Interservice Rivalry: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

The world is not perfect. So this usually does not happen.

 

 

Sometimes it is used by a dark [[Chessmaster]] leader to maintain control. That way if the army ever rebels against him, he can always call in the navy to fight for him.

 

{{examples}}

** Because Section 1 consists of adult male human operatives, who are not happy about being upstaged by half-mechanical little girls.

** In "The Second Raid" Melissa Mao tells the story of how she escaped from an [[Arranged Marriage]] by joining the U.S. Marine Corps, marching into the recruitment office [[Runaway Bride|still wearing her wedding dress]]. The recruiters were reluctant to sign her up until Mao revealed that her father was in the Air Force, at which point they welcomed her into the Corps purely to annoy him.

* The various geographical units of the Amestris military in the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga evidence this. Soldiers from the Northern (Briggs), Central, and East forces (the ones shown so far) never lack for snide things to say about every unit aside from theirs.

** In the first anime, Ishbal flashbacks show some animosity towards the State Alchemists when they arrived, as some among the regular soldiers felt they'd been sent to die for nothing when the Fuhrer could have just called in these guys from the beginning and ended the campaign ''seven years'' sooner.

** Even between said exorcist families there are some serious feuds {{spoiler|driving Kagura into becoming a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]}}.

* In ''[[Strike Witches]]'', the more normal sort of militaries don't like the eponymous girls (probably something to do with them being underaged aces who fly without their pants on). {{spoiler|There is even a conspiracy within the military to disband the 501st.}}

* [[Witch Hunter Robin]] is in a branch of an organization designed to capture Witches, using magic-resistant tranq guns. Another branch of the ''same organization'' breaks in and steals the gun tech. Meanwhile, a ''third'' brach is trying to keep the ''second'' brach under control, while trying to assassinate the members of the ''first'' branch. This is not helped by the fact that all of the branches use the [[Faceless Goons|same helmets and equipment]].

 

* In the recent ''[[Green Lantern]]'' storyline, ''Secret Origin'', it is revealed that Hal Jordan and John Stewart first met on opposite sides of a bar fight - when Jordan was in the Air Force and Stewart was a Marine.

* During a ferocious firefight between the Punisher (a former Marine Force Recon officer) and Barracuda (who is ex-Army special forces) {{spoiler|who had abducted Castle's infant daughter}}, Castle curses 'Cuda out calling him an "Army puke".

* [[Nick Fury]] (a former Army Ranger) is known to make comments pertaining to "Deck monkeys" and "Candy-ass marines".

* During Gung-Ho first appearance in the [[G.I. Joe]] comic, Rock'N'Roll was notoriously pissed to have a marine in the team.

 

== Film ==

* The city police vs. highway patrol in ''[[Super Troopers]]''.

* The [[CIA]] vs. The FBI in ''[[Being There]]'' argue over Chance the gardener's true identity thus enhancing his mystique.

* ''[[Crimson Tide]]''. "I expect and demand your very best. Anything less?you should have joined the Air Force!" Said by [[The Captain]] in a [[Rousing Speech]] before boarding the boat.

* In ''[[A Few Good Men]]'' the various Marines, but especially Col. Jessup and Lt. Kendrick show fairly brazen disdain for the Navy, with the former going so far as to describe the Navy dress whites as indicative of homosexuality.

* In full display during the astronaut tryouts in ''[[The Right Stuff]]'', with Air Force pilots (Grissom, Cooper, Slayton) completing against Navy pilots (Shepard) competing against Marine pilots (Glenn) for spots in the Mercury Seven. Humorously shown during a scene where Glenn and Cooper [[Lie Back and Think of England|must produce sperm samples]], and each hums their respective service's anthem for, uh, inspiration, trying to drown each other out.

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Dale Brown]]'''s books, rivalry between the services of the military is just part of the trouble the protagonists get from supposedly-friendly forces. In ''Executive Intent'' this occurs between the GRU and the conventional Russian military, to their detriment.

* [[Elizabeth Moon]]: In the [[Familias Regnant]] book "Once a Hero" the story takes place on a [[Military Mashup Machine|mobile shipyard]] where the chain of command is not enforced. The captain who is supposed to be the commanding officer must deal with constant demands and shouting matches from the admirals who lead the individual departments. The heroine comments on this terrible arrangement, later it becomes a problem when pirates attempt to capture the ship.

