History Main / GenghisGambit

* ''WildArms2'': [[spoiler:Irving Vold Valeria]] finances the terrorist group Odessa specifically so [[spoiler:he would have an excuse to make [=ARMs=] an international strike force to better combat a different threat later on. It should probably be noted that he was also willing [[XanatosGambit to use Odessa for this if]] ''[[XanatosGambit they]]'' [[XanatosGambit won]].]]

** [[spoiler:Interestingly enough, if Nunnally hadn't been trying to do the exact same thing, it's arguable whether the whole thing would even have worked. Lelouch seemed very reluctant to use his geass on his beloved little sister until he realised they not only had the exact same goal but were, in effect, working to the exact same plan, with the difference that he would be the one to be vilified in his plan rather than Nunnally and Schneizel as the wielders of Damocles.]]

* Jacen Solo does this in the Legacy of the Force novels. The catch? [[spoiler: He's the threat, which makes this a ThanatosGambit to boot]]
* ''Illuminatus'': Among the ([[GambitPileup many, many]]) conspiracies is that the government(s) use this to keep the populace distracted from their own sinister agendas. A character is told to watch China after the USSR falls.

* ''Illuminatus'': Among the ([[ThirtyGambitPileup many, many]]) conspiracies is that the government(s) use this to keep the populace distracted from their own sinister agendas. A character is told to watch China after the USSR falls.

* ''JeevesAndWooster'': Jeeves uses this to end the quarrels between Wooster's friends. He tricks Wooster into ringing the alarm bell, thus bringing everyone outside into the pouring rain, where they find out that the door is locked from the outside and they don't have the key. When asked why Wooster rang the alarm bell, he can't give a straight answer, and Jeeves makes him go to somebody else's house to find the key. This gives everybody else the opportunity to unite in anger against him, after which Jeeves "discovers" that he had the key in his pocket all along. When Wooster finally comes back, everybody else just laughs at him for having biked a mile in the pouring rain for absolutely nothing, and forgets that they were angry at him.

* ''{{Dune}}'': One major theme among the many ploys of Emperor Leto II Atreides. Foreseeing great troubles for humanity, he took it upon himself to unite and prepare them... by becoming the single worst oppressor and tyrant in the galaxy. When, after several thousand years, he thinks it worked, he gladly allows one of the billions of plans to assassinate him to succeed. [[ThanatosGambit In a manner he chooses]].

* In ''{{Watchmen}}'', the BigBad plans to force America and Russia to put aside their differences and work together by [[spoiler:making it seem as if a massive AlienInvasion is imminent. It works.]]

* ''SchlockMercenary'' invoked this trope [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-05-04 here.]]

* ''OrderOfTheStick'': Nale's Father did this unintentionally; he later created a more complicated plan involving a coalition of [[TheManBehindTheMan Men Behind Men]] working to create three empires instead of one, that are actually working together to stay unified.

This is not for every incidence of enemy factions teaming up against a common threat - that's EnemyMine. This is for cases in which a character deliberately creates a common threat for the warring factions to unite against. A FalseFlagOperation may help do that, and it can work well when pitched to sides engaging in a PeaceConference, since they've already both proved to be reasonable. Compare SummonBiggerFish, which usually has less altruistic intentions in mind.

** [[spoiler: Interestingly enough, if Nunnally hadn't been trying to do the exact same thing, it's arguable whether the whole thing would even have worked. Lelouch seemed very reluctant to use his geass on his beloved little sister until he realised they not only had the exact same goal but were, in effect, working to the exact same plan, with the difference that he would be the one to vilified in his plan rather than Nunnally and Schneizel as the wielders of Damocles.]]
* The ''GundamWing'' manga ''Battlefield of Pacifists'' uses a similar idea. An AntiVillain former OZ soldier wants inspire deep space exploration by taking a lost [[MechaMooks Mobile Doll]] factory and placing it at Mars, suggesting that a force that powerful would force humanity to put aside their differences and unite to deal with the common threat. [[spoiler:He gets killed by a DoubleAgent, but his actions inspire Wu Fei to become the threat that makes humanity grow, foreshadowing his actions in ''Endless Waltz''.]]

** Cable turned ''himself'' into one of these in ''Cable And Deadpool''. It all works out until Reed Richards calls in [[spoiler:the friggin ''SilverSurfer'']] to take him down.
** It should be noted however that being [[spoiler:taken down was Cable's entire plan in the first place]]. And he still pulled off a pretty sick display of power defending against the [[spoiler:Surfer.]]

* Camelot 3000 AD has an interesting version. The newly resurrected knights are not dealing well with each other, so Kai, who was always the least liked of the knights, chooses to remain in the role by acting like an asshole towards other knights. Thus he gives the other knights someone common to look down and get along with each other.

* In CanadianBacon the government of the U.S.A. tries to curb economic recession and civilian discontent by renewing the Cold War. When it turns out that Russia is not interested in playing along, the United States government and the media embark on a campaign to unite Americans in a hatred of Canada, of all peoples. Turns out to be a bad idea.

* ''{{Dune}}'': One major theme among the many ploys of Emperor Leto II Atreides. Foreseeing great troubles for humanity, he took it upon himself to unite and prepare them... by becoming the single worst oppressor and tyrant in the galaxy. When after several thousand years he thinks it worked, he gladly allows one of billions plans to assasinate him to succeed. [[ThanatosGambit In a manner he chooses]].

