This does not even make any sense. They have become stronger because the narrative needed them to be, not because logic dictates they do. Because looking at it objectively, the faction conflict would have ended with Garrosh in Cataclysm.
As Amazoner has already pointed out, the Horde was on the brink of extinction at the end of WC3. I think there have been just enough Orcs to fill 3 Alliance ships. As a comparison, the Mary Rose would have had a crew of roughly 500 men. And having seen those older ships from the inside, 500 people would have been a very cramped scenario already. Even the HMS Victory - a much larger vessel - is already a nightmare for claustrophobic people with a normal set of visitors.
If they had to cram in any more, I’d say we would be looking at no more than maybe 2000 Orcs over 3 ships. At best.
The Tauren had been facing defeat at the hands of the centaurs, until the Orcs bailed them out. Likewise for the Darkspear. The OG Horde at the start of vanilla was in a very bad place. You don’t grow an army to basically conquer both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms in 5 years. Not even Orcs mature that fast.
Population size aside, there is also the issue of resources. In case you don’t realise - you need resources to build equipment. And Garrosh’s Goblin tech was not only built with wood the Horde doesn’t have, it was also large amounts of steel the Horde wouldn’t have access to. And even then, you do not magick an entire world ending army out of your buttocks within a couple of months. You need production facilities - which the Horde did not have. You need resources - which the Horde didn’t have. You need skilled workers - which the Horde, again, didn’t have. Peons don’t build cannons.
Goblin engineers are one thing, but if you do not have access to skilled labour, the best engineers will not help put together thousands and thousands of very intricate weapons.
So, Garrosh managed to stamp out an army big and geared up enough to not only withstand a world ending threat (Deathwing and Old God cultists), but also launch a full scale attack on the Alliance no only in Kalimdor, but also the Eastern Kingdoms and win those attacks.
The constant fighting between the factions have only made the Horde stronger because the writers said so. Because the writers needed the Horde to be stronger. If you notice, the Alliance gets weaker with every iteration of the faction conflict. They’re the “turn the other cheek” faction and Blizzard has run out of cheeks to give.
I would agree that conflict strengthens societies. However, the issue I have with this approach is the complete absence of any realism as to how things are described in lore. If the Horde are scrappy underdogs trying to survive, then how do they suddenly have an army to both defeat the established Alliance forces and withstand Deathwing’s attacks? If they are starved for resources and never had to construct anything more complex than a simple axe and mud huts, how do they suddenly construct fortresses out of steel and basically modern weapon systems? With the Alliance it makes sense, both Dwarves and Gnomes have a long history of building “fantasy high tech” weapons. This is why the Alliance is a force to rival the Horde to begin with - what they lack in individual strength they make up for in numbers and tech. Giving the Horde access to both numbers and tech out of the blue completely destroys and even reverses the power dynamic, making the Alliance the scrappy, lovable underdog instead.
For me, Cataclysm completely destroyed the Horde I loved by turning them into an oppressive fascist regime. The Horde I loved before was built on honour and the bond and loyalty between brethren. Blizzard took that and threw it out the window because a fascist Horde would make for a much cooler metal album cover.
But anyway. The conflict can only be kept going because the writers keep magically adding technology and population to the Horde, neither of which they should realistically have access to. Yes, conflict will spurn research and after conflict birth rates increase dramatically - but we are talking about a new world war every 2-3 years, with world ending non-faction-war related threats sprinkled in between. You realise that the pauses in between conflicts, which would usually lead to an explosion of population and technology, are being filled with “PvE conflicts”, which in turn further diminish the population? With all that’s been happening to Azeroth in the last 20 years, there should be no sentient life left on the planet because the constant ongoing warfare would have eradicated everyone.