* In David Wingrove's ''[[Chung Kuo]]'' series, more politicized police sometimes show up to suppress the truth about a terrorist attack (e.g. the message left at the scene of an assassination by the rebels, or the fact that a massacre of higher-ups took place at a depraved orgy establishment), causing no small bitterness among the more honest police.

'''Miles''': Principle, Sir? What Principle! It's ''waste disposal!'' }}

* Steven Brust's ''[[Dragaera|The Phoenix Guards]]'' has rival groups of imperial guards as part of its pastiche of ''The Three Musketeers''.

** {{spoiler|To be precise, the airforce are yet to get to the site of the superweapon's powersource, the Army have fooled the protagonist into thinking that they're the good guys, and they execute the Navy unit as soon as it arrives. Of course, it should also be mentioned that since this is a Matthew Reilly novel, other factions include neo nazis (who want to hold the world for ransom), the German BKA (who want to stop the neo nazis), and an omnicidal terror cell/cult that's bent on using the weapon [[End Of The World As You Know It|to end the world]] [[For the Evulz|for the heck of it]].}}

** In ''Blood Pact'', Inquisition vs. Comissariat. {{spoiler|Or so it appears.}}

* The bad feeling between spacemen and the Special Order Squadrons in ''Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet'' by Blake Savage (pseudonym of Harold Goodwin).

* Army/Royal Navy rivalry shows up in one of the ''[[Sharpe]]'' novels, with command friction between Sharpe and a naval officer who only outranks him when onboard ship.

* Hinted at between various branches of the New Republic military in one book of the [[X Wing Series]]. There's also a fair amount of jockeying between X-Wing pilots and A-wing pilots. A-wings are very pleased with the speed of their crafts, and bring it up every chance they get. The accepted response is to ask "What killed the Death Stars, again?" The rivalry between a by-the-book bomber wing and the [[Mildly Military]] bunch of [[Ace Pilot|piloting savants]] that is Rogue Squadron is a secondary plot thread in the first book.

** Also, between X-Wing pilots and Y-wing ones. Y-wings were by then outdated and rough edged, and the pilots less elitely trained, but made up a good portion of the Republic fighter force. Probably didn't help that Horton Salm the local Y-Wing commander was a strict, mostly by-the-book officer, as compared to Wedge Antilles who took a more laid-back approach to leadership.

* Gone into at some length in various [[Tom Clancy]] works, in regards to the Soviet Union's various political forces, as discussed below in the [[Real Life]] section.

** Although also averted in many of the same works, with the various branches and departments of the US armed forces and intelligence community getting along better than they do in real life.

* [[Tom Clancy]]

* Much of the plot of ''Annals of the Black Company'' is driven by this.

* Defied by Jack Crawford in ''[[Red Dragon]]'' and ''[[Silence of the Lambs]]''. Serial killers are his territory, but he's more than happy to cooperate with local police (even pointing out in the former that he could care less if Dolarhyde gets hit by a truck, as long as it gets him off the streets).

** Amusingly enough it's revealed in a later book that the majority of the marines regarded the fact that Harkness choose to fight them as a compliment.

** From the same series, the [[Space Navy|People's Republic Navy]] of Haven and [[State Sec]]. Early on, [[State Sec]] watchdogs would be assigned to PRN ships to keep them in line. later, they were given their own fleet of warships and ground forces. {{spoiler|1=The PRN won the interservice rivalry.[[Beware the Nice Ones|"Oops."]]}}

** The chairman of the secret police planned to merge the entire Havenite military into a single organization to enforce his control.

** The Solarian League Navy's Frontier Fleet and Battle Fleet cannot get along either.

* In the French novel series ''Langelot'', there's a rivalry between the two French counterespionage agencies depicted : the fictional secretive shadow agency S.N.I.F (where the titular main protagonist is an agent of) and the [[Real Life]] D.S.T. The D.S.T. resents the S.N.I.F.'s secretive nature and wish they would be put in the same front and light as them, while the S.N.I.F. basically considers the D.S.T. as a bunch of pompous and dull idiots.

* In the Aiel War in the backstory of the ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' series, this is one of the many reasons the "Grand Alliance" has trouble standing up to the Aiel invasion, though eventually they pull things together and arrange a rotation of generals. Well, what do you expect when the [[Witch Species|Aes Sedai]] and the [[Burn the Witch|Children]] [[Knight Templar|of the Light]] are fighting on the same side?

