History FalseFlagOperation / Literature

* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}: Visser'', Visser Three has two of his Hork-Bajir controllers attack during his trial of Visser One, along with an ordinary starved bear and tiger, so that he can end the "Andalite Bandits" while in front of his bosses and look good. Visser One doesn't buy it and calls Marco (who she knows, at this point, to be one of the "Andalite Bandits") to attack for real, discrediting his attempt.

* Variations on this theme were a favorite tactic of Murgo infiltrators in the ''[[Literature/TheBelgariad Belgariad]]'' and ''Malloreon'', to the point where several characters make cracks about the Murgo lack of originality.

* Creator/VladimirVasilyev's ''Literature/DeathOrGlory'': In ''No One but Us'', a group of {{Space Marine}}s are forced to pretend to be rogues and pirates in order to invade a planet of HumanAliens in another galaxy in order to secure a cache of extremely-powerful portals left behind by {{Precursors}}. This gets to the point that they're forbidden from using official ranks or even words like "army" and "division" (these being replaced with "cohort"). This is despite the fact that the Human Aliens in question have ''never even seen an alien before'' and would probably assume the heavily-armed invaders were part of a government anyway.

* ''Literature/TheFallOfTheGalaxy'', the rebelling [[LivingShip biomechanical ships]] of the Bargon Empire are invading the Solar System - the heart of the Galaxy (yes, that is the name of one of the human galactic powers). The fleet of the Seven Systems' Union arrives to help the Galaxy defend Earth. However, as all three human powers distrust each other, the biomechanical ships use it to their advantage to trick the Galaxy into thinking that they are allied with the Seven Systems' Union. This causes additional confusion and more loss of life before the biomechanical ships are finally defeated.

** In Graham [=McNeill=]'s Literature/{{Ultramarines}} novel ''Nightbringer'', Vedden and his men disguised themselves as Arbites and attacked [[PowderKegCrowd a demonstration, to produce a riot]].

* In the ''Literature/YoungBond'' novel ''Literature/ByRoyalCommand'', [[spoiler:the Nazis]] get British communists to attempt to assassinate the king by pretending to be Soviets.

* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': In ''Literature/TheImmortals'', Carthak disguises its ships as pirates when they attempt to kill Tortall's Queen and her children. Even though it's dead obvious they're to blame, Tortall can't officially do anything, and instead sends diplomats for peace talks. They attempt to pull this again when [[spoiler:they kidnap Daine to try and make it look like she's become part of LaResistance to justify going to war with Tortall]].

* In ''Warrior Born'', the first book in the ''Literature/NovaRefuge'' science fiction universe: The empire of Xarkon, one of the four largest factions on Terra Nova, the planet which humanity has fled to after our solar system's destruction by the Sun going supernova, orchestrate this on one of their major cities in order to frame and suppress an independent city-state micronation called Mordark located north of their country. They lock down the city, called Shardasha, and when all major human factions join in the fight, send in their Enomeg super-soldiers to take down Mordark's alien leader Lord Zegaldorph, who is visiting Shardasha. Following the events, at a meeting among the major human factions in the CONON space station (Council of Nations of Nova Refuge), Lucas Augustus Mars, High Commander of the Armed Forces of Xarkon, a LawfulEvil, [[NobleDemon Honorable Villain]] a firm believer in the philosophy of [[WarIsGlorious War is Natural]] and the de facto ruler, declare the nation's emperor a weak and cowardly leader and proceeds to execute him by decapitation while the rest of the nations watches. Subsequently, he declares war with the rest of the nations and the CONON station, usually known as a PlaceofProtection and peace, becomes a scene of bloodshed. Many of the Xarkonian soldiers involved in the coup are not even aware of the truth behind the incident, including the Enomeg super-soldiers.

** Subverted in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}''. [[spoiler:There is an assassination attempt on a [[strike:Arabi]]Klatchian dignitary, and the evidence that the Klatchians themselves were behind it (i.e. the assassin was paid with foreign currency and there was ''sand on the floor'') is so insultingly obvious, Commander Vimes assumes someone in Ankh-Morpork was framing them to make it look like they were trying to provoke a war. A Klatchian turns out to have planted the evidence to [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow hide the fact that he did hire an assassin]] for this very purpose. After a couple hundred pages of [[MoralOfTheStory messages]] against racism, the author points out that true equality means giving minorities the chance to be bastards.]]

** In ''Lord Hornblower'', he does this yet again: A small vessel has been taken by mutineers who intend to seek offered refuge in France. Hornblower finds himself aboard that vessel's sister ship, and has the rigging modified to match before launching a raid on the nearby French port, guaranteeing that the mutineers' ship will now be presumed hostile by the French. [[spoiler: This sets in motion a chain of events climaxing in Hornblower [[MagnificentBastard seizing control]] of the port for the British and leading into the fall of Napolean.]]

