How to conquer a country, forever

Question

I am going to post this question in general terms, but resemblance with our Earth is totally intentional - to the level that I am tagging this question alternate-world, so if unsure, assume the behavior and technology level of Earth, in the current day:

We have two factions: Red and Blue. And they basically hate each other. For three reasons:

1. Racial: Blue people have blue skin and Red people have red skin. And obviously they both think that their skin color is the best.
2. Religious: Both Blue and Red religions claim to be The One religion and also that the other religion "is holding it wrong." (pun intended)
3. Cultural: Reds are generally open minded omnivores, while Blues are conservative and strictly vegan.

Side note: Both Reds and Blues are members of same species, so they only differ by skin color.

The Reds and Blues were living next to each other at least for 200 years, not trading, having local fights and both preaching hatred towards each other.

One day, the Reds decided to attack the Blues. And they won. Well, on paper. Blue Town was conquered, the blue leader killed. We are one big Red country now. Officially.

But if you look at the setup, one thing is obvious: there will always be a group of Terrorists (or Rebels, if you take the Blue side) who will try to get their country back.

We are now 20 years past when Blue Town was conquered. People are still getting killed in various terrorist attacks and Red secret agency tells us that if we do not change something, there are people willing to sacrifice their lives.

A new Red leader was elected yesterday. And she is wanting and willing to change things, but with one exception: She still wants to have one big Red country, preferably indefinitely, but say at least for the next 200 years.

What specific steps does she need to take in order to achieve this and keep everyone happy?

Edit: Yes, it does feel like I want to get Nobel Peace prize for solving the Middle East. And basically, my question actually is "how to solve Middle East?". But I did not want to make such general statements (as I did in this question) about the situation in Middle East.

Answer 1

Genocide

The surprising fact that nobody has covered in detail as of yet is the elephant in the room - that of genociding the Blue faction.

We have heard of many genocides, but most of them were unsuccessful (Yugoslavian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Ottoman-Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, to name a few). We might therefore be tempted to think that genocide would not be a successful option for the Red faction to undertake.

However, this cannot be further from the truth. The only reason these failed genocides were so widely publicised was because there were survivors, who want to publicise their account. Therefore, as long as your genocide is successful, there would be no need to worry about future historical references. History is written by the winners.

In fact, your hypothetical case is much more amenable to genocide as a solution than any real-life case. Humans are actually rather similar to one another, to the point that cultural differences can only be deduced with some difficulty. Armies had to use shibboleths to identify friend from foe, in order to actually kill members of the opposite faction with any degree of accuracy. The same applied to Nazi Germany, which had to issue Jewish stars to correctly identify the Jews to genocide. However, the nearly immutable property of skin colour makes the Blue faction extremely easy to identify, and at the same time also easier to demonise.

Secondly, there are only two factions and two churches on your world. This makes it much simpler for genocide-minded leaders to succeed, as they do not have to suffer the political fallout from genocide. One of the main reasons Israel has not been more heavy-handed in its treatment of the Palestinian freedom movement is the heavy scrutiny it receives from its allies for violating Palestinian human rights. Churches can also be large players in this field, but since the Red faction also has its own church, it would be far easier to sway the church over to its side, as compared to an external player such as the real-life Vatican church.

Overall, it would be likely that genocide would be a highly effective (although distasteful) method to achieve the leader's goals of establishing Red hegemony over the country.

Answer 2

This is a very old problem, widely discussed in Machiavelli's "The Prince".

Chapter III, titled "Concerning Mixed Principalities" describes your very situation: you've just conquered a country full of hostile people. How are you supposed to keep it?

For your problem there are two suggested solutions.