* In the ''[[Codex Alera]]'', the [[Fantastic Caste System|castes]] of the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Canim]] do not play well with each other, with especially their warrior and priestly castes being at each others' throats. In the third book this becomes a major plot point, {{spoiler|as a canim coalition army of several castes fails to take a strategically important bridge because the priest leading the army refuses to let the warriors take a major part of it. The warrior caste leader 'helps' the priest to a glorious death in battle with the Alarans and withdraws with minimal casualties to his own caste.}}

* In [[Jack Campbell]]'s ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' series. Usually between the Marines and the Navy, but in ''Invincible'', a naval officer speaks with pride of the Marines to a ground forces general.

 

* Santa Barbara Police Department vs. Coast Guard in ''[[Psych]]''. [[Da Chief|Chief Vick's]] sister was the leader of the Coast Guard.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', Air Force characters have made several references to an ongoing rivalry with their Marine coworkers (and, less frequently, their scientist coworkers).

** For the most part, though, interservice rivalry is implausibly averted. The USAF's technical expertise seems only exceeded by its success in defending its budget. Even though each service would have compelling arguments for an equal or superior share of a joint command, the Army (U.S. Army Special Forces, most missions call for infantry more than anything) and Navy (expertise running large vessels called "ships," the USMC, Navy SEALs) departments evidently are happy to let the Air Force run the show. The fact that the SGC is still not a joint command after 10+ years is one of the greatest triumphs in the history of Pentagon politics.

** In another implausible aversion, the Air Force operates a [[Space Navy]], for the most part using [[Space Is an Ocean|typical Space Navy terminology]]. Arguably, the [[Real Life]] Air Force would more likely classify "starships" as aircraft which just ''happen'' to be very, very large. Use of Navy terminology simply begs the unwanted question of why the Navy isn't more heavily involved.

* Just about any [[Police Procedural]] featuring repeated visits from [[Internal Affairs]]. These include, but are not limited to the various ''[[CSI]]'' shows, the various ''[[Law and Order]]'' shows and ''[[Monk]]''.

* Show with two rivaling [[Internal Affairs]] groups include ''[[JAG]]'', ''[[NCIS]]'' and ''[[Seven Days]]''.

* The ''[[White Collar]]'' team once got interrupted by the local police. Meanwhile they themselves ended up getting in the way of Interpol.

* ''[[Yes Minister]]'' revolved around conflict between elected governments and the permanent civil service. In one episode, [[Department of Redundancy Department|Minister of Administrative Affairs]] Jim Hacker goes to his predecessor in the other party for advice on how to deal with [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|Sir Humphrey]]:

* "I'm so sick of Congress right now that I could vomit." (a recurrent feeling for the characters from ''[[The West Wing]]'')

** From Leo : "A first time Congressman was excited for his first vote, saying 'Where are the Republicans? I want to meet the enemy'. An older, more experienced Representative replies 'No no no, the Republicans are the opposition. The Senate's the enemy"

* A hilarious episode of M*A*S*H had the doctors endure an unexploded artillery shell fired ''from [[Friendly Fire Index|their own side]]'' in the middle of the camp, and to defuse it they have to find out which branch of the military uses that shell. It doesn't help that this is all taking place during the Army vs. Navy football game that everyone's following. {{spoiler|1=The shell actually belongs to the CIA...}}

* The rivalry between two of the branches of the High Guard in ''[[Andromeda]]'' is a textbook example. The Argosy (fleet officers) dislike the Lancer Corps (ground troops), calling them "rock hoppers". The Lancers reciprocate with "Aggros" for fleet officers. Even the AIs partifipate in the rival, when [[Spaceship Girl|Rommie]] insults a Lancer troop transport.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** What's with those [[Pothole|Pot Holes]]? Are you implying that Friend Computer is not perfect? You Commie mutant traitor!

** Speaking of Commies, the Commie-run Alpha State has 8 similar groups, ''all'' of which have their own official espionage arms attached (parodying the [[Real Life]] situation in the USSR, see that section).

** The Space Wolves in particular have a major grudge against the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|Administratum]] due to the policy of the Administratum to replace the entire of Armaggeddon's workforce to weed out any Chaotic corruption after the First War of Armaggeddon against Angron's World Eaters and associated daemonic hordes. They did this by forcing the entire planet's population into concentration camps to be sterilised and then worked to death via slave labour. Logan Grimnar, leader of the Space Wolves, did not like that. He could get away with his outspokenness because the Adeptus Astartes do not fall under any kind of Imperial jurisdiction. This leads to about as much friction with the [[State Sec|Inquisition]] as you'd expect.

