Usefulness
Using a common enemy as the basis for an allegiance is problematic unless there are other substantial areas for common ground, otherwise absent the common enemy the friends might well be enemies themselves. If the common enemy disappears, the allies might turn on each other. This has been shown before, such as at the end of World War II; without a common enemy, the differences between the United States, the United Kingdom and France and their Soviet allies were no longer accepted because the threat they shared was absent. Cartoonist Howard Tayler, using humor toward social critique, condenses the concept into 'Maxim 29', "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."
Sometimes two hostile parties may remain hostile even in the face of a third party hostile to both for example, in the opening stages of the portions of the Bosnian War of the 1990s could be described as a "three-cornered" conflict with Croat, Bosniak and Serb forces all fighting one another. In extremely rare cases, a conflict might be between four parties or more.
On the other hand, if parties that share common ground in other areas later find the need to ally against a common enemy, the ensuing alliance might endure even after the threat disappears such examples might be the states that formed the USA.
Read more about this topic: The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend
Famous quotes containing the word usefulness:
“The usefulness of madmen is famous: they demonstrate society’s logic flagrantly carried out down to its last scrimshaw scrap.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
“I duly acknowledge that I have gone through a long life, with fewer circumstances of affliction than are the lot of most men. Uninterrupted health, a competence for every reasonable want, usefulness to my fellow-citizens, a good portion of their esteem, no complaint against the world which has sufficiently honored me, and above all, a family which has blessed me by their affections, and never by their conduct given me a moment’s pain.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)