One is that Red Leader should personally oversee the process:

But when states are acquired in a country differing in language, customs, or laws, there are difficulties, and good fortune and great energy are needed to hold them, and one of the greatest and most real helps would be that he who has acquired them should go and reside there. This would make his position more secure and durable, as it has made that of the Turk in Greece, who, notwithstanding all the other measures taken by him for holding that state, if he had not settled there, would not have been able to keep it. Because, if one is on the spot, disorders are seen as they spring up, and one can quickly remedy them; but if one is not at hand, they heard of only when they are one can no longer remedy them. Besides this, the country is not pillaged by your officials; the subjects are satisfied by prompt recourse to the prince; thus, wishing to be good, they have more cause to love him, and wishing to be otherwise, to fear him. He who would attack that state from the outside must have the utmost caution; as long as the prince resides there it can only be wrested from him with the greatest difficulty.

The other is that Reds should establish colonies in order to gain economical and social control over Blue community:

The other and better course is to send colonies to one or two places, which may be as keys to that state, for it necessary either to do this or else to keep there a great number of cavalry and infantry. A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

I strongly recommend you read the entire chapter, since it contains a lot of useful information for your case. And while you're at it, check out Chapter IV as well - it contains detailed analysis of Alexander The Great's conquest of Persia, and how did he accomplish the same thing there you want Reds to do.

Answer 3

Right off the bat, I’m going to surmise that this is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do effectively. To the best of my knowledge, I do not believe this has ever been done successfully in human history without lots and lots of genocide. But, that’s no fun.

In order for both cultures to exist together peacefully and happily, you’re ultimately looking for three things:

1. Religious tolerance must become a cultural norm.

2. Racial tolerance must become a cultural norm.

3. Religious and Racial equality must be enshrined in the law.

One leader, even if elected for the remainder of her lifetime, is not going to have enough time to accomplish these things. This is a generational challenge and the leaders of this country are not only going to be facing rebellious blues, but as they enact reforms they will face rebellious reds. Everything that leaders of this country do needs to be done gradually and with as much popular support as they can muster. Here are a few things leaders need to start thinking about right away:

The Purple Union

The country should no longer be called “Red”, but “Purple”. This will anger reds. This will not please any blues. But it builds a necessary foundation of unity for the future.

Equality in Law

Laws must immediately be passed that forbid racial or religious discrimination. If this is a democracy, this won’t be fun. As we’ve seen time and time again historically, it may take many years to achieve this kind of equality under the law.

Reparations

There is going to be a lot of turmoil as two war economies, one of which was crushed, need to now combine into one. Given that red was the aggressor, there needs to be an understanding that reds will disproportionately contribute to rebuilding infrastructure and helping to ensure that the devastated blues don’t become second-class citizens economically. As history will tell you, this is going to be very hard, if not totally impossible. Reds may not like it, but hopefully there was some popular support for taking over blue lands without simply exiling them or committing genocide.

Helpful Allies

This country needs strong, friendly allies that view the integration of reds and blues as a positive outcome for everyone. The Orange and Green Nations at the very least must not view Red as an enemy. International pressure can be a powerful force and will definitely affect the success of this task over the centuries.

Incentivize Communal Mixing

If the reds always live in red territory and blues in blue territory, you’re simply delaying more war. This mixing must happen slowly, but with economic incentives you might be able to slowly start blending the cultures spacially. This is going to cause increased violence for a while, but with careful attention to fairness, the generational divide will start to help.

Smart Education

Textbooks need to be clear about what happened. The thought processes of the children produced from the educational system will literally shape the outcome of this project. If every generation becomes a little more tolerant than the next, you’re on the right track. Like everything else, it must be done gradually and as fairly as possible. As generations come and go and red children grow up with blue children, camaraderie can start to form.

In the End...

No matter how well you do any of these things, there’s going to be a lot of violence. There will be violence for decades, maybe even centuries. There may even be some civil wars. Hopefully, as the red economy helps rebuild the blue economy and they intertwine you can mitigate risk of a schism. Having close neighbors and allies that would be unwilling to trade with either nation separately would be extremely helpful. The ultimate goal militarily is to occupy blue as gently as possible (difficult, to say the least) until enough generations pass for some sense of general unity to begin replacing the forceful binding.