** It's not limited to the Imperials, either. The Word Bearers and Alpha Legion Chaos Space Marines are on less than speaking terms. Exchanging bolter fire is more likely. The Legions devoted to each Chaos god also have appropriate rivalries with those who serve the god who their god particularly hates. For example, Khornate World Eaters and Slaaneshi Emperor's Children do not like each other very much. Same goes for Tzeentch's Thousand Sons and Nurgle's Death Guard. Only rarely will they co-operate in any capacity, and will fall back on killing each other once their alliance falls apart. Only <s>[[General Failure|Failbaddon]]</s> Abaddon the Despoiler has much success with that.

** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] by the [[Celestial Bureaucracy]]. The Bureau of Heaven wants everybody answerable to them and keeps poaching promising gods or important purviews, the Bureau of Humanity catches flak for the general heavenly contempt for mankind and is the most heavily reassigned (the boundary between a human and universal abstract is considered flexible), the Bureau of Seasons hates the interference of the others who distrust it for its importance and its military power (which it is openly willing to use to force contentious matters of policy) and [[Fantastic Racism|looks down on it being largely staffed by Elementals]], the Bureau of Nature has the largest number of gods who need new assignments (since large sections of Creation and its lifeforms were recently destroyed) and is openly contemptious of Yu-Shan's corruption (with them in turn sneering at its naivete and inefficiency), and everybody distrusts the Bureau of Destiny (being, as it is, responsible for developing the course of the future, having a lot of sensitive information, and including Exalted in its staff) while being forced to acknowledge how necessary its proper functions are for their continued survival.

* In [[GURPS Reign of Steel]], the WASP agency and FBI of the Washington Protectorate have this trope going on. In the Machine Zones, some of the human resistance groups have been divided by internal rivalries, as well.

 

== Video Games ==

* In [[Valkyria Chronicles]], the Army sees the Militia as a bunch of untrained field hands suitable only as cannon fodder, and the Militia sees the Army as a bunch of incompetent aristocrats whose social status is the result of overt nepotism.

* For ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', while it seemed as if the divisions were pretty spiffy with each other in the original game, ''[[Crisis Core]]'' showed that [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Shinra]] corps seemed to be in a constant state of war. The mook Midgar security soldiers didn’t like the more attention hogging SOLDIERs, the mooks ignore Turk instructions in lieu of getting more rewards for themselves, the SOLDIERs treating the smaller foot soldiers as nothing better than [[Cannon Fodder]] … the dynamics of which contributed highly to {{spoiler|Zack’s death in the end, as the soldiers rushed forth to execute Zack before the Turks arrived at the scene}}.

** [[The Empire|The Covenant]]'s forces had an rivalry between the Sangheili, or the Elites, and the Jiralhanae, or the Brutes. The Elites had been the dominant species of the Covenant's military since it was created. The Brutes had only been in the Covenant for some decades, but had already proved themselves as the most loyal followers of the Prophets, and so believed that they would be better bodyguards and military leaders for the Prophets than the Elites. The Elites see the Brutes as nothing more then uncivilized, megalomaniacal savages, which insults them greatly. The Prophet of Truth, the leader of the Covenant, was aware of this rivalry and so {{spoiler|used it to spark a civil war between them, with hopes that the Brutes would replace the Elites as the leading faction of the Covenant. The reason he did it would be simply that he had secretly hated the Elites, since they and the Prophets were in a bloody war before the Covenant's creation, and he believed that the Brutes were more loyal and faithful to him. The other species' loyalty was splintered: the Yanme'e, or the Drones, and the Kig-yar, or the Jackals, were completely loyal to the Brutes and the Prophets, while the Mgalekgolo, or the Hunters, and the Unggoy, or the Grunts, were both loyal to the Elites and the Brutes This manipulation caused the Elites to ally themselves with the Humans, and with their help, killed Truth and finished the Covenant off as a superpower}}.

 

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' the FBI started its paranormal investigation project because they were jealous of [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|the CIA hogging all the alien investigation stuff]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Recess]]'', the Army/Navy rivalry appears in the form of the rivalry between Gus Griswold's Army general father and Corn Chip Girl's Navy admiral father. Which handily set up the [[Star-Crossed Lovers]] (or at least [[No Hugging, No Kissing|Star Crossed Friendship]]) plot.

