In any event, the regime has long relied on divide-and-rule tactics.
In the 20th, the divide-and-rule tactics of the Stalin era involved weakening resistance by splitting related groups and joining unrelated ones in shared administrative units.
Decades of divide-and-rule tactics by the central government, which long denied basic citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Kurds, have exacerbated tribal, linguistic and religious divisions.
The dozen-odd forces, each loyal to individual commanders and politicians, were the divide-and-rule method by which the late Yasser Arafat, Mr Abbas's predecessor, held on to power.
Vietnam's fear is that it is being used as a test case in a divide-and-rule strategy intended to establish China's sovereignty claims over a much larger area.
In the past Mr Ecclestone has handled the teams brilliantly, using divide-and-rule tactics to prevent any serious rebellion and to keep a large share of revenues for his firm.
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Critics of the government believe that its federal policy has more to do with divide-and-rule, and the allocation of national resources, than justice for the regions of the country.
And it is pursuing an overt agenda of divide-and-rule when it comes to reminding both its near neighbours and the big countries of western Europe of their dependence on imports of Russian gas.
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Worse, several countries have connived in Russia's divide-and-rule approach notably Germany, which even under its new chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been far too keen on bilateral deals, such as the building of a new under-sea pipeline, heedless of the concerns of its nearest eastern neighbours.
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It's easy to see why the government would like to see its finance scrutiny functions split between different committees - divide and rule, perhaps.
The new head refused to listen to advice from experienced members of staff and had a "divide and rule" policy, dropping team meetings and - Mr A says - losing the respect of staff and pupils.
Is the root of the problem in this troubled region, the continued pursuit by Moscow of a seventy-year old policy toward nationalities, that of divide and rule?
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