Realistically, no one knows the best way to execute any of these steps. It wouldn’t be smooth, it probably wouldn’t be effective, and it certainly wouldn’t be fast. In today's world, the correct answer to your question would win you the nobel prize.

Answer 4

Perhaps the best example of "how its done" is to look at how China has managed to absorb the various invading nations and cultures that have attempted to conquer China. Essentially China's culture was not only far stronger than anything the invaders brought with them, but Chinese culture and material wealth essentially seduced the conquering Mongols into adopting Chinese manners and ways. Even though they are "racially" different from the Han Chinese, in effect they have become like the Han.

For your scenario, the issue is to make the "Red" culture and civilization so attractive to the "Blue" people that they will choose to assimilate. (If you want to make this even more interesting, maybe the Blue culture is more attractive to the Reds, and the Reds gradually become culturally Blue....)

Now the conquering nation will most likely have superiority in numbers, and will have the more aggressive or assertive culture, but turnabout has happened in the past; look at how Buddhism or Christianity prevailed in the far East or the Roman Empire despite disparity in numbers and even persecution against believers.

So "conquest" of physical territory is not enough, there needs to be some assimilation and something attractive enough to one side or the other to support the idea of assimilation. Culture, religion or even social organizations which make achieving wealth easier are all attractors which could have one side or the other assimilate.

Answer 5

Nothing is guaranteed to work in the real world, but some paths are believable in a story, some have historic precedent. Most of them work by establishing a common narrative (or at least a shared onr) to establish a popular sense of We.

Introduce a common foe that can only be fought with joint forces, possibly combining skills from both sides. This may be a foreign aggressor, a disaster, an epidemic, a new cult etc., e.g. the Soviet Union after WW2 for Western Europe.

Identify a small, everyday common problem that existed in both countries before and should have been fixed long ago. It should affect or concern most people and must not be associated with the war, politics, religion, culture or diet, but requires changes to the habits of everyone, e.g. solve pollution, recycling, traffic accidents or infant mortality. Let the new leader make this their primary, even sole goal. Read up on Paul O’Neill’s worker safety program that transformed Alcoa.

Let them share an iconic common victory (or heroic underdog battle). This can even be in sports where it’s performed by a small select elite. Many nations have such defining moments, e.g. rugby 1995 for South Africa (“Invictus”) or soccer 1954 and 1990 for Germany.

Answer 6

I'll assume by "keep everyone happy" you genuinely mean keeping as much of the population happy as possible without 'reducing' the population. I'll also assume the government and religious establishment are pretty much one entity, since you don't indicate otherwise.

Some steps include:

• Allowing legal concessions for the minority blue religion. These could be related to definitions of marriage, labeling animal products appropriately, and allowing them control over their children's educations. Some more extreme Reds will be upset by this, but it should be fairly tolerable for most while increasing appreciation for the Blues.

• Assimilating as much as possible of the Blue Religion into the Red Religion. More imperial religions are known for assimilating celebrations, important figures, and doctrines from smaller religions.

• Find ways to foster and raise up people from the Blue society who felt under-represented in the Blue regime. Make these people more loyal to you and more powerful than other Blues. Try to give these people as much power over administering the Blue population as possible, so that it seems less like Red is dominating Blue.

• Propaganda & Revisionism. Perhaps the evilest solution. Phase out documents that remind people of the Red and Blue division, especially from schools. Have scholars indicate that the Blue religion is derived from the Red religion. Most importantly, always make sure the terrorists are seen only as terrorists, not freedom fighters. Don't air their doctrines or justifications, only illustrate the damage they do. Emphasize especially any instance where a terrorist kills any Blues. Turn the "us" and "them" into "Citizens" and "terrorists" and people will start to see separatist ideas as dangerous.

Answer 7

While it's hardly palatable, the Final Solution springs to mind.

It has the advantage of being straightforward, since there is no doubt who is Red and who is Blue, unless there are some recessive genetic factors involved.

And all the survivors will be happy - except maybe the ones who had to do the dirty work. There will be plenty of cheap land and houses available to award to them in appreciation of their vital work.