* [[Humongous Mecha|Exotroopers]] and [[Cannon Fodder|Jumptroopers]] in ''[[Exo Squad]]''.

 

== Real Life ==

* Was taken to lethal levels on the Soviet side in the Cold War, with the KGB (nominally civilian intelligence) and GRU (military intelligence) opposing each other.

** The whole Soviet system: the Communist Party, the KGB, and the military (including the GRU) were all at odds with each other: the military had the guns, the KGB knew where all the bodies were buried (often literally), and the Party determined ideological purity in the military and KGB and thus could institute a purge if either got too uppity. If any one of the three seemed to gain too much of an upper hand, the other two could, and did, cooperate to cut it down.

*** Sort of an [[Evil Twin]] to the US's system of checks and balances.

** Caution should be used when it comes to [http://www.cracked.com/article_17469_5-pathetic-groups-that-people-think-rule-world.html conspiracy] [http://www.cracked.com/ theories]. While some are true, many are spread to [[You Can Panic Now|discredit]] the opposition factions.

* Consider the terrorist and revolutionary groups that break apart and often attack each other rather than the original enemy. The [[wikipedia:Category:Irish Republican Army|IRA]] is an excellent example.

*** The [[wikipedia:Russian Revolution (disambiguation)|Russian Revolution]] soon led to the [[wikipedia:Russian Civil War|Russian Civil War]]. [[Red October]]

*** The [[wikipedia:Iranian Revolution|Iranian Revolution]]. Anybody who opposed [[wikipedia:Ruhollah Khomeini|Ruhollah Khomeini]] was executed or imprisoned.

* The [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|FBI and the CIA]].

** Before that, the FBI vs. the OSS and their [[MI 6]] allies.

* Deliberately invoked by Hitler, who kept the military, [[Evil Versus Evil|SS, and Gestapo at each others' throats]] so none of them would be in a strong enough position to [[The Starscream|overthrow him and seize control of Germany]].

** He also believed in a Social Darwinism approach to bureaucracy, figuring the rivalry would encourage better results. All it did was lead to inefficiency.

* An international version: The US military and UK military in WWII. Sometimes it was lighthearted ("You Yanks are overpaid, oversexed and over here." "Yeah, well you Limeys are underpaid, undersexed... and under Eisenhower!"), sometimes it was more disruptive (for example, the near-endless arguments of who should be in overall command: Ike or Monty).

** The argument was over who would command the ground forces, since considering the US provided most of the troops and equipment there was never any doubt Eisenhower would have supreme command. The argument was also not strictly across national lines: Eisenhower's British deputy Air Chief Marshal Tedder strongly urged firing Monty more than once.

** This lead to an additional rank being created for George Washington, because no one can outrank him. Ever. (No, really, [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Public_Law_94-479 it's the law.])

* More [[WW 2]]: RAF Bomber Command vs, at various points, Fighter Command, Coastal Command, and the US 8th Air Force. The rivalry with Coastal Command has frequently been judged as having seriously set back the war effort by starving Coastal of aircraft.

** One of the problems being that Fighter Command got all the glory in 1940 at the expense of the other services to glamourize "The Few" (during the Battle of Britain, Bomber Command actually incurred heavier losses than Fighter Command).

* Done deliberately by Stalin to two of his generals during the push on Berlin. He deliberately redrew the sections of influence so that Berlin lay in the jurisdiction of both of them, and then let them compete to get there first.

** The rivalry was so ferocious that units from the two armies fired ''on each other!''

* Historical examples of American interbranch rivarly are numerous:

** The newly formed USAF made an effort shortly after [[WW 2]] to take control of Navy aircraft, but failed. The Navy has neither forgotten nor forgiven. The Army has yet to forgive the Air Force for becoming autonomous in 1947 either.

** Roosevelt had the Army and Navy playing against each other in the Pacific theater of World War 2

** The [[wikipedia:Iran hostage crisis|Iranian Hostage Crisis]]. The Army, Navy, and Air Force each wanted to take the lead on getting the hostages out of Iran, so that none of them could hog all the glory. So they came up with a [[wikipedia:Operation Eagle Claw|compromise plan]]. The result? [[Epic Fail|Catastrophic failure.]] Afterward, the U.S. Special Operations Command ([[Badass Army|SOCOM]]) was created out of the special operations branches of all three services. The Marine Corps followed suit... ''eventually''.

