History Main / GenghisGambit

-->--'''King Henry IV''', '''''[[WilliamShakespeare Henry IV, Part 2]]'''''

* In ''CodeGeass'', [[spoiler:Lelouch makes ''himself'' this threat, and then goes a step further by arranging his own assassination, thus creating world peace]]. Interestingly enough, [[spoiler:his sister, Nunnally, was trying the same thing with Damocles]]. It's InTheBlood, it seems.

* In ''TheOuterLimits'' TOS episode "The Architects of Fear", a group of scientists turns a man into a fake alien and has him "invade" the Earth in an attempt to scare the nations of the world into cooperation.
* On a more minor scale, Dr Kelso from ''{{Scrubs}}'' takes the role of common enemy in the hospital. In one episode, he notices that the staff of the hospital falling into a series of petty disputes and arguments, so he deliberately makes some very visible and unpopular decisions to turn everyone's anger onto himself.

* Discussed and averted in HeroesOfMightAndMagic IV. A GenreSavvy necromancer rejects a perfectly reasonable plan to conquer one of the newly-emerging nations of Axeoth and rule it along with his own kingdom, because he doesn't want to become the enemy that the rest of the world unites against.

* ''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.

** This is a trope common to totalitarianisms in general, not just fascism - Communists use "international Capitalism/Reactionaries/Imperialists", right-wing dictatorships used "Communism/Socialism", religious dictatorships use "atheists/infidels/apostates" and the Nazis used "Judeo-Bolshevism/Jewish High Finance/English Plutocrats (who are also Jews)."
*** For it to be ''this trope'', those you mean to unite against an external enemy need to exercise a decent amount of power with independent authority. In the classical communist totalitarian states, all power was rather granted by the state, so the man at the top could just order everyone below to do whatever he wanted. The external enemy as a propaganda device for the populace at large would be a different trope.

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' invoked this trope [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-05-04 here.]]
** Except that it's inverted because the threat was totally outside Petey's control. In fact, this is more a case of EnemyMine than this trope.

* ''[[KnightsOfTheOldRepublic Knights of the Old Republic 2]]'' revealed that Revan's plan was to [[spoiler:attack the Republic with the Sith so that he could force galactic civilization to strengthen in preparation for the invasion of whatever he encountered out in the Unknown Regions]].
** 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.]]
*** The Old Republic and associated media make Revan's plans even more labyrinthine, in terms of motivations. [[spoiler:Initially, Revan and Malak are sent back to the Republic as a vanguard force for the exiled Sith Empire. At first, they do their job dutifully until they decide, as Sith often do, to rule for themselves. Thus, the initial assumptions that Revan's tactics were altruistically meant to prepare to Republic against the Sith Empire are actually a not quite correct. They were meant to properly prepare his own Empire against his master's. Malak tossing a SpannerInTheWorks ironically becomes the one thing which redeems Revan and, arguably, saves the Republic.]]

** Not quite. Lawrence didn't give a crap about the Arabs or their independence. He was in it for the Queen.
*** First: What Queen are you talking about? George V was the British ''King''. Second: Lawrence's behavior at Paris (where he was passionately in favor of the Arab cause, sometimes insubordinately so) proves otherwise.

* In AssassinsCreed, Robert De Sable attempts to persuade King Richard to form a truce with the saracens and unite against the Assassin Brotherhood, since Altair is responsible for murdering several prominent citizens on both sides of the conflict.

* ''{{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.]]

* In BenCounter's ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Literature/GreyKnights novel ''The Hammer of Daemons'', Alaric sets up a FalseFlagOperation to convince people that their overlord had set up the GladiatorRevolt as part of this and unite them for the crusade. Alaric's operation works.

*** The Old Republic and associated media make Revan's plans even more labyrinthine, in terms of motivations. [[spoiler:Initially, Revan and Malak are sent back to the Republic as a vanguard force for the exiled Sith Empire. At first, they do their job dutifully until they decide, as Sith often do, to rule for themselves. Thus, the initial assumptions that Revan's tactics were altruistically meant to prepare to Republic against the Sith Empire are actually a not quite correct. They were meant to properly prepare his own Empire against his master's. Malak tossing a [[SpannerInTheWorks]] ironically becomes the one thing which redeems Revan and, arguably, saves the Republic.]]