All this is predicated on the assumption that there are no other countries involved who might give shelter to Blue refugees and thereby prolong the struggle.

Answer 8

Officially make a rule that a blue will have to marry a red and red will have to marry a blue. The offsprings will neither be red or blue. Over the period of time, the differences will be resolved.

Answer 9

There is a precedent in Europe, that genocide isn't the only answer. If you make the Red culture appear to be more desirable by Reds fulfilling all of Blue society's leadership roles and providing a new upper class (and enforcing rules to make it difficult, if not impossible for Blues to be either of those), while removing the language and culture of the Blue by fair means or foul, then quickly the Red culture will be dominant, desirable even. Throw in a few engineered famines and firm control is established.

In Ireland's experience, that can buy you 800 years of dominance, but even that isn't enough to prevent the inevitable rebellion. Slovakia is a good case study too. My example is, of course, very much simplified. Karl Marx had plenty to say about how all this is achieved.

Answer 10

If you want a real answer, I’d go looking for a place on Earth where two tribes of people stayed distinct, but on good terms, and see how they got there. Canada’s assimilation of Québec might be the best one. Switzerland has cantons with different official languages. South Africans more or less get along today. Amazingly, so do Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis. Belgium is more ambiguous. There are a number of small communities in the U.S. today that effectively have autonomy and their own way of life, the Amish and Hasidim maybe being the most visible. But observe that, in all of those cases, the majority dropped its opposition to multinationalism.

The Ottomans and Romans were mostly successful at being cosmopolitan and multinational for a long time, while still having one dominant tribe, but not forever.

If you’re just trying to figure out what a well-meaning leader with no knowledge of any of that history would do—well, a lot of people in that position have failed in interesting ways. You might want to look at the emperors of Austria.

Answer 11

Two of the criteria listed for each "country" seem (philosophically) illogical in their discrimination toward the other: That they believe their skin color is superior, and that they believe their religion is the indisputable truth, and all others heretical.

If either group examined their religious and racial beliefs, they may realize that they could get along with each other just fine, and be happier as a result. The Reds don't like terrorist attacks, and the Blues don't like being "conquered."

I like Avernium's answer promoting tolerance, and it addresses both of those questions. But the question that follows is what it means to conquer another town if you tolerate the religion and racial differences of the people living there. If the Reds are plundering the resources of the Blues or oppressing them in any way, then the Blues have a legitimate grievance. In this case, the solution is to no longer take economic advantage of the conquered country.

In this scenario with the least details, it seems hard to imagine that the Reds are oppressing the Blues culturally, since the Blues have a more strict culture of veganism. Allow the Blues to continue practicing this, as it does not affect the Reds anyway.

If these points are followed strictly, the Blues have no specified grievance for which to terrorize the Reds. But this leaves little reason for the Reds to invade in the first place, if they have no desire to take advantage of the Blue's resources, push their religious beliefs on them, or diminish their rights because of their skin color.

Even if we omit the term "oppress," the only reason to conquer another locale would be either for economic or ideological "preference". If they don't wish to oppress the other group economically or ideologically, they would save resources by not invading. If they do wish to oppress the other group economically or ideologically, we're left with the more violent results that do reflect a lot of what we see on Earth.

The proper solution for the Reds is to create a separate state for the Blues, or find a way to integrate the groups so that the term "conquer" no longer seems appropriate. If we extrapolate the question to include an infinite number of social groups, even with overlapping racial, religious, and cultural traits, we would need to develop a perfectly cascading hierarchy of governing bodies that caters to the differences in each group with the least conflict and grievance possible. The way governments operate on Earth, this is largely the goal (whether an intentional goal or one evolved through the history of the social contract) of breaking geographical regions down by country, province, municipality, and social community. However, geographical breakdowns will always be flawed when there is diversity throughout the planet, so it seems arguable that a strong, central, global leadership with fair-minded representatives from different groups should have the most power over world affairs, leaving geographical or other nation-based governments to create additional structures for their constituents, more so when it comes to purely practical governmental affairs, and less so when it comes to ideological limitations on the rights of the governed. This would be like a more centralized version of what Woodrow Wilson and others envisioned as The League of Nations, and what the Constitutional Convention delegates envisioned when they designed the federalist government in the United States.

