History Main / DivideAndConquer

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': In "[[Recap/AndorS1E7Announcement Announcement]]" Dedra realizes the Rebels are purposefully conducting operations over multiple Imperial sectors, realizing that the ISB's people in charge of them are very jealous over control, with great reluctant to share information so they aren't connecting the dots, which weakens or even prevents an effective response. She works to counteract this upon spotting their strategy, despite it infuriating Blevin.

* The BigBad of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' has the goal of destroying humanity from the shadows. One of her best tools for this goal is to divide mankind with doubt and anger until they turn on each other. Her VillainSong is even titled "Divide". [[spoiler:It's also a vital component of her ultimate plan to summon the gods back to Remnant and put HumanityOnTrial. If humanity is found in harmony, their magic will be restored, but if they are found divided, the gods will [[KillEmAll wipe them from the face of the planet]]. Salem has ensured that as long as she lives, humanity will never be in harmony, and her CompleteImmortality has made that goal [[InvincibleVillain hopeless]].]]

* Divide and Conquer has been a tried and true tactic of empires throughout history. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule a more comprehensive explanation]] of Divide and Rule and its uses.

* Seems to be the main strategy of the BigBad, Snadhya'rune Vel'Sharen, in ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}''. She doesn't have enough followers to take over the Drow race uncontested, so instead, her agents have been secretly manipulating all the major factions across the underworld into destroying one another so that she can fill the power vacuum.
* Happens all over the place in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. First you have the Inter Fiend Cooperation Commission, who seek to keep the battles between The Order, The Linear Guild, and Team Evil going as part of their GambitRoulette. On a smaller level, General Tarquin is poised to take over the entire Western continent this way. In an inversion, he's going to keep the continent split amongst himself and his confederates so that no one country is seen as a threat or a tempting prize.

** Some people would say that the recent terrorist attacks in Europe can be seen as karma as tragic as they are.

* In ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' this is the key to Reinhardt and Oberstein's strategies to win both the Imperial Civil War and the Long War:

** Chiang Kai-shek's schtick, and that of his eventual rival Mao Zedong. Both were shrewd and calculating politicians, and used this strategy to great effect as they bribed, back-stabbed, assassinated, out-cliqued and out-manoeuvred their rivals in their scrambles to be the top dogs within their party-factions-governments. Likewise they maintained their power in this way: both [[VetinariJobSecurity played on factional rivalries to safeguard their own positions.]] The problems with this kind of government became apparent during the course of the post-WWII Civil War when Chiang's paranoia, heavy workload, and notorious micrnmanaging came to a head: when taken with Chiang's poor administration and strategic decision-making, the Army's lack of co-ordination - due to factional rivalries and the resultant lack of coordination between corps, divisions, brigades and [[UpToEleven sometimes even the battalions within them]] - proved fatal. Once Mao's armies broke his line at the Yangtze and swept into South China, the majority of Chiang's remaining forces defected or simply melted away. For his own part Mao learned not to tolerate any kind of factionalism within the Army, though he continued to Divide and Conquer and viciously purge his political would-be/could-be/might-be rivals well into the senility of his old age.

* Khotun Khan in ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'' utilizes this to his advantage. He exploits pre-existing divisions in Tsushima's inhabitants to turn them against one another and recruit collaborators to invade the mainland with. Very much TruthInTelevision as while the Mongul army was fearsome, they were never ''large'' and relied extensively on local collaborators to swell their ranks. He also identifies the strong familial bond between Jin and Lord Shimura immediately and deliberately tries to sow discord between them by telling Shimura about Jin's "dishonorable" tactics.

* Done (as a reference to the Beatles, once again!) in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerPuffGirls''.

* Team Rocket use this plan a few times to catch the Anime/{{Pokemon}} of the episode and almost get away with it until the last minute.

* In recent years, divide-and-conquer has been used in CultureWar politics by [[PropagandaMachine spin doctors]] such as Karl Rove and Lynton Crosby, in the form of 'wedge politics' (or dog-whistle politics in Australia).

* In the 2019 UK general election, the Conservatives won a [[LandslideElection landslide victory]] by exploiting their opponents's divided stance on Brexit, the British exit from the European Union. Whereas Conservatives ran on a pro-Brexit campaign, their biggest rival, Labour, didn't have a clear stance as while Labour's general constituents were anti-Brexit yet its leader Jeremy Corbyn held anti-EU views. Furthermore, while other pro-Brexit parties refused to run in Conservative strongholds to avoid vote-splitting, this didn't happen with other anti-Brexit parties in Labour strongholds. Subsequently, while Brexit supporters rallied around the Conservatives, Brexit opponents failed to consolidate amongst a single party, which lead to easy Conservative victories.

* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry 3'': [[spoiler:Jester/Arkham]].

