Aoi

And we often did talk about the U.S. and its intention to “balance” global regions by perpetuating political fragmentation and preventing any aggregation of territorial, economic, or demographic resources by ambitious would-be hegemons.

But while some people condemn this strategy, I always came to the conclusion with my dad sort of not far above me saying that it’s timeless and eternal. It’s nothing more than the ancient Roman idea of divide et impera.

Ex. that the Romans by preventing any effective union of the Hellenic World neutralized its threat and then conquered it. By pitting the Macedonian dynasts against one another, allying Ptolemaic Egypt and Attalid Pergamum while opposing the Seleucids and Pontus, by harnessing the Achaean League while opposing the Antigonids, Rome crushed them all one by one like dominoes.

Even prior to that, the Persians sought to accentuate Greek political diversity by leveraging Sparta against Athens, Thebes against Sparta, Macedonia against Thebes, and so on, w/ the express purpose of preventing the Greeks from turning their arms against Persia and thereby ensuring Persian pre-eminence in Southwest Asia and Northeast Africa.

This strategy is in fact perhaps one of the most effective ones, on a long term basis. The only other way in which to guarantee one’s supremacy is to directly annex the territories in question, which is possible but leads one to what Paul Kennedy calls “imperial overstretch”—which is merely the geopolitical equivalent of the more narrow military “operational overreach” as described by Milan Vego.

In both cases commitments outstrip resources. In military parlance the point where one’s forces deplete and become inferior to the enemy is called culmination, and it’s at this point where operational overreach occurs.

This typically results in decisive and catastrophic defeat + extensive recoil from forward positions. Exs include Napoleon in Russia, the Marne, the opening battles of the Austrians in Galicia, and numerous German and Soviet offensives during WWII.

Imperial overstretch is a similar phenomenon on a much greater scale in which, when the point of culmination is reached, the result is typically also a drastic retreat from advanced positions to the extent that the entire imperial edifice may come crumbling down.

Exs of this could be the British Empire after WWII, or the Spanish Empire after the Napoleonic Wars.

To avoid this, then, is the goal of the hegemon. It is immeasurably preferable, therefore, that the hegemon sustains the conditions permitting his superiority by means other than direct absorption and occupation of potentially threatening regions.

He does this by balancing them against each other, by isolating some states and allying others.

This scenario in the history of diplomacy has innumerable precedents, it’s how Bismarck intended to maintain German supremacy in Europe, by isolating France and allying with Russia and Austria.

It is how Russians intended to dominate the Balkans by separating them from the Ottoman Empire and creating a constellation of weak states dependent upon themselves.

Austria sought to harness the Balkan states for the same purpose, in order to counter Russia and assure her own security.

A divided European continent has been the explicit and stated goal of England for centuries. During the Hundred Years’ War England wished to exaggerate regionalism and local autonomy in France, and Ewald Banse regards the existence of Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland to be evidence of England’s desire to restrain France and Germany and to neutralize the threat of the Low Countries.

Division of Germany and Italy was the cornerstone of French policy and the means by which French supremacy was maintained. Hitler was not wrong when he said the fragmentation and internecine squabbling of Germany was France’s goal at all times.

Italy’s division was also the policy of Austria and Spain in the Renaissance.

Napoleon's diplomatic efforts presaged Bismarck’s in that he cleverly precluded the creation of an alliance combining all other Great Powers until the very last coalitions. Prior to then he fought them in succession rather than simultaneously.

This strategy is at the very core of Polish Prometheism and Intermarianism, as the latter envisions the disintegration of the Russian state colossus into its ethnic non-Russian components which would then be under Polish patronage and protection.

Rosenberg’s Plan and the Generalplan Ost propagated by Nazi Germany envisioned something akin to the Promethean scheme, by partitioning the Soviet Union between a number of dependent satellites and relegating the Russian state and nation to a distant, precarious, non-threatening existence in the taiga.

The Allies returned the favour by partitioning the Reich and restricting its military potential. Austria and Bohemia were permanently separated; a quarter of Germany’s 1937 territory was annexed by Poland or the USSR; Alsace was retaken by France; while the remaining “rump Germany” was divided in twain roughly along the line Elbe-Saale-Elbe-Lübeck Canal.

The American proposed Morgenthau Plan desired to divide it even further.

Even when geopolitical plurality is not contrived it is always to an aggressor’s advantage, if I’m completely honest.

The deep-rooted dissensions and controversies afflicting Mediaeval Europe was the opportunity of Islam, even if Islam did not create the situation.

Anglo-Saxon England’s separation between Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex was the opportunity of the Vikings, who were never numerous and could hardly have succeeded under any other conditions.

Rome took advantage of the tribal decentralization of Gaul and Britannia, just as the British were to take advantage of it in India, and as the Spaniards were to do in Mexico and Peru.

The inability of the Balkan states to coalesce into any effective barrier resulted in their subjugation by the Turks in the first place.

