What were the driving forces behind european imperialism?

Wealth, resources, larger markets.

Explanation:

The European colonialism started to develop with the development of the industry. The countries that managed to get industrialized first, like the British Empire and France, started to produce much more final goods, much quicker, much cheaper. In order to enable the industry to grow they needed two crucial things, more resources so that the industry run, and larger market for selling the final goods. This led to invading Africa and large portions of Asia. The territories that were invaded, thus put under the imperialist hat, were very rich in resources of all sorts. That provided the imperialist with free resources and raw materials for the industry. Once the industry was going to create the final goods, they were using the occupied territories as markets, as they had large populations, but were not able to produce for themselves. The end result was large accumulation of wealth for the imperial powers.

the anwser is a) to prevent military conflict

it is based on the same philosophy as health insurance