*** Congress actually passed a law, the [[wikipedia:Goldwater-Nichols Act|1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act]], that among other things removed the individual service chiefs from the chain of command and made them solely an advisory body to the President (the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and reorganized the military's entire chain of command through joint Unified Combatant Commands without regards to branches of service. This was in response to cock-ups like the hostage rescue mission and other service rivalry problems in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]]. As a result, while interservice rivalry is still a big thing in the US military (see below), it rarely interferes in the actual business of defending US interests.

** Various branches of the military love to look down their noses at each other, and will frequently brawl should multiple branches arrive at the same bar. The Army and Marine Corps see Air Force personnel as lazy and incompetent. Air Force personnel see the Army as disposable cannon fodder and the Marine Corps as meat-headed thugs. The Marine Corps, Army and Air Force will almost always make [[Hello, Sailor!|gay sailor jokes]] whenever the Navy is brought up. The Navy for its part thinks they do all the real work.

*** '''M'''y '''A'''ss '''R'''eally '''I'''s '''N'''avy '''E'''quipment for a more vitriolic version.

*** '''M'''uscles '''A'''re '''R'''equired, '''I'''ntelligence '''N'''ot '''E'''ssential.

** Within the Navy, the different branches have various low opinions of the others:

*** Submariners are called Bubbleheads and have the reputation of being extremely nerdy, since the majority of them are trained in nuclear power. The thought of over a hundred men trapped in a steel tube underwater also takes the [[Hello, Sailor!|gay sailor]] jokes [[Up to Eleven]].

*** The other branches think Aviators are all obsessed with [[Top Gun]] and have [[Small Name, Big Ego|extremely high opinions of themselves]], and are lazy (being the only branch with mandatory 8 hours of rest per day, while on flight duty). Of course they would say that everyone else is just jealous.

** Don't forget the rivalry between the Squids (Navy) and Puddle Pirates (Coast Guard) The Navy loves to put down the Coast Guard, calling them them things like "toy Navy" or "shallow Navy" to which any Coastie worth his salt will respond with a joke along the lines of, "Why do Navy kids look so good? They have Coastie dads" implying that Coasties tend to sleep with Navy wives while their husbands are out to sea.

*** Oddly enough, the Marines and Coast Guard tend to get along reasonably well, in large part due to a mutual dislike of the Navy.

*** Strangely enough, the Navy SeaBees have a little-known rivalry with the Marines dating back to [[World War II]]. When the SeaBees were founded, they were mostly drawn from civilians with prior experience in construction, which skewed their ranks to a much higher average age than other draftees, to say nothing of the fact that, as older men with vital skills, the initial SeaBees were mostly volunteers as they'd have been far back in the drafting order. When they first conducted operations with the Marines, the Marines told them that they'd take care of them, to which the SeaBees replied no, ''they'' would take care of ''them''. The humor in the idea of a group of sailors being [[Papa Wolf|Papa Wolves]] to the USMC should be obvious.

** From the Marines' Hymn:

The United States Marines.'' }}

* US military rivalry also extends to fighting over equipment and budgets like it was politics. During the cold war, new air fighters were needed by both the air force and the navy. The F-16 and F-18 were both front runners, and the F-16 was expected to win. But once the air force selected the superior F-16s, the navy took the good-but-could-be-better F-18s out of spite. Navy topguns still fly F-16s.

* In Britain there are Youth Groups linked to the military. There's the Air Cadets, Army Cadets and Sea Cadets. The Air Cadets and the Army Cadets hate each other, but they seem to forget about this hatred when confronted with the Sea Cadets, who they join together to hate.

** Same thing also happens in the Canadian cadet organizations.

* The Royal Marines and the Parachute Regiment are more like [[Vitriolic Best Buds]], at least since the Falklands War. Everybody still makes fun of the RAF, though the Army Air Corps is ''very'' popular since they got Apaches, and the Navy looks down its collective nose at the lot of them.

* And of course, the Scots military units hate the English military units, and they both hate the Welsh ones. But if there's Americans nearby, all bets are off as everyone teams up to beat up the Yanks. And the Scots Guards hate the regular Scots units too, for being too wimpy.

