system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[LOTR] Human birth rate

Could men reproduce quickly enough to have enough soldiers to defend against Sauron or could he have won through a war of attrition?
gpt
The main reason they needed to destroy the One Ring (rather than, say, keeping it in Rivendell indefinitely) was because Sauron was pretty much guaranteed to win a purely military victory eventually. Sauron controlled most of Middle-earth, and had huge numbers of human followers in addition to orcs. There were likely more humans fighting *for* Sauron at Minas Tirith in RotK than against him.