How Crises Changes Friends into Enemies

"Your rivals will multiply as your army collapses and they will begin against you."
Sun Tzu's The Art of War 2:1:20

In Sun Tzu’s strategy, we normally see changes in the environment as creating new opportunities. However, when those changes affect our environmental vulnerabilities, they can also create adversaries. This is especially true of the types of changes that generate firestorms, our risks from larger society: the government, the media, the legal system, social networks, and so on. People react differently to changes in all these areas. Strangely enough, both improving and worsening conditions in such arenas can transform former allies into opponents.