Answer 12

Blue Reserves

Hold out a little bit longer. Say until three generations of Reds have lived in the formerly Blue land. Then start start publicly re-evalutating your past actions: yes, the invasion was wrong, those were more barbaric times. And both sides did terrible things. And now, both sides have lived here for generations: the land belongs to everybody.

Of course we can't just let the Blue into the government as is: they live in slums. They're terrorists. They're uneducated. They don't understand the complex business of government. Tell you what: we'll set up a series of scholarships for promising Blue youths, to go to the finest schools in the land, and be educated about our system and our values.

Of course, we realize that the blue way of life, the blue traditions and values are under threat. So we make a deal: we'll create reserves for them. Pieces of land, that they can do with as they please, where they can live in their traditional ways, with none of our modern Red technologies.

We'll purposely choose Blue traditionalists and ludditesas leader of these reserves. They'll get fertile lands, but no commercial, industrial or intellectual value, nothing close to any major city. The idea is to create small, isolated communities of technologically backwards people to buy off our guilt. Small communities that young people can't wait to leave to integrate into the Red society.

Before long, the invasion will be a bad thing that happened in the past. Something to remember, but not something you can blame the current government for. And they have reserves now, to preserve their way of life. And if they don't want to live there, they're welcome in the cities. They'll get the same chances as everybody else. Of course, if you want to make a promotion, it's not a good idea to rub your Blue religion in people's faces. It just makes them uncomfortable. You might even consider converting, if you really want to climb the ladder.

Answer 13

I would like to propose two alternative (evil) approaches to what has been said already:

Find a common enemy

Probably the most commonly used technique to achieve unity is by finding an external enemy. This is how much of daily politics keeps individuals of a country together. This is probably how the Reds and the Blue were kept together in the strong social bonds you have described. They hated each other, so rebellion within the Reds or Blue is quite unlikely. In times of war, pragmatism dictates to drop internal conflicts. You can study this in many historical events, but take the world wars for instance. 1984 from Orwell describes a similar situation, even though it focuses on interior politics.

In any case, the Reds have to ensure not to cause a general uprising like the Russians saw in the first world war. Something I can see as a danger if the Blues are suppressed. Because they have a strong bond and probably a similar hate against the Reds as the Socialists had against the Tsar.

This leads us to the question what it means to have a Big Red country. What does it mean? The Reds generally benefit from the Blue, who are supressed? That there shall be only a Red leader, but the lower ranks are equal? If you are asking on how to suppress an ethnic group for a long time, I would propose

A slave system

A slave that has no rights and owns nothing is no threat. That is something that has worked for ages until moral consciousness recently led to the abolition of slavery. But before that it existed quite for a long time. Why? Because the superiority of the masters over the slaves was not only legal by law, but very often part of the mainstream ethics. It was normal, no one questions it. You would have to achieve that as the Red leader. There is no guarantee that it works, but since each of the races claims superiority by race anyway, the Red leader could try to to find "scientific" reasons, for why the Blue lost the war. They are weaker, they are better in labour than in intellectual tasks, etc. However, the moment of repression of the Blue as result of their defeat would have to be used to completely disarm and disown them, and to assign them to a Red master. If they are allowed to recover, they will resist immediately with all means. So it might be to late for the new Red leader to go this route.

Answer 14

Media Control

Keep a rigid control of your media, including but not limited to TV and Internet, keep showing them 24 hours red and blue skin people living together, doing things together and erase any kind of hate between then, pretend that the hate is a thing of the past, and the only people that are still "hating" is the extremist and criminals. You can even create fake news of how a red man saved a poor blue woman from being raped by a red gang. Media is a powerful way to control what and how people see the reality, and you should abuse this power.

