20. A Fiendish Solution to Reduce Dynastic Strife
Throughout history, many kingdoms collapsed into chaos, and many ruling dynasties perished because of infighting by royal siblings competing for the throne. Such dynastic civil wars weakened states, frittered their resources be they blood or treasure on useless strife, and left them vulnerable to foreign rivals.
The Ottoman Turks tackled that problem head-on, with one of the most ruthless solutions possible: as soon as a new Ottoman Sultan ascended the throne, he immediately executed all his brothers. The prospects of deadly rivalries and civil wars were thus eliminated by the simple expedient of eliminating all potential male claimants to the throne. It was cruel, but it worked. At least insofar as reducing the odds of dynastic civil wars. However, as seen below, there were severe downsides to this Ottoman expedient.