* A convoluted example in ''Literature/ScarecrowAndTheArmyOfThieves]]''. The titular Army of Thieves is an anti-American militia/terrorist group and seizes an old Soviet atmospheric weapon to use against the United States. It turns out that [[spoiler:while the Army itself is genuine in its beliefs, its ''leader'' is a ruthless CIA agent manipulating them and aiming to protect America's interests. While the weapon will damage the US, it won't be crippling. On the other hand, the harm done to ''China'', which everyone is overlooking, will be far more severe, preventing China from replacing America as the world's dominant superpower]].

* ''Literature/OfFireAndStars'': Spells cost [[CastFromHitPoints part of the mages' energy]], which they can restore quickly through draining some from the surrounding area or another person.

* A convoluted example in ''[[Creator/MatthewReilly Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves]]''. The titular Army of Thieves is an anti-American militia/terrorist group and seizes an old Soviet atmospheric weapon to use against the United States. It turns out that [[spoiler:while the Army itself is genuine in its beliefs, its ''leader'' is a ruthless CIA agent manipulating them and aiming to protect America's interests. While the weapon will damage the US, it won't be crippling. On the other hand, the harm done to ''China'', which everyone is overlooking, will be far more severe, preventing China from replacing America as the world's dominant superpower]].

* ''The Specialist'' by Gayle Rivers. The Spanish government hires mercenaries to assassinate Basque terrorists operating across the border in France. It's decided to pin the blame on Spanish right-wing extremists who've done this thing before; in fact, the extremists mess up one planned assassination by planting a car bomb in a vehicle right after the mercenaries have done so!

* In Creator/DaleBrown's ''Fatal Terrain'', the Chinese set up and/or stage attacks on their own resources to create the impression that Taiwan and the US are attacking them. In ''Warrior Class'', the BigBad Pavel Kazakov stages [[spoiler: a Macedonian attack on Albania]] to get the two countries to fight. In ''Edge of Battle'', Zakharov attacks illegal immigrants using the same weapons as the American Watchdogs in order to make it seem that they killed the immigrants.

** Soviet premier instigates a covert operation to detonate a nuclear bomb near a US Air Force base, making it look like an accidental detonation, to cause the election of the Labour government which was running on an anti-nuclear platform at the time. There's also a pro-Soviet faction within the Labour Party that will seize control of it--and by extension the British government--and institute a disarmament policy and withdrawal from NATO.

* In ''The Warsaw Document'', Literature/{{Quiller}} is assigned to babysit an Embassy official investigating an impending Polish uprising that might disrupt East/West peace talks. Quiller conducts his own investigations and is surprised to find the Poles believe the British government is backing their revolt. It turns out the Embassy official is a KGB DoubleAgent manufacturing evidence that the entire uprising is a Western-instigated plot, thereby justifying a crackdown by the Soviet military.

* In "The Warsaw Document" by Adam Hall, ''Literature/{{Quiller}}'' is assigned to babysit an Embassy official investigating an impending Polish uprising that might disrupt East/West peace talks. Quiller conducts his own investigations and is surprised to find the Poles believe the British government is backing their revolt. It turns out the Embassy official is a KGB DoubleAgent manufacturing evidence that the entire uprising is a Western-instigated plot, thereby justifying a crackdown by the Soviet military.

* In the Creator/FrederickForsyth novel ''Literature/TheFourthProtocol'':
** A British Ministry of Defense official is a staunch anti-Communist who felt that South Africa was entitled to be included in NATO planning to help fight the U.S.S.R. and that it was only on ''"dubious moral grounds"'' (i.e., Britain and most of Europe's disgust for {{apartheid}}) that they were excluded from such planning. So he passes classified information to a sympathetic South African diplomat to help South Africa fight Soviet influence - and is horrified to learn that the diplomat is actually a Soviet mole.
** The Russians plot to detonate a nuclear bomb near a US Air Force base, to cause the election of an anti-nuclear, pro-Soviet government (Labour at that time were anti-nuclear. While not pro-Soviet, they had quite a few fellow travelers attempting to influence them from within. In the novel a faction of these are thus waiting in the wings to take control and remove the US nuclear missiles from the UK, eliminating this threat to the Soviet Union).

* There was a book called something like ''The Double Invasion'' in which Earth had learned that a warlike species planned to attack a planet of HumanAliens soon. Instead of ''telling'' the targets, [[IdiotPlot Earth's government sent a force to invade a year or so in advance]], ''claiming'' to be the bad guys and committing "atrocities" just bad enough to piss off the locals and make them willing to mobilize and increase their industry to wartime levels. The fake invaders then allowed themselves to be "captured" and agreed to help improve the locals' defenses. The defenders were very surprised when the ''real'' alien invaders arrived and, after getting clobbered, were shown to be quite nonhuman.

* ''KG 200'' by J.D. Gilman and John Clive is about a Luftwaffe unit that specializes in flying captured Allied aircraft (the unit actually existed, but used them for long-range reconnaissance and dropping enemy agents). In the novel however the intention is to use American aircraft to attack London, to sow discord between the US and British forces.