Bread and Circus

A war is just over, people are traumatized and with all kind of hate in their minds, if you force people to be sober they will be angry, let them smoke and drink and build fancy places to them to have fun and most important to have fun with reds and blues. Why would anyone want war again if their life are so fun and good now and they can just sit at beach and smoke pot all day without worrying about the horror of the wars?

Religion Control

You do not say how much the Reds control the Blues religion, and how much the leader of the Reds control the Red religion, but you could mix a few things from the blue religion, and build places to them to pray together. You can also say that your God showed a vision to your King, showing that he disapproves the hate and that the Reds should be good to the blue to be good with him. Or even better make the two most important priests of the two religions to "have a vision" that a plague, disease or something like that will fall on them if they cannot live in peace or fight together( a common enemy is a good way to unite people)

Punish heavily any kind of hate between them

And i mean very very heavily, do not just jail the people or kill them, because like you said there will be always someone willing to die for the cause, instead threat to kill their loved ones and even their children if they do not "live in peace" they might be willing to die for the cause, but most of them will not do anything if that's whats take to their loved ones and family to live. And place spies between all the hate groups, make so that they cannot know who is working for the government and who is really a hater.

Keep rigid control of the education of the young

Make sure that the hate between Reds and Blues does not pass to the children, make this a crime, and make the children to study together and threat the parents if they teach hate to their children, eventually you make a tolerant society

Answer 15

I find some (one) of the proposed measures are too extreme, while others don't go far enough.

Let's assume we have enough resources to play the long game, and that the goal is to mix the 2 cultures into one. There are several things to be done:

1. Forced relocations. The communities of the blue are broken up and many blue are forcibly relocated into red territory where they are the minority and where it's made sure they cannot easily group up with other blue. Easy ways of communication are provided and the communication is monitored. This entire setup at the same time makes it easier to spot rebels, provides hostages, and is an effective means of cultural assimilation

2. Own the children. Have blue children join far away red boarding schools. The blue children who don't go to these boarding schools will get far below average education. This provides hostages, and is an effective means of cultural assimilation. For perceived fairness you can impose the same rule on the reds, which gives you the added benefit of Hitlerjugend

3. Settlements. Make red settlements on blue territory, and provide incentives for red citizens to settle there. Use non-political, non-criminal troublemakers for this. This provides cultural assimilation, and disposable targets for the blue rebels, distracting them from hitting targets that might hurt you. In the unlikely event that the rebels succeed in re-establishing their country, the settlements also give you an excuse to make their boarders much smaller than they used to be.

4. Birth control. The blue being a country that has suffered from war being fought on it's land, and losing a war, will be significantly poorer than the red. There's a risk that the poor have more children and thus gain a population advantage. You can stop that by introducing fines or other forms of punishment for families who have more than 1 or 2 children. If you use fines you can apply the same rules to both the red and the blue and claim to be fair, while knowing well that the wealthy red can pay the fines.

5. Fight racism and discrimination. The ultimate goal is cultural assimilation. To be honest we don't even care which culture assimilates which. Racism creates a clear line of "us" versus "them", something which you can't have. Use control of the media to make racism appear to be out of fashion/unattractive.

Answer 16

Physically/Chemically rewire/alter their brains by means of medical/genetical/technological breakthroughs. Not too far off from reality and a truly viable option I think, if this can be done uniformly (also on the operators of this operation).

Answer 17

Alright, I have a 3rd approach, if you have the land for it. Force separation, take the blues, round them up, disarm them, and move them. Let them settle down, and then round them up and move them again, picking a part of your Red nation that is difficult to survive on to settle them this time. Place them far enough away from any civilization that it is extremely inconvenient to commit acts of violence. Now start an education campaign across both countries, talking about how everyone is equal and start paying significant restitution to the blues. Now the Blues are dependent on you, separated from you, and everyone is becoming more peaceful. Be very very sever on any violence on either side(eg death penalty) and do not let strong, non-peaceful, blue leaders ever not be in jail. In 100 years~3 generations, with minimal death, the two peoples will be educated enough to be tolerant.