* ''AngelsAndDemons'': The Illuminati are used as the enemy of the catholic church.
* ''{{Discworld}}'': MagnificentBastard Havelock Vetinari of manages to pull off an interesting variant; he knows the heads of the various guilds of Ankh-Morpork want nothing more than to see him "dancing the hemp fandango", but the only thing keeping him alive is one common enemy - an Ankh-Morpork ''without'' Vetinari. [[VetinariJobSecurity You don't have to be the BEST patrician to succeed, just slightly better than the alternative.]]

* ''NineteenEightyFour'': Global power blocs Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania are locked in constant war. The alliances between the three change so that one state can never become too powerful and dominate the others. This is an understanding between the three powers that's been ongoing for decades. The real objective is to provide a focus for their own citizen's hate and PatrioticFervor -- to unify them, and control them.

* In the ''XenaWarriorPrincess'' episode [[GroundhogDayLoop "Been There, Done That"]], Joxer decides to invoke this during one loop. He gets stuck full of pointy things for his trouble and taking Xena and Gabrielle with him.

* ''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'' : [[spoiler:The Wizard]] explains to Elphaba that this is what he was doing by making everyone believe the Animals are evil. This is a metaphor for AdolfHitler.

* Averted in ''Warhammer40000''. Despite all the prerequisites, that is a number of horrible galactic threats of all colors: hordes of AxCrazy barbarians, LegionsOfHell, omnicidal implacable robots and all-consuming alien locust -- nothing seems to be able to divert the three more reasonable powers from each other throats. Each power is also riven by internal conflicts.
** Notice the operative word there--"...the three MORE reasonable powers..." Assuming the former troper was referring to the Imperium (which will not tolerate ANY xenos under ANY circumstances), the Eldar (who are willing to kill planetloads of non-Eldar just to save one Eldar in ten thousand years' time), and the Tau (who actually are fairly reasonable, in that they are willing to ally themselves with other non-hostile species, but are weak and tend towards being less-than-nice to, well, EVERYONE who isn't an Ethereal), then one can understand why no Galactic Alliance has been formed.

* ''{{Starcraft}}'': The Confederacy plans to secretly allow the Zerg to rampage fringe planets as an incentive to keep dissenting colonists in line. Later, Mengsk adopts the same plan and uses it to unite the various factions into a single empire, under his own thumb. Then the Kerrigan enters the picture...[[spoiler:and uses the UED to ally herself to the Protoss, only to betray them. Then she strengthens the UED in order to get Mengsk, Raynor and Fenix to join her against them, before betraying them too. Finally, in a bit of irony, spoiler:''Kerrigan'' becomes the "common enemy" that the UED, Dominion, and Protoss unite against. However, they aren't nearly as successful.]]

** Not quite - Revan's plan was actually to [[spoiler:conquer the Republic by attacking key points, while leaving the infrastructure intact and recruiting his (or her) strongest enemies. Thus, a galaxy united under Revan's rule would be more than equipped to turn to face the external threat. Malak, of course, royally screwed the pooch by spoiling the plan and engaging in much more random destruction.]]
* ''[[SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Super Robot Wars: Original Generations]]'': This is Bian Zoldark's hidden motivation (and the game that inspired the story arc, ''SuperRobotWars2''). He organizes the Divine Crusaders in a bid to conquer the world, figuring that either he will unite the world's powers against an alien threat - or the world's powers will unite against ''him'', either way being better prepared for the invasion to come.\\

* ''KingOfTheHill'': Bill becomes the emergency marshal of the local flood shelter and turns out to be a competent and well-respected leader...by blaming Hank for everything that goes wrong and eventually locking him up. Technically, the whole flooding of South Arlen -was- Hank's fault. But Bill had to go and muck it up by keeping everyone effectively imprisoned in the shelter by letting them believe the flood had not yet ended... when it actually had.

* Used during first world war by T.E. Lawrence to unite Arabic tribes. The English army was trying to fight the Turkish Empire, but Lawrence's goal was to create a pan-Arabic nation. Though he did not succeed, he did set the history for future independence of Arabs from Europe.

* One theory is that the entire ArabIsraeliConflict is at least in part, the result of Egyptian President Gamal Nassar trying to do this to the entire Arab World. He hoped that by painting the newly formed State of Israel as a common enemy of all Arabs he would be able to unite the different regional, political and religious factions under one banner. Unfourtnately for Nassar, the plan failed and the situation has since taken on a life of its own.\\

* Of course, Muhammad essentially executed the trope in an OlderThanFeudalism example by converting the constantly-infighting Arab tribes to Islam, which divided the globe into a "House of Islam" and a "House of War"... as in, "we should go be in charge of that to make it House of Islam". They subsequently exploded out of the middle east, across northern Africa, and even conquered modern-day Spain. They probably only slowed down because they ran out of people who could stay behind and be in charge.

* {{Pakistan}}, with its aid-dependant economy, failing civil infrastructure, religious persecution and subnationalist movements in every province, generally uses a mild version of this trope. It focuses all the people's attention and hatred on Kashmir and India respectively, always stopping just short of outright war.

* Finland in 1939. A nation torn by civil war, factional squabbles and extremist uprisings, was united when USSR attacked and started WinterWar. The rest is pretty much history.

* ''{{Wicked}}'' : [[spoiler:The Wizard]] explains to Elphaba that this is what he was doing by making everyone believe the Animals are evil. This is a metaphor for AdolfHitler.

* In the ''XenaWarriorPrincess'' episode [[GroundhogDayLoop "Been There, Done That"]], Joxer decides to invoke this during one loop. He gets stuck full of pointy things for his trouble.

* ''{{Bug}}'' argues that [[http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/peacemaker/ this is what the UN should be doing]].