*** First: What Queen are you talking about? George V was the British ''King''. Second: Lawrence's behavior at Paris (where he was passionately in favor of the Arab cause, sometimes insubordinately so) proves otherwise.

*** First: What Queen? George V was the British King. Second: Lawrence's behavior at Paris (where he was a passionately in favor of the Arab cause, sometimes insubordinately so) proves otherwise.

* The centuries-spanning GambitRoulette of Aeolia Schenberg from ''{{Gundam 00}}'' involved uniting the various factions of the world against Celestial Being.

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* [[UrsulaKLeGuin Ursula K. LeGuin's]] ''The Lathe of Heaven'' uses the threat of aliens to unite the nations of Earth.

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* ''Webcomic/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.
** He does use it on a smaller scale as well as part of that unification plan, using the threat of the other conquering nations to pressure smaller states into capitulating into his empire for their own protection. What they ''don't'' know is that his companions control those other major nations and are doing the same thing to gradually absorb every independent state in the region.
* ''Webcomic/{{Bug}}'' argues that [[http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/peacemaker/ this is what the UN should be doing]].
* Apparently the reason why [[spoiler: Tavor]] was made immortal in ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup'', [[spoiler: so he could unite the enemies of Kethenecia [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/483 into one imperialistic force]] that would attempt to conquer the northern tribes who Cale could rally into rebuilding the ancient city]]

* In an issue of WhatIf?, Magneto does this to unite the factions of Acolytes battling on Asteroid M.

OK, so you have a bunch of different factions who fight against each other all the time. Wouldn't it be so much better if they could all get along? Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, as they hate each other's guts.

* ''{{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.

* ''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 citizens' hate and PatrioticFervor -- to unify them, and control them.

* In ''Front Mission Evolved'', Cornelius Werner tries this by [[spoiler:pointing a KillSat at all the world capitals]].

-->'''Reporter:''' So... nations can attack each other with no risk of nuclear annihilation?

* ''Webcomic/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.
** He does use it on a smaller scale as well as part of that unification plan, using the threat of the other conquering nations to pressure smaller states into capitulating into his empire for their own protection. What they ''don't'' know is that his companions control those other major nations and are doing the same thing to gradually absorb every independent state in the region.

* This was {{Otto von Bismarck}}'s favorite trick. To unify the many small countries around what is now Germany, he made Denmark look like an aggressor, then manipulated Austria into attacking Prussia, then France into attacking everyone. When the dust settled, Prussia had doubled in size by unifying with all of the small countries, France was humiliated, and Austria was broken. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And Denmark lost a chunk of land, as well as a lot of self-confidence.]]

* To a lesser extent, all governments have used the tactic of creating a rallying issue to distract its people from domestic issues, be it territorial disputes or hyping up the latest 'threat' to the country.

The threat itself is often a SwordOfDamocles.

* 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.\\
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* 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.

One of the reasons for the original Arab invasion of Israel in 48' (which the Israelis refer to as the second stage of their war of independence) is that the various Arab leaders of the area feared their unpopular regimes would soon face coups, and this was their way of avoiding it. The problem is, the Israelis won, and all of the invading Arab leaders had their governments toppled anyway just a few short years later.

* {{Pakistan}}, with its aid-dependent 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.

* On a more minor scale, Dr Kelso from ''{{Scrubs}}'' used this to keep his staff united, by doing horrible things so that they would focus their anger on him rather than each other.

* The centuries-spanning XanatosRoulette of Aeolia Schenberg from ''{{Gundam 00}}'' involved uniting the various factions of the world against Celestial Being.

* 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.]] Whether or not it works is left up to the reader.

* Part of the reasoning behind DrillSergeantNasty. Even if none of the 40 guys in any given platoon can agree on anything else, they can all rally behind the idea that the bastard sergeant needs to die a slow, painful and embarrassing death..
* TheWarOnTerror is waged with "with us or against us" mentality (compare: fascism). It doesn't quite work.

* In BenCounter's ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' GreyKnights novel ''The Hammer of Daemons'', Alaric sets up a FalseFlagOperation to convince people that their overlord had set up the GladiatorRevolt as part of this and unite them for the crusade. Alaric's operation works.