> CORS is primarily focused on removing csrf (cross site request forgery) vulnerabilities

basically CORS gives you zero defense against csrf. (ok, not zero, but also not much)

This just isn't true. I don't consider request forgery to just be side-effect based (the classic example of a bank form post). I'm including any request that leaks data to a site based on cookies present only on the client (forged authenticated request).

SOP/CORS was the foundation that allowed CSRF tokens to even work. (No SOP/CORS? Just request the form with the csrf token first, parse with js, append to next request)

I guess you could say SOP is really the protecting force here, but CORS only exists because strict SOP broke a LOT of stuff. Enter trust zones in IE, and then CORS.

SameSite now mostly tackles this by fixing the root issue with the cookie jar.

cors never protected against csrf because you could just have a form that gets submitted via js. that worked for ALL post requests and it works in modern browsers as well and most csrf attackes used forms.