The collapse of the Austrian, Ottoman, and Russian empires into a myriad of new states after WWI is seen by historians as the means by which Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia came to control Central and Southeastern Europe, and their diplomacy naturally only encouraged these divisive tendencies.

Taking a page from the Polish book the United States has also encouraged the centrifugal forces in the Soviet Union which in part led to the latter’s dissolution and effective elimination from a position of global rivalry.

The USSR, in its turn, apart from truncating Germany, sought to plant the seeds of dissension in Central European nations like the Czechs, the Poles, the Magyars, and the Croats, who always regarded themselves as integral parts of Western Civilization whatever that means and had always been opposed to Russian and Serbian designs. By so doing the pplo and resources, and strategic locations, of these states were removed from potential NATO utilization and were no longer a threat to Moscow.

The United States likewise encourages these movements amongst the non-Han peoples of China, and seeks to keep the strategic possessions ringing China out of Chinese hands.

Japan at an earlier date sought to secure her own Far Eastern supremacy by the chaos and division of China as well, which, following the end of the Manchus, dissipated into a political kaleidoscope of warlords, communists, and nationalists which was only brought to end after Japan’s defeat + the great victories of Mao.

Nicholas Spykman alleges that Nazi Germany wished to establish her influence in the Western Hemisphere through the division and competition of Latin America. We can see the Soviets actually doing this later, as well as encouraging separatist movements in Africa and Asia with the goal towards weakening European colonialist powers aligned with the United States.

This would naturally also be how the United States would be neutralized and eliminated from the pinnacle of paramount global influence, or perhaps even any global influence.

There was a chance to “balance” the United States during the American Civil War, but the European powers did not take advantage of it. It’s rly difficult to see how it could be accomplished now, but it must be if an emerging prospective hegemon is to remove the obstacle of American power.

Accordingly the diplomatic strategy of the United States is nothing new and has been practiced by all powerful states at all times in recorded history.

What I’m trying to say is that even though America acts with malice and conniving means, it’s not entirely unique to her, it’s simply what states do and have always done.

It’s claimed that Russia was interested in and supported the independence of Scotland, and then ofc the news published an article stating that numerous European and North American seccessionist movements were invited to Moscow.

Ofc if the Tsar was actually involved in that question it need hardly surprise or confuse us what his motivations were. Increasing devolution in the United Kingdom, one of the closests and most important allies of the United States, can only benefit Russia and her European position.

Similarly in regards to the other separatist movements Russia clandestinely supports like the Basque and Catalan movements in Spain, or the movements in Italy to divide the country between north and south, or indeed the movements wishing to create an independent California, Texas, or Hawaii.

While these may seem far-fetched and unrealistic, they have a certain historical relation to the Promethean League’s interwar programme. Poland at that time hosted the representatives of Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, Ukrainian, etc. independence parties even though at the time it seemed as if their pretensions would never be realized.

An observer in the 1920’s may have balked at the idea of the Belarussians ever constituting an independent nation, yet here it is in our time. In a century the Kremlin’s machinations might well bear fruit.

My implication in often talking about this with my father (broadly speaking) is that America inserted itself into and expanded upon the regional balancing roles that the United Kingdom, Japan, and Israel had already set for themselves.

But such techniques are not at all limited to those four states. We see even ideological opponents like the Nazis and Bolsheviks adopting identical methods aiming towards the same goals.

Accordingly relatively new concepts like national self-determination are habitually employed by status quo powers when they promote the dissolution and division of their rivals, as we’ve already observed in regards to Russia’s support for separatist movements in the European Union and the United States.

But they are also opposed by those same powers when they tend towards national unification and expansion. Revolutionary and Napoleonic France encouraged nationalism when it meant detaching Poland and Ireland from Russia and the UK, but opposed it when it meant unification of Germany and Italy.

Similarly the victors of Versailles were all for self-determination when it meant replacing their erstwhile Austrian and Ottoman enemies, restraining Bolshevik Russia, and circumscribing Germany, but were against it when it meant the desire of ethnic Germans to be incorporated within postwar Germany. They opposed it when proposals were made to apply it to their own colonial possessions.

In an equally contradictory fashion the United States has professed itself to be on the side of self-determination in regards to Tibet, to the former Yugoslavia, to the former Soviet Union, and so forth, but is opposed to it when it means Russian acquisition of the Crimea or potential acquisition of other ethnically Russian-populated areas.

There really is no contradiction, however, for the United States does not in fact recognize or care about self-determination, it merely exploits the concept in opportunistic fashion and resists it when its interests are opposed.

This is, of course, absolutely cynical, but it’s also readily comprehended. It ought to be noted that all states whatsoever will always seek their own accumulation of power and the reduction of their actual or perceived rivals by any means at their disposal, even if contradictory.

Obviously the United States is no exception to this, but neither is it unique. It is conforming to the parameters in which international diplomacy is conducted.