Divide and Conquer Aggression
2. Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity
Divide and conquer aggression is a centuries-old military strategy. The approach, of course, is to somehow divide your adversaries and get them fighting each other, so they either don't fight you at all, or if they do, they are much weaker than they would be if they were unified. Foreign adversaries of the United States (e.g., Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) are pursuing this very effectively, by driving U.S. hyper-polarization through bogus social media posts, election interference, and other means. This has badly weakened the U.S., which is therefore less able to counter the policies or territorial ambitions of our adversaries. We are likely to have difficulty defending Taiwan from China, for example; we have been wavering in our support for Ukraine against Russia ; and Israel against Arab terrorists, be they Palestinians, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or Iran itself. Indeed, Israel's internal divisions over "judicial reform" so distracted Prime Minister Netanyahu that he apparently "took his eye of the ball" and allowed the October 7, 2023 attacks to take place. We haven't read that those divisions were exacerbated by Israel's enemies, though they certainly could have been. And Israel's enemies are certainly trying to drive Israel's allies apart (by, for example, buying influence on leading U.S. college campuses), leading to acceptance and even encouragement of anti-Israel sentiment and demonstrations which has limited the degree to which Joe Biden has felt free to help Israel to defeat its many enemies.
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