Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-82.212.58.6-20150114144020/@comment-1504072-20150114155551

There was probably a reluctance to shut down the five largest PMCs in the world, which would have had a devastating effect on the war economy that the AIs had created to propagate themselves. They also vastly underestimated Liquid, likely believing, as Meryl did, that there was no way he could gain control of SOP (even with the correct genetic code access key), since the existence of the rebuilt GW was unknown until the events in Eastern Europe. The FOXDIE allowed them a way to kill Liquid himself, without affecting global PMC activity, as without him to spur an uprising, business would likely continue as usual, and they would maintain the status quo. That's how I read it anyway.