1. create project 'a' and add class 'A':

package a;
public class A {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("a!");
    }
}

2. create project 'b' and add 'a' as dependency
3. add class 'B':

package b;
public class B {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("b!");
        a.A.main(args);
    }
}

3. create project 'c' and add 'b' as dependency
4. add class 'C':

package c;
public class C {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("c!");
        b.B.main(args);
    }
}

5! try to run project 'c'. all compile ok but a
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError is issued for
'a/A', because it was not added to the classpath.

i imagine for web applications, the nested
dependencies are not added to the lib directory,
although i haven't tested that.

if this is as designed, it needs to be reworded in
the project properties to state this more clearly
(i also disagree with it, especially because of
the webapp reason above).