** And of course any Highland regiment hates (in order from least to most) any OTHER Highland regiment, any Lowland regiment, any Irish regiment, any Welsh Regiment and EVERY American unit. Of course, they will team up with less objectionable enemies to beat more hated ones.

** Despite their long and proud history of this sort of thing, the British Army ended up being the [[Only Sane Man|Only Sane Organisation]] in the middle of one of these during [[The Troubles]]. [[MI 5]], [[MI 6]], the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Special Branch spent so much time [[Jurisdiction Friction|bickering over who was responsible for what]] (bit of an [[Enforced Trope]], because domestic counter-insurgency operations were uncharted waters back then) and trying to show one another up that the quality of their work was rather lacking. Eventually the Army resorted to forming [[wikipedia:14 Int|a new company]] within the Intelligence Corps to run surveillance operations in-house.

* Particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Army vs the Royal Navy. The Navy was the more glamorous and respectable service, while the Army was the one actually fighting Napoleon in Europe but often considered a poor second by high society. This is referenced in fiction set in this time period such as ''[[Sharpe]]'', ''[[Master and Commander]]'' and so on.

** It has to be remembered here that the Royal Navy basically swept their enemies (French, Dutch, Spanish, Danes) off the sea at a time when the Army generally suffered ignominious defeats on the European continent, i. e. before the Peninsular War, while Army successes elsewehre in that era were depended on the Navy. And the British army simply was too small on its own, even during the Peninsular campaign it was very much dependent on the manpower provided by their Spanish and Portuguese allies as well as the King's German Legion.

** "The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy." -Lord Grey, British Prime Minister.

* Historically, members of the French army's 11th Parachute Brigade and the [[Legion of Lost Souls|French Foreign Legion]] did not get along. Those stereotypical interservice bar brawls were a very common occurrence back when they trained near each other and took weekend leave in the same town. The Legion's elite parachute regiment is technically part of the 11th Paras. One wonders if this makes the rivalry more or less intense for them.

* Happened during the rescue of the Burnham couple from the Abu Sayyaf. Philippine Marine Intelligence had been tracking the group for a while after gaining an informant which Abu Sabaya, the group's leader, trusted. Later, their already considerable intelligence effort was boosted by American assistance. However, the Marines were never given the chance to use any of this hard won intelligence. The Philippine Army always insisted on taking over every effort to actually go in and face the Abu Sayyaf because they wanted the credit for the rescue. This eventually resulted in a clusterfuck which resulted in hostage death. Philippine Marine Intelligence is still bitter about it all.

* Sometimes also happens between factions of a political party.

** One joke has a newly-elected politician taking his seat in parliament for the first time, looking across at the other party. "There they are," he says to his older colleague, "The enemy." His older colleague replies, "No, that's the opposition. The enemy are seated all around you."

* In pre-revolutionary Iran, as usual, the Imperial Army, Navy, and Air Force had rivalries with each other. All didn't like the [[Secret Police|SAVAK]].

* In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, after his rise to power, had the typical triangular operation - the military, the Baath Party, and the people. If one branch got too uppity, he would instigate the other two against the one.

* In the People's Republic of China, there is much resentment between the main army, and the navy and air force, the latter two technically under the army. Also, the missile and artillery forces are somewhat independent. Also, each army by military district can have intense problems with each other. So much so, the government brought in units from the countryside during the Tienanmen Square massacre, as those in the Beijing military district were considered too untrustworthy, and might turn the conflict into a full blown civil war.

* With regards to the Australian Defence forces, one (army) recruiter once joked that "The Army sleeps under the stars, the Navy navigate by the stars and the Air Force choose their hotels by the stars." This was met by silence as 90% of the audience was looking to join the Air Force.

* Italian ''Regia Marina'' (the Navy) versus ''Regia Aeronautica'' (the Air Force) during [[World War II]]: the Navy complained that the Air Force was the reason they had no carriers, that they were ''never'' on the battlefield in time and that they weren't very good at [[Friend or Foe|recognizing the British ships]] but not of their inability at sinking battleships, while the Air Force complained that the Navy hoarded all the funds and technically-capable recruits but couldn't defeat the Royal Navy. In a magnificent example of [[Fascist but Inefficient]], they were both right due the inefficiency of the Fascist governement.

* In the Italian army there is a long standing rivalry between the Bersaglieri and the Alpini, as the latters replaced the formers as mountain troops.

 

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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]