Making too many enemies, too fast

TAIPEI: Over the past few months, I was invited to teach international relations at one of the more prominent institutions of higher learning in Malaysia. Among the courses I was tasked with delivering was one on the development of modern strategy, with contents that were heavy with the contestations among the great powers. It enabled me to revisit some of the major ups and downs in the fates of nations and leaders due to the advantages and disadvantages of the strategies they employed. They often elicited heavy sighs from me, albeit in retrospect. I also could not help but observe that some of these positive and negative outcomes of strategic enactments could similarly be projected onto the domestic political struggles of nations in general.

Take, for example, two consequential figures, more than a century apart, in European history — Napoleon Bonaparte of France and Adolf Hitler of Germany. It should, of course, be noted here that due to the horrendous atrocities his Nazi party committed before and during the Second World War, Hitler is usually viewed as the very definition of evil. But in any case, both Napoleon and Hitler harbored the ambition of bringing the whole of Europe and beyond under their feet. But as they tried to do so, they created too many enemies either simultaneously or over a short span of time. It caused their enemies, having been forced to set aside their differences, to unite instead to fight them off and brought about their ultimate defeat in the joint hands of these enemies.

Specifically, Napoleon first tamed the messy political scene in France after the tumultuous French Revolution and aggregated total French political power unto himself. He then aggressively pursued wars against neighboring countries, making enemies of England, the various German states big and small, Austria, and so forth. It was quite smooth sailing for Napoleon in the beginning, with the French army occupying Austria and the vast majority of the German states. England was more difficult for Napoleon to tackle, as it set itself geographically apart from the European continent and thus required a naval invasion, which France was unable to mount after the unexpected French defeat at Trafalgar. But almost the whole of the European continent was in awe of Napoleon. In any case, within a few years, these French enemies, conquered or defiant alike, threw their combined forces together and defeated Napoleon, sending him to exile in the South Atlantic. Although Napoleon almost miraculously returned to Europe to try to fight another round and revive his empire, it was by then too late, and the definitive defeat at Waterloo saw Napoleon being repacked even further in the southern Atlantic, where he died bitterly in exile.

More than a century later, it was Hitler’s turn to first cunningly propel himself to power and then monopolize such tremendous ruling power over Germany. He wasted no time in creating enemies near and far. He first annexed his own homeland of Austria, which by then was reduced to but a shadow of its former AustroHungarian greatness. But that was not at all enough to satisfy Hitler’s territorial ambitions. He invaded Czechoslovakia on the pretext of protecting its German minorities, instigated World War 2 by invading Poland with its historically shifting boundaries, and overran other neighbors such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Norway. He also launched a blitzkrieg invasion of France, bombed the United Kingdom, and attacked American ships. The inevitable result was, of course, the joining of hands by these other powers, which ultimately defeated Nazi Germany. Hitler was reduced to unceremoniously committing suicide in a bunker, a bitter end for a much-hated and very cruel leader who brought about utter defeat to the German nation and people.

As such, I sometimes wonder about some alternative scenarios. If Napoleon and Hitler did not then adopt their seemingly hasty strategies of conquering almost every neighbor almost at the same time, but were more subtle in employing divide-and-rule strategies, such that crafty diplomatic and political means were deployed to alternately align themselves with some powers to confront others, and in the process annihilate these otherwise conflicting powers one by one over a longer period, would their probabilities of success in their ultimate goals (though not positive ones) have increased? They could have, for example, exercised intrigues to dissolve the friendly bilateral relations between two major powers, such that they could ally with one power to defeat another and continue the process cleverly, such that it would be difficult for the remaining powers to join hands in confronting them. Would the whole course of history be different then? It is something worth pondering, not only on the international level but in the fields of political maneuvering in individual nations, too.

But before these strategic ponderings could be applied in the domestic political scene of a country, there should perhaps be some disclaimers. The first being this should not be an attempt to necessarily compare contemporary domestic political figures with those historical figures of international consequences and, in the process, make positive or negative value judgments on the former. Rather, it should be meant to just analyze matters of facts, such that historical lessons could be employed to comment on some of the contemporary applications of domestic political strategies and their consequential effectiveness. Second, this should also not be construed as an attempt to imply political persecution by those holding positions of power over their political opponents. For example, when one party is in power, the major figures of the opposing party and not the party in power may be investigated or prosecuted for wrongdoings. The party in power might not have given explicit instructions to do so to the enforcement authorities. But the fact remains that at least the senior chiefs of such enforcement agencies are often appointed or retained by those in power. So it is only natural that people would presume that such enforcement activities were undertaken with a political undertone and may not be just summarily brushed aside by sheer denial of those in power. This interesting discussion of applying international strategies in the domestic political scene continues.