One of the backbones of the WTS is its history of growth during times of persecution.
In Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave, Schnell described direct orders from Rutherford for JWs to create social unrest in order to challenge the laws against door-to-door preaching. JWs were arrested for defying Caesar's Law™ and WT lawyers represented these JWs in court in order to "legally defend and establish" the JW religion and its preaching work as legitimate expressions of religious belief, protected under the Constitution of the United States.
Similar behaviours followed in Canada, especially in Quebec under its Premier, Duplessis. These acts of civil disobedience were a direct attack against the Catholic Church's opposition to JW activities. James Penton (before he was DFd from the JWs) compiled a volume of legal victories enjoyed by the WT in Canada, and the growth of the movement in the aftermath.
Every governmental push against Watchtower has resulted in pushback, not just from WT's own legal teams, but from JWs around the world. It makes JWs more entrenched when they feel that they are seeing prophecy fulfilled, when Jesus' words about persecution against his true followers seemingly takes place (even when WT officials are the ones provoking the governments in the first place).
My family started associating with JWs in the early 70s, and the one thing that seemed to tip the scales permanently in favor of the JWs was the outbreak of persecution in Malawi. I was only just in the early grades of elementary school when we were gathered for a Circuit Assembly™ in a school auditorium and heard about the horrible things that JWs were suffering in Malawi. We were asked to write letters to the President of Malawi decrying the persecution of innocent people. What we didn't know was that it was the government's denial of land ownership to Watchtower that was the trigger for Watchtower to forbid JWs from having a 25¢ government issued identification card, which incited further government action against JW citizens.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Watchtower could not erect Kingdom Halls, but *could* label their properties as "cultural societies". JWs were not permitted to partake in Mexico's military service (just like they were not permitted elsewhere), but individual JWs could pay a bribe to an official to stamp their cartilla to indicate that they had completed their military service, and Watchtower turned a blind eye to this corruption. We never heard about these goings-on that were concurrent with what was happening in Malawi, except to hear them boast about the phenomenal growth of the JWs in Mexico.
Persecution, whether it is real, imagined or manufactured (as is Watchtower's modus operandi), is a fantastic way to bond people to leaders, to get people to side with the 'oppressed' members of their faction, and to rally the troops so to speak. Whipping up the emotions of other JWs ("our poor Brothers™ and Sisters™ in _____ are being arrested and having their property seized") puts the entire JW population on Red Alert that Armageddon™ must be closing in! It's a sign!!
The way to dismantle a group is for outsiders to be indifferent to these groups. When outsiders become indifferent to JWs, JWs become apathetic, as we've seen in the last decade or so, with numbers dwindling, young members leaving and looking for a way to better themselves without the religion.