Interest-Based Coalition Sabotage / 利益瓦解合纵
Interest-based coalition sabotage / 利益瓦解合纵 enters the wiki through 《资治通鉴·周纪》92丨历史上第一位著名舔狗是谁？（1）, where 范雎 responds to a renewed 合纵 gathering in 赵国. The episode says he reads the coalition activists less as ideologues than as people looking for wealth and rank.
His countermeasure is therefore financial rather than military. Qin agents bring heavy money to Zhao’s Wuan city, hold banquets, distribute funds, and let the would-be coalition organizers turn on one another before the anti-Qin project matures.
The concept differs from 联盟自保失灵. Self-preservation failure describes allied states refusing to spend their own strength once a coalition reaches implementation. Interest-based sabotage acts earlier: it attacks the coalition labor market and trust network before the coalition has become an army.
Key Claims
- A coalition can be disrupted by changing the incentives of organizers before armies move.
- Bribery works best when the persuaders or brokers already have mixed motives around wealth, office, and recognition.
- Sabotage can succeed without resolving the target states’ strategic fear of Qin; it only needs to prevent coordinated action at the right moment.
- The tactic fits 纵横家外交 because persuasion, money, reputation, and court access are treated as instruments of interstate power.