I was just thinking about Northern Ireland, and I humerously thought one solution would be to outlaw christianity there. I guarantee that as quick as a flash the protestants and catholics would suddenly find themselves on the same side.
Obviously that’s a very silly idea. But I would argue that perhaps it was something like that which happened in Yugoslavia and that kept it together until Tito died.
Anyway the GQ is whether there is a term for that - getting very different enemies to make peace by becoming a common enemy to them, either because you are acting int their best interest, or because you are a bastard.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a very old saying about that.
It was the plot of Watchmen.Ozymandias ended the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union by faking an alien invasion.
Well, there is the “false flag” strategy which might be used to ally oneself with a traditional enemy against a (framed up) third party. Being that third party and attacking in another’s best interest or just to be a bastard really has no basis in reality so there is unlikely to be a term for such a scenario.
There’s the saying “unite before a common enemy” - doesn’t contain the connotation of the enemy doing it deliberately though.
This idea has been used as a plot many times. In Star Trek DS9, the Dominion threat leads to an alliance between the Federation, Romulans, Klingons, and later the Cardassians to collectively work to defeat the Dominion. The Romulans at that time were pretty much nobody’s allies.