to maintain one. It was a rash decision, perhaps even uncharacteristically so, and in the end the Fire Nation paid for it.
The defeat of the Fire Nation by 15 ASC
Things did not go well for the Fire Navy.
Fighting waterbenders on open sea is just about the worst thing you could do. The waterbenders used many small ships, each with a crew of less than a dozen. These ships were designed for speed and require no armament, as it was the waterbenders who’d jump off and waterbend their way around the enemy.
The reality is that a handful of waterbenders can disable a Fire Nation ship easily. With a crew of over 100 and virtually impenetrable metal hulls, how did the waterbenders do this? They froze the bottoms. Given enough time, the waterbenders could build up so much ice on the bottom of the ship that it’d capsize. They’d create icebergs with ships embedded in the bottom.
Two things on part of the Fire Nation allowed the situation to spiral out of control. Firstly, the naval brass that wasn’t about to get shamed by the Army. The Army had claimed glorious victories in the Earth Kingdom, and the Navy was desperate for its share. Secondly, the leadership at every level was unwilling to pass on accurate information about what was truly occurring. We have to remember that at this time, most of the Fire Nation was a conglomeration of forces of the technically not noble Nobles. Official titles had been abolished a few generations before, but the aristocracy still held wealth, social influence and armed power. This situation kind of worked out in the Earth Kingdom, but in the North it was an absolute disaster. The exact strategy that the Fire Nation used against the Earth Kingdom, of dividing and conquering the individual provinces, was adopted by the Northern Water Tribe. They divided and conquered the independent navies of the different Fire Nation lords – something they were able to do due to a distinct lack of communication amongst lords.
Sozin departed the Earth Kingdom around the middle of 14 ASC to personally take charge of the mess that was the northern campaign, but it soon became apparent to him that the Fire Navy simply couldn’t win. The economic situation in the Fire Nation was rapidly deteriorating and even the ambitious Sozin recognised that he had to cut his losses.
Why didn’t the North go on the offensive?
If the North was able to inflict massive damage to the Fire Navy with comparatively small losses, why didn’t the North keep fighting after the Fire Nation withdrew? The reason is this: for the NWT, it was a Pyrrhic victory. True, the Fire Nation’s losses far outweighed the North’s. But the North had a much smaller population, and their losses in a cultural context were unacceptably high. For hundreds of years, killing hadn’t been part of the repertoire for conflict. They considered that barbarity worthy of only the southern tribe. The main reason for this is that the NWT was a single unified tribe – conflict happened within the community, not between communities. So while the NWT’s losses were comparatively small, the social impact was far larger.
Many of the waterbenders who had fought against the Fire Nation were aware of the potential that the North had to do serious damage to the Fire Nation, but anyone who brought up any ideas related to conflict were accused of warmongering. And so, the North became isolationist.
