The enemy of my enemy is my friend

This system of relationships was termed Rajamandala (meaning circle of kings) and informed the foreign policy of Chandragupta's Empire.

Both U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were wary of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin.

[4] There is a quote from Winston Churchill made to his personal secretary John Colville on the eve of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa).

[8][clarification needed] Likewise, the United States and its allies supported the Afghan mujahideen after the Soviet invasion in the hopes of thwarting the spread of Communism.

In order to oppose the spread of Communism, the United States government supported dictatorial regimes, such as Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Suharto in Indonesia, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

[citation needed] In an example of this doctrine at work in Middle Eastern foreign policy, the United States backed the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War, as a strategic response to the anti-American Iranian Revolution of 1979.

[13] A 2001 study of international relations in the Middle East used the proverb as the basis of its main thesis, examining how enmity between adverse nations evolve and alliances develop in response to common threats.