"Now if you ever find yourself the brutal military dictator of a struggling South American country and you start getting into hot water, here's a bit of advice that has been tried and tested throughout the centuries: Start a war to distract everyone from their miseries!"
So, you're a dictator, monarch, or other ruler. You have a lot of problems going on in your lands, and at least some of it is your fault. Resistance is starting to form. How to fix this?
— OverSimplified, The Falklands - MiniWars #1
Easy: go to war with your neighbor!
Diversionary Foreign Policy refers to the concept of deliberately going to war with another country with the intent of quelling internal discontent. The idea behind this is that with a common external enemy, all the disparate factions in a nation will unite, at least for the moment. Ideally, any elements that oppose the regime in power will either be silenced by their country, secretly eliminated under the guise of suppressing enemy sympathizers or wiped out on the front lines.
Of course, this can backfire if your internal opposition is not suppressed, in which case they can use the training they received from the war to become an active threat to you. Or maybe the country you invaded manages to last longer than expected or, worse still, defeat you outright. In that case, expect resentment to skyrocket.
Since a Pretext for War is often needed to prevent the masses from realizing this trope is in effect, a False Flag Operation will often be enacted.
Truth in Television — this is known as the Rally Around The Flag Effect, where people tend to support a failing government if there is an ongoing war or external crisis. That being said, No Real Life Examples, Please! — the connotations of this trope are too negative.
A subtrope of Genghis Gambit.
Examples
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Comic Book
- The ultimate cause of the Marvel crossover event Judgment Day: Druig, newly-installed leader of the Eternals, seeks to shore up his support among his people by leading them to war against the X-Men. It does not go as he had hoped.
Film — Live-Action
- Canadian Bacon: Michael Moore's only non-documentary feature film is about a US president who tries to revive his flagging popularity after the end of the Cold War by declaring war on Canada.
- Wag the Dog: In a far more elaborate example than usual, a shadowy spin doctor leads the creation of a phony war in Albania to divert attention away from the sexual indiscretions of the President of the United States (he was caught getting fresh with Girl Scouts in the middle of re-election). The false war is a success and the President is re-elected but the Hollywood producer the spin doctor hired to handle the production ends up needing to be assassinated to keep him quiet when he gets upset he will have to keep his involvement a secret and also to make things worse there has been a rise in Albanian-motivated terrorism.
Literature
- The Belgariad: Discussed in Polgara the Sorceress. During the time when Nerasin is consolidating his power in Asturia, Polgara points out at a conference between the other Arendish dukes that rulers with a shaky grasp on power at home often try to start wars with their neighbors to redirect their subjects’ hatreds, and that the rest of them need to present a united front to discourage Nerasin from doing the same.
- Honor Harrington: The Republic of Haven goes to war with the Star Kingdom of Manticore because Haven's government is broke, its economy is stagnant, and far too many of its people are on the government dole, with nothing to do but seethe with anger against that same government. It needs a "short, victorious war" to refill the coffers and keep the peasants distracted. Instead, a dole manager named Rob S. Pierre leads a coup after his son is killed in an early battle. He and his followers are then forced to continue the war because it provides an external enemy for the people to rally against.
- How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Two kings ago, the Kingdom of Elfrieden conquered half the territory of its neighbor Amidonia. Amidonia's royal family responded by going full-on irredentist: they made their national policy for the next several decades getting that land back and used their Propaganda Machine to blame all the resulting economic problems on Elfrieden. However, when they finally do invade in volume 2, they wind up on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle, and King Souma deliberately takes a light touch while occupying them to show that the irredentism wasn't necessary, removing Julius Amidonia's ability to use this excuse in future.
- In Nineteen Eighty-Four, it's noted in Goldstein's book that the war between the superstates of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia is actually a strategy of survival for all three. Since gains are so small and since so few actual soldiers are used, the states can keep their austere war economies going indefinitely.
- A Practical Guide to Evil: This is revealed to be the reason the Dread Empire of Praes constantly goes to war with everyone else after being United under an Evil Overlord — the land of Praes is practically impossible to grow substantial amounts of food on, which leads to food shortages once the population rises high enough. The narrative Powers That Be ensure any Dread Emperor/Empress that tries to implement reforms to limit population growth dies before they can do so, meaning that the repeated invasions are the only way to curb things.
- In Jingo, it turns out that Prince Cadram wanted war with Ankh-Morpork not because he wanted the tiny island of Leshp, but to unite Klatch against a common enemy.
Music
- In La Comisión, Les Luthiers portray two politicians from a fictional country, and a composer, the latter in charge to modify their national anthem. One of the changes due to be included in the new anthem references how, in order to calm the discontent of their people, the politicians decide to invent a war with Norway, despite being no borders whatsoever between the two countries.
Tabletop Games
- Downplayed in the Crusader Kings board game, where the easiest way to end unrest in a rebelling territory is to mobilize it for war (you don't actually have to attack anyone with the mobilized troops, however, and can just disband them on the next turn).
- Warhammer 40,000: This is usually a part of why the Imperium constantly fights everyone else in the setting — while just about everyone in the setting is some flavor of evil and would like to at least subjugate mankind, the constant fighting by also allows the Imperium to justify all the measures it uses to suppress internal discontent. This can and does backfire frequently, though.
Theatre
- The original 1927 version of the musical Strike Up the Band features a corrupt cheese tycoon who maneuvers the US into declaring war on Switzerland in order to maintain a monopoly on the US cheese market.
Video Games
- Crusader Kings II: Attacking another realm won't help a liege's internal problems; in fact, it might even make them worse due to opinion penalties from raising your vassals' levies. However, getting invaded gives the defending liege a significant opinion boost from their vassals for the duration of the conflict.
- In The Elder Scrolls series backstory, Emperor Uriel Septim V inherited an empire wracked by internal strife, floundering domestic support, and plagued by debt. He opted to Invoke this trope by launching a series of invasions outside of the continent of Tamriel including numerous island nations to the east and eventually invading Akavir itself. This plan worked and Uriel V was considered a conquering warrior-emperor second only to Tiber Septim himself... at least initially. Bogged down in Akavir by supernatural bad weather, his mages reporting as being "abnormally weak" while there, and mounted Tsaesci raiders delivering a Death by a Thousand Cuts, he opted to withdraw after one year. Unfortunately, while covering the retreat of his army, the Tsaesci attacked in force and he was reportedly killed in a hail of arrows.
- Homeworld: The reason the Taiidan Empire scorches Kharak is revealed to be this — knowing that the Higarans have only just rediscovered space travel, the empire tries to wipe them out on the grounds of breaking an ancient treaty forbidding them from developing space travel so that they can quell growing unrest in the empire. Not only did they fail to get all of the Higarans, many Taiidans realized the Higarans had forgotten the treaty existed and promptly rebelled against the empire.
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police: In the episode "Abe Lincoln Must Die", Sam and the newly elected President Max need to get into the White House war room to use the country's ballistic missiles to take down a rampaging statue of Abe Lincoln. The problem is, they can't access the War room unless there's an actual war. So they trigger a civil war between the states of North, South, and West Dakota to get in, and also inadvertently cue a musical number by the secret service extolling the virtues of war (strengthening the economy and encouraging a second term for the incumbent). Of course, all Sam and Max want is to launch some nukes at a statue.