Also, once the first movement phase is over, be sure that it looks like blue leaders are being represented equally in government, and be very careful with perception through the reintegration process.

To sum up Stage 1)Remove all means of violence through separation of the blue people, disarmament, sever punishment of violence/discrimination, and presenting blue people with Maslow's first need so they cant think of Maslow's higher levels.

Stage 2)Through extremely generous restitution, create dependence and begin education of all, through schools, media, student leadership etc. Allow peaceful blue leaders equally into government.

Stage 3)Reintegration, now there is no youthful memory of violence, start encouraging cross blue/red schooling and employment, remaining extraordinarily strict about violence and discrimination. Slowly taper off restitution over the next several generations.

This would be difficult to accomplish in the middle east, but it absolutely would work in the situation that you created. The middle east has too many variables to make it easy. Arabs, Palestinians, Jews, Persians, Turks, Kurds and nearly every other ethnic group hates each other, as do the dozens of religions, and each country. Thus the wars in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iran/Iraq, Kurdistan, etc. Don't be fooled into thinking this is just a Palestine/Israel problem.

Then there is all of the funding and proxy wars by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Palestine, India, the USA etc. Beyond that, and possibly just as important, -the limited resources available in the area. Shrines, churches, monuments, water, fertile soil, land, etc are all in short supply and squabbled over.

Answer 18

But if you look at the setup, one thing is obvious: there will always be a group of Terrorists (or Rebels, if you take the Blue side) who will try to get their country back

1. Why do they want to get their country back? Is it because "they both think that their skin color is the best?"

2. Is it because the Reds restrict the Blues' culture or religion?

3. Do they believe things would be somehow different if a Blue were in charge?

4. What does Red get from ruling over Blue?

---

1. If the problem is that each think they are best, then everyone needs to be educated on the truth of the matter. Well done, (and accurate), studies will help. Mutual respect needs to be gained. Whatever one color thinks it does better should be put to the test. The Romans, while conquering, were not afraid to implement better things or ideas from the people they conquered and implementing it into their own society.

2. The Blues will never stop having their own culture or religion. Trying to suppress it won't work unless your goal is to eventually have no more Blues (which could a strategy as well, but I am focusing on peaceful ways) Respect the blue's culture and religion and allow them to practice it.

3. Put a Blue in charge over blue lands, with an agreement of some kind for whatever Red wants from Blue lands. Or put a Blue in a high position as advisor, and actually use some Blue ideas when they are better. Think of the Queen having sovereignty over Canada, for a case where the Blues primarily do their own thing but technically are ruled by the Reds.

4. If Red simply wants a position of power over Blues, to use them as the lesser people in the society, then of course Blues will not be happy and they will strike out. Reds also cannot expect to force Blues to change their culture or beliefs unless they far outpower them. What do Reds actually get from ruling over Blues? They should work to keep that, but work with the Blues so they can be happy as well.

Answer 19

Sorry that this won't answer your question, but I feel that this is quite relevant. This is a story I read from a manga (japanese comic).

At one moment, the scene moves to a country ZZ where two species, AA and BB, live together. AA could be said in an superior position, like, they're the government body, while BB only a working class. Both have a good life, all their needs fulfilled. Anyway, they're in peace.

Meanwhile, on the world outside ZZ, AA and BB is an archenemy, where they loathe each other, with both having their own strength and weakness. Then how could in country ZZ, they live in harmony?

This and that, the answer turned out to be a Supreme Leader. A leader, a king, an emperor, etc, stronger and wiser than any beings there, thus no one dares, or even can, to defy him. Even, he's admired. He made the system where BB supplies AA's needs, and thus BB's needs is guaranteed. Actually, the leader himself is known to be from AA, but he himself truly wished for the world where AA and BB can live alongside each other, and tried his best to reach that.

