“Divide and rule” tactics are as old as human conflict. Instead of building consensus among the members of a tribe or nation, rulers exacerbate grievances that exist between social groups. By doing so effectively, a military or political leader with only minority support can maintain control over a much larger group of people who refuse to work together.
Julius Caesar used this strategy to conquer Gaul. The Ottoman Empire ruled over a great number of tribes using the same technique. The British Empire controlled the Indian subcontinent in much the same way. Turning potential enemies against one another enables an otherwise insufficient force to seize and preserve power.
Modern Western politics is an endless “divide and rule” operation. Rarely do political leaders speak in terms that will unite strong majorities of their peoples. Even more rarely do they speak of their nations as families or articulate ways for everyone to get along. Instead, they divide society into groups of “oppressors” and “victims” and explain to anyone suffering why it’s someone else’s fault.
In parliamentary systems across Europe, there are so many political parties that national leaders rarely have majority support. Floating political alliances often produce legislative results that the public could never have predicted. For many years, I have regularly asked European friends and associates whether they view their national identity as more important than their European Union identity. I’ve asked them point-blank, “Are you willing to give up national sovereignty for a single, continental government?” Every single time — regardless of how pro-E.U. the person is — the answer is the same: “My nation comes first.”
Regardless of those expressed personal feelings, the European Union barrels ahead toward a single super-state. What started out as a post-war trading bloc exercising few real powers has grown into a continental government with its own currency, president, debt, and growing budgets. If the Eurocrats can successfully use the Russia-Ukraine War to scare member-states into action, there will soon be a single European military force. WWI ended several historic empires on the continent. WWII ended German dreams of a pan-European empire. Eighty years later, a single European empire looks all but certain.
How did that happen? Well, it certainly didn’t come from a Europe-wide referendum in which the half a billion citizens were asked whether they would agree to dissolve national borders and elect Ursula von der Leyen as president. It came from steady incrementalism over many decades, during which local divisions were used to the political advantage of one overarching European government. Don’t like your national government or local representatives? Put your faith in the European Union, and all your problems will disappear.