* Bane, of ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' extraction, is legendary for this. Aware that he couldn't take Batman in a straight fight, he instead released dozens of inmates from Arkham Asylum, leading Batman to run himself ragged for months until Bane showed up in the Batcave and "[[ComicBook/{{Knightfall}} broke the Bat]]."
* In one issue of ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'', Malekith combines this with LetsYouAndHimFight to weaken both Hercules and Thor sufficiently that his secret weapon will be able to defeat them easily. His plan fails ignominiously due to him [[FailedASpotCheck not being aware]] that Zeus was standing right there when he sprang this trap.

* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': This is a favored tactic of the Skrulls, right from Day 1. They pretend to be someone, and use that to sow conflict and discord, either banking on Marvel's superheroes being fractuous, or the sheer gullibility of the Marvel public (or both). They nearly broke up the Avengers in the 60s by pretending to be the original Avengers, and telling the current team they'd screwed up. Where the Skrulls tend to fail is getting overconfident, and revealing themselves when they think they've got the upper hand, at which point the heroes overcome whatever issues the Skrulls caused in favour of beating the stuffing out of them.

* ''Film/JamesBond'' has a lot of it. Three deal with USSR x USA, ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' - source of the page quote -, ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'' and ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' (first two are Blofeld-led SPECTRE).

--> ''(After fighting off the horde.)''
--> '''Michael:''' That was a test of our strength. Next will be a test of our weaknesses.

* Not only was this the plot of the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', it was also the title!
* In the {{Creator/Filmation}} film, ''[[WesternAnimation/FlashGordon1979 Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All]]'', this is how Ming keeps control of the planet Mongo, although they phrase it as "separate and rule".

* Lampshaded but averted in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanUnderTheRedHood''. When Black Mask asks why Batman isn't after the Red Hood, Ms Li thinks he's waiting to see which side will win, so he can take on the winner. However Black Mask knows that Batman doesn't work that way, and so must be reluctant to take on the Red Hood for his own reasons.

* In the 2019 UK election, the Tories exploited their opponent's divided stance on Brexit to secure a [[LandslideElection landslide electoral victory]]. Whereas Tories ran on a pro-Brexit campaign, Labour didn't have a clear stance as its general constituents were anti-Brexit yet its leader Jeremy Corbyn held anti-EU views. On top of this, while other pro-Brexit parties refused to run in Conservative strongholds to avoid vote-splitting, this didn't happen with other anti-Brexit parties in Labour strongholds. Subsequently, all Brexit supporters rallied around the Tories but Brexit opponents failed to consolidate amongst a single party, resulting a blowout for the Tories.

* In recent years, divide-and-conquer has been used in CultureWar politics by [[PropagandaMachine spin doctors]] such as Karl Rove and Lynton Crosby, in the form of 'wedge politics' (or dog-whistle politics in Australia).

* In one issue of ''ComicBook/IncredibleHercules'', Malekith combines this with LetsYouAndHimFight to weaken both Hercules and Thor sufficiently that his secret weapon will be able to defeat them easily. His plan fails ignominiously due to him [[FailedASpotCheck not being aware]] that Zeus was standing right there when he sprang this trap.

*** UsefulNotes/NorthKorea pursued a strategy of playing the Soviet Union and China against each other, ensuring that North Korea would always be backed by a major communist power whilst also avoiding becoming a subservient puppet state to either country. TheGreatPoliticsMessUp was a huge disaster for North Korea, since it meant they were now stuck with China and couldn't periodically switch their loyalties to another communist power. The solution? Nuclear weapons! And essentially extorting Chinese support based on the prospect of millions of North Korean refugees flooding over the border in the event that the regime were to ever fall.

* The Shadoens in ''WesternAnimation/RoswellConspiracies'' have a goal to conquer Earth, which would be much harder if all the aliens there were working together and with the humans. To prevent that, they sent an agent to pose as the head of the Alliance and keep tensions and between the various alien races and the humans high, and hostilities simmering.

* ''Literature/TalesFromTheMosEisleyCantina'': In "The Moisture Farmer's Tale", the titular character tries to make peace with the Sand People. He realizes that they will leave moisture farmers' alone if offered some water, and attack them as the farms have been unintentionally encroaching on their land. However, while getting a woman who they had recently kidnapped released, stormtroopers attack the Sand People, destroying that possibility. She then tells him that the Empire wants them all divided with trouble on the planet, as then they won't unite or realize that the Empire is the real enemy. He decides to join the Rebellion over this, and hopes to show the others this is true.

* Naraku from ''Manga/InuYasha'' tried several times to put Sango against the others by threatening the life ([[{{Undead}} or some such]]) of her little brother. The first time, he managed to make her steal Inuyasha's [[{{BFS}} Tessaiga]], but she's gotten wiser since. He also uses various tricks to physically split up the team so he can take them out one by one.

* ''TheHoundOfTheDUrbervilles'' features a two-way version of this, with a pair rival criminal masterminds each trying to pit a great detective against the other (although one of them is rather incompetent at it, turning himself into a much more obvious target than his rival). The eventual winner is [[spoiler: the detective himself. The masterminds wind up getting each other killed, meaning he pulls an ''accidental'' version of this trope]].