The weakness though, that the leader's existence is absolutely needed. Not just any leader, but it must be him. Thus, from that story, we got a way, but while there's only one condition, it's also extremely fragile.

Answer 20

It is impossible for the Red nation to rule the Blue nation forever. It is logically impossible for one nation to rule another nation forever.

Nations have nationalistic ideas. They claim that their people are related to each other by blood, that their people have always lived on and owned the land, that it would be wrong for them to be ruled by other nations, that the gods or god are on their side, that their culture has always been the same, and other things which are clearly false.

When people of different cultures meet, there is always more or less cultural influence between them. And when they mingle with other people of their own culture they influence them a little bit to adopt some of the foreign culture's ways.

If the Red Country ruled the Blue Country forever, and people of the two cultures met as one ruled the other, both of the evolving cultures would tend to evolve toward each other and after just a few centuries or millennia, the two cultures would be identical. And with even a very slow rate of intermarriage, after a few centuries or millennia the majority population would be purple.

So if the Red country ruled the Blue Country for more than a few centuries or Millennia, the two countries would both end and become the Purple Country.

But if an empire conquers a country it can rule that country forever without any damage to its imperialism. Unlike a nation, an empire has no cultural or national identity. An empire is a political ideology and a political organization. So while the members of the ethic group that founded the empire may resist and morn the gradual loss of their cultural identity over time, the empire will remain the same empire no matter how radically its culture changes.

Answer 21

Okay--nice topic. In order for this to work you need to be able to convince the next generations of Blues to accept the reds culture and rules--BARRING you just don't kill off all the blues or whittle their numbers down to insignificant numbers.

First-precedent. LINCOLN after the Civil War in the States.

you need to be able to apply laws equally. You need to be able to have equal opportunity You need to have a way for people to express their concerns without resorting to violence.

So--in essence something the original founders of the US tried unsuccessfully for the most part.

Bias always will exist. I remember some experiment where kids with blue eyes were made fun of and ridiculed in a class as an experiment. the kids were crying and complaining after a few hours.

So--best case. You can't do it. People always will find something different to attack and ridicule about another person--even twins.

I'm smarter, I'm better looking. I'm richer My wife is hotter.

ECT....best case is to ingrain religious values in the people to be happy for the successes of others and grateful for what they have.

Answer 22

One possibility involves on the way the sovereign of the Imperium of Man, the Holy Emperor of all mankind did in Warhammer 40k Universe.

Sheer power and knowledge. Earth was in deep chaos, being invaded and multiple colonies were being hit by Orks (in warhammers, orks are with K.), Dark Eldars, and many other scum of the universe.

The emperor, in his holiness and vast knowledge, blessed the falling mankind with the unification of Terra (let's just say earth), with the creation of the Primarchs, and, of course, the Astartes Legions. With this, no one on earth ever raised his hand again against his Holiness. Why? Because you cannot stand a chance against him. You can only try to fight when you can imagine a plan, imagine how can you make a difference.

When there's nothing that can be done, there's no reason to fight.

That's why it was Horus who betrayed our beloved, ever-loved, ever-vigilant, ever-mighty Emperor, and brought some legions with him. This was know as the Horus Heresy, but as you can guess, no one on Earth sided with him, not the Adeptus Mechanicus, not the Imperial Legion, or the Sororitas (multiple factions on Warhammer Universe).

This was simply done by just being vastly more powerful than the enemy, and having more knowledge than him. Knowledge is power.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Astartes, or from the Deathwatch. But praised be the Emperor.

Answer 23

I think there will never be a way to get absolute control. Even if you genocide the blues there will still be some blues that will be saves by some helping reds. So there is always a chance that the left over blues will revolt.

Answer 24

I recall a relevant scene in Donald Kingsbury's SF novel Courtship Rite. There's an expansionist ruler who's a sort of enlightened imperialist. He's explaining why he wants to make the conquered country a deal their people will be happy with, so that they won't just be in his empire for a matter of decades, but they'll want to stay permanently, and his grandchildren will be able to walk the streets safely.