History Main / GenghisGambit

* This was UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck's favorite trick. To unify AllTheLittleGermanies into, well, 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 many of its small neighbours, France was humiliated, Austria was broken, and Denmark lost a large chunk of land.

* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''The Lathe of Heaven'' uses the threat of aliens to unite the nations of Earth.

* {{Defied}} in ''VideoGame/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.

-->'''Reporter:''' So... nations can attack each other with no risk of nuclear annihilation?\\
'''Well-Meaning Failure Man:''' Uh...

* ''Franchise/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 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.]]

* Discussed and averted in ''VideoGame/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.

* This is how Shaytan [[spoiler:ends the ForeverWar]] in ''[[SoundHorizon Seisen no Iberia]]''.

* In ''VideoGame/Civilization'' you gain a plus to diplomacy with countries who you have teamed up with to declare war on. Depending on how you can declare war and form alliances, if you have a Defensive Pact with one Civ, and make a deal with another Civ to attack your ally, they effectively become a common foe. Defensive Pacts automatically take you to war when your ally is attacked, meaning regardless of the fact that you paid your now foe to attack your enemy and promised to join them. And because you are at war, those large payments you made become null, so you are not supplying your enemies war machine. The AI is quite capable of pulling this trick on you as well.

* The ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' manga ''Battlefield of Pacifists'' uses a similar idea. An AntiVillain former OZ soldier wants to 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''.]]

* Creator/{{Saki's}} short story [[http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ExceMrs.shtml "Excepting Mrs. Pentherby"]] has a group of people, formerly strangers, renting a shared house together, all think of their other housemates as pleasant and easy to get along with, except for one quarrelsome woman whom they all wish would leave. Turns out she was asked by the landlord to join the group specifically to give a bunch of potentially prickly characters (mostly the women, in the belief that Women Love To Argue) someone to unite against. She enjoys the role of lightning rod because she had spent most of her previous life as a paid companion who had to be submissive and conciliatory.

* Creator/{{Saki's}} short story "Excepting Mrs. Pentherby" has a group of people, formerly strangers, renting a shared house together, all think of their other housemates as pleasant and easy to get along with, except for one quarrelsome woman whom they all wish would leave. Turns out she was asked by the landlord to join the group specifically to give a bunch of potentially prickly characters (mostly the women, in the belief that Women Love To Argue) someone to unite against. She enjoys the role of lightning rod because she had spent most of her previous life as a paid companion who had to be submissive and conciliatory.

* There's an Creator/AgathaChristie short in which a group of people, formerly strangers, renting a shared house together, all think of their other housemates as pleasant and easy to get along with, except for one quarrelsome woman whom they all wish would leave. Turns out she was asked by the landlord to join the group specifically to give a bunch of potentially prickly characters someone to unite against. She enjoys the role of lightning rod because she had spent most of her previous life as a paid companion who had to be submissive and conciliatory.

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

* The TropeNamer is Genghis Khan as presented in the ''{{Conqueror}}'' books, who pulls off an ''epic'', two-way gambit. He starts off by spending the winter raiding Tartar camps so that when spring comes, all the Tartar clans unite to crush this annoyance. He then uses the threat of the united Tartars to unite the Mongols into a single nation, with himself as khan.

* ''RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'': Yuan Shao wanted Han Fu's territory because it was a source of food for his army. First, he sent a letter to another warlord, Gongsun Zan, proposing that they both attack Han Fu and split his territory. Once Gongsun was on board, Yuan sent a letter to Han Fu, [[LetsYouAndHimFight warning him that Gongsun Zan was coming to attack him]] and that he should accept Yuan as a protector. Han accepts this, at which point Yuan uses his new position to strip him of all real power. When Han realizes he's been had, he flees to Cao Cao's service.

* ''AngelsAndDemons'': The Illuminati are used as the enemy of the Catholic Church.

* UrsulaKLeGuin's ''The Lathe of Heaven'' uses the threat of aliens to unite the nations of Earth.

* ''SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': One strip had a hero who tricked the nations of the world into uniting and depleting their nuclear arsenal. [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1852 It doesn't end well]].

* ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'':

** 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 (ScaryDogmaticAliens with strict JoinOrDie with no room for discussions), then one can understand why no Galactic Alliance has been formed.
*** The three aforementioned races ''can'' co-operate for brief amounts of time, under the right circumstances, but typically only to defend against an immediate threat (Tyranids/Genestealer clans, Orks, Necrons, or Chaos), and the alliances are short-lived and quickly forgotten.[[note]]And prone to end with backstabbing, justifying the aversion.[[/note]]
*** The Necrons actually tried this once in 40k. The problem was that they tried to pick on an enemy way too strong for them, resulting in their entire race being exiled to a single star system. And the star was slowly killing them to boot. This forced them to make a deal with the (other) devil which resulted in loss of their organic bodies and souls.

* In ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'': This is the ultimate plan of [[spoiler:Ozymandius to prevent nuclear war. He frames Dr. Manhattan for the destruction of New York City, uniting the world against a fictional super-human threat]].

* Wrestling/LondonAndKendrick described training with Wrestling/ShawnMichaels as the students beating the crap out of each other while Michaels sat back and laughed...which did end up creating a bond between London, Kendrick and Wrestling/BryanDanielson and apparently, Jason Sensation, who aimed to form a clique type unit between them to takeover the way Michales had before.[[/folder]]

* This was OttoVonBismarck's favorite trick. To unify AllTheLittleGermanies into, well, 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 many of its small neighbours, France was humiliated, Austria was broken, and Denmark lost a large chunk of land.
* This is ''the'' standard operating procedure of fascism: The leaders instill in the people a strong nationalistic pride and militaristic culture, usually hearkening back to the old days when almost everyone fought each other, and then finds an enemy (external or not) and uses them to unite the people, stating that either you are WithUsOrAgainstUs.

* {{Romania}}n ruler [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_the_Brave Mihai Viteazul]] did this as a necessity, as enemies were tearing the country apart in regions. With the rest of them being somewhat subjugated to foreign rulers, he united them ''by force'' and succeeded, but only for a brief time. Centuries later, Ioan Cuza would do it in a more peaceful and in-accord way, which lasted to this day.
* This was Hideyoshi Toyotomi's strategy in the 1590s to unite the feuding warlords of Japan: invade Korea and China and let them deal with their carnal fury. They didn't make it past Korea.

* Suffice it to say that both sides in the UsefulNotes/ColdWar used this trope. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And that's as far as we're getting into that.]]

** The 1898 war against Spain is sometimes counted as an example, even if 30 years out of date. Among the American commanders was former Confederate cavalry general Joe Wheeler, who was 72. In one battle he got so excited, he apparently forgot what war he was on, and shouted his men to run after "the damn Yankees".

* A reverse Genghis Gambit of sorts with respect to the "Boxer Rebellion" occurred in China in 1900. In response to both actual foreign imperialism and cynical propaganda from certain palace factions, xenophobic/nationalistic Chinese mobs began attacking any and every foreigner they found, regardless of nationality. This led to all foreign nations with interests in China banding together to deal with this shared threat, despite being rivals or worse in their normal relationships.