Defenses against Divide and Conquer Attacks

2. Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity

While they always have conflicts and diverse beliefs and values, healthy democracies are sufficiently cohesive that they are less prone to divide-and-conquer attacks that might be mounted by adversaries. When a nation is hyper-polarized, as was Israel before October 7, 2023, and as the United States and much of Europe is now, it is easier for adversaries (such as Russia or China) to exploit those divisions to get their target to attack and weaken —perhaps even destroy — itself, without the adversary having to mount a physical attack at all. One  of the key elements of successful democracies is, therefore, to have an ability to prevent such attacks, or, if that is impossible, to render the attacks unsuccessful because the society holds firm and refuses to attack itself.

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