* When Wrestling/{{Vince|McMahon}} Jr bought out the W{{Wrestling/W|orldWrestlingFederation}}WF, his father supposedly sent out letters to various Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA promoters telling them that his son was coming for them next and to get ready. Whatever the case, the territories knew Vince [=McMahon=] Jr was aiming to drive them all out of business but too many promoters were making money hand over foot, too confident in their ability to keep doing so, too paranoid to trust someone else not to mess up their cash flow and thus refused to take on Vince Jr as a united force, allowing him to destroy the territories one by one, with [[Wrestling/{{CMLL}} EMLL]] outright [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandoning the Alliance]] when it got news it would have to go against the WWWF. Eventually, Jim Crockett decided that NWA would unite against [=McMahon=] whether the members liked it or not and [[DoingItWrong ended up]] shutting down [[NotSoDifferent more territories than Vince Jr himself]].

** A big part of why Japan was able to just seize Manchuria from its warlord Zhang Xueliang in 1931, nab bits of Inner Mongolia from 1931-37, and occupy the North China Plain without too much hassle from 1937-45. UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek tested his forces against those of Japan in the 1932 Battle of Shanghai and, with their horrible performance, saw vindicated his conviction that he would have been unable to contest the Japanese annexation of Zhang's territory in an open war. He immediately ordered a ''massive'' program of armament that could well have seen his army very-nearly on-par with [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun that of Japan's]] by 1942, and strove to avoid a war until then - given [[PatrioticFervor the nature of his Nationalist Party regime]] it's hard to imagine him not declaring war on them eventually. When the war ''did'' break out in 1937 and his half-reformed forces were driven off the North China Plain and the Lower Yangzi, the Japanese allowed the [[UsefulNotes/MaoZedong Chinese Communist Party]] to basically take control of all the areas of the plain that Japan didn't want and/or couldn't control - the two maintained unofficial truces throughout the war, with the sole exception of a brief battle in 1940 ('the Hundred Regiments offensive') which had been ordered at the insistence of UsefulNotes/JosephStalin.

** Jiang Jieshi's schtick, and that of his eventual rival Mao Zedong. Both were shrewd and calculating politicians, and used this strategy to great effect as they bribed, back-stabbed, assassinated, out-cliqued and out-manoeuvred their rivals in their scrambles to be the top dogs within their party-factions-governments. Likewise they maintained their power in this way: both [[VetinariJobSecurity played on factional rivalries to safeguard their own positions.]] The problems with this kind of government became apparent during the course of the post-WWII Civil War when Jiang's paranoia, heavy workload, and [[GeneralFailure military incompetence]] came to a head: when taken with Jiang's poor administration and strategic decision-making, the Army's lack of co-ordination - due to factional rivalries and the resultant lack of coordination between Armies, Divisions, Brigades and [[UpToEleven sometimes even the Battalions within them]] - proved fatal. Once Mao's armies broke his line at the Yangtze and swept into South China, the majority of Jiang's remaining forces defected or simply melted away. For his own part Mao learned not to tolerate any kind of factionalism within the Army, though he continued to Divide and Conquer his political would-be/could-be/might-be rivals well into the senility of his old age.

* Inverted in Harry Turtledove's ''Literature/WorldWar'' series, as the invading aliens' millennia-old unifications means their technology has been purposely stagnated by the government to prevent disruptive changes in society, while humans being disunited and constantly at war with each other means we're able to change much quicker.
* This is the strategy David from ''Literature/{{Animorphs}} '' uses once he goes SixthRangerTraitor. Well aware that he's just one morpher against six, he opts to split the team up and take them down one by one. This strategy is wildly successful, and leads to him defeating (and very nearly killing) four of the six Animorphs in a single night.
* The "true" villains of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', Varys and Littlefinger, both do this in order to further their goals. Both of them work to instigate a civil war between the various houses of Westeros, having them destroy each other so that they have little chance of ultimately opposing their goals. And when things appear to stabilize, they just give another light push to get things to fall apart again. The difference between Littlefinger and Varys, however, is that Varys is creating the power vacuums for House Targaryen to take back the throne, while Littlefinger is aiming to [[TakeOverTheWorld take over Westeros]] for himself.
* In ''Literature/{{Uprooted}}'', the neighboring countries of Polnya and Rosya are constantly tense and wary of each other, and for the past twenty years in particular there's been simmering enmity over an incident where the Queen of Polnya either ran away with or was abducted by a Rosyan prince, and both were subsequently lost in the malevolent Wood that lies on the border. [[spoiler:The Wood itself engineered that incident and a whole bunch of others to make sure the two countries ''stay'' antagonistic. That way they will first off, not form an alliance versus the Wood, and second, weaken themselves against each other so that they're softer targets.]]

* In the ''Literature/TheHungerGames''/''Series/{{Angel}}'' crossover "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10718717/1/Demon-s-Games Demon's Games]]", Coin appears to be setting up Gale for this purpose, suggesting a disapproval of Angel's decision to spare the human Peacekeepers by suggesting to Gale that Angel's belief in redemption will come back to bite them.