War For Fun And Profit / Film

War for Fun and Profit in Films.

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• The James Bond films do this several times.
  • In You Only Live Twice, Blofeld tries to heat up the cold war, by having a spacecraft steal American and Soviet space capsules, so the Americans and Soviets would each think the other is responsible.
    • Furthermore, he demands $100 million in gold before completing the scheme, and when his Chinese backers complain that this is extortion, Blofeld simply notes, "Extortion is my business."
  • Tomorrow Never Dies has media magnate Elliot Carver attempt to start a war between the United Kingdom and China, by sinking a British frigate sent off-course into Chinese waters, while shooting down a Chinese fighter plane sent to investigate. China wouldn't grant him broadcast rights, you see.
  • The Spy Who Loved Me was essentially You Only Live Twice but replaced spacecraft with submarines.
  • It seems that in the new films, this is the modus operandi of Quantum. In Casino Royale (2006), Le Chiffre plans to blow up a new airliner to make money as he's sold their shares short. When Bond stops the plan, Le Chiffre loses a great deal of money that belongs to other people and has to run the poker game to try and get it back. In Quantum of Solace, Dominic Greene helps General Medrano overthrow the Bolivian government in exchange for a seemingly useless piece of desert which, unknown to Medrano, allows Greene to completely control Bolivia's entire water supply and charge exorbitant rates.
  • The Living Daylights has a Soviet General buying guns from an arms dealer, who uses the down payment to buy diamonds. He trades the diamonds to the Afghan resistance for opium, which he intended to sell at a 1000% markup, and then use part of that money to get the guns to fill the order from the Soviets. The Soviets would then use the guns to fight the Afghans, who would arm themselves with guns bought with the diamonds. Thus the Russian Army would be funding both sides of the war, with the arms dealer and his friend the General making a massive profit in the process.
• The Sum of All Fears: The villain is an Austrian neo-Nazi, trying to incite war between Russia and America, in the hopes that by destroying each other, they'll pave the way for the resurgence of a strong (and fascist) Europe.
• Lord of War:
  • The protagonist arms dealer Yuri Orlov doesn't instigate any wars, nor does he care about the outcome, he simply provides weapons to those who do. He points out that he doesn't put a gun in anyone's hands and force them to shoot.
  • His main competitor, Simeon Weisz, is closer to a straight version of the trope, stating that he supplied guns to Iraq and Iran during their war because he "wanted both sides to lose."
• A classic example in Blood Diamond, and another more complex one:
  • The government of Sierra Leone offers diamond concessions to Colonel Coetzee and his South African mercenary company in exchange for them driving the RUF insurgents out of the territories they control. ... The same RUF rebels that Colonel Coetzee was supplying with arms in the first place.
  • Van De Kaap, the diamond cartel^note and transparent De Beers expy, is also deeply involved in the war from the start, but in a less obvious way, as their various legal and illegal market maneuvers are the reason for the extreme value of the diamonds everyone's fighting over. As explained by Danny Archer (a small-time diamond smuggler who sometimes does business with them):
  Danny Archer: There's an underground vault where they put all the stones they buy up to keep off the market, so they can keep the price high. If rebels want to flood the market with a billion dollars worth of rough, a company like Van De Kaap, who says that they're rare, can't afford to let that happen. [...] Now, technically speaking, they're not financing the war. But they're creating a situation where it pays to keep it going.
• The Assassination Bureau: Bostwick plans to destroy a peace conference to ignite a war and profit as the stock prices of the arms industries he controls soar.
  • Humorously inverted with Ivan Dragomiloff, the head of the titular bureau, who prevents Bostwick's plan:
  Winter: With your ideas, I'm surprised you're shocked at the thought of war.
  Dragomiloff: Not at all. It's purely a matter of business. How can we charge our sort of prices with everybody happily killing each other for a shilling a day?
• In the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the Trade Federation's blockade/invasion of Naboo, the Separatist Crisis, and the Clone Wars were all orchestrated by Palpatine in his plot to become Emperor.
  • The various megacorporations themselves, whom Palpatine was manipulating, were planning on selling their services to both sides of the conflict (though they would heavily favor the Separatists).
  • In the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi shows that much of the galactic elite gathered at Canto Bight turned a profit by selling weapons - to the First Order and the Resistance alike.
  • The Expanded Universe frequently implies that the Force is an interstellar psychic network composed of the countless beings that inhabit the galaxy, and the connections they make across lightyears of empty space. If so, then it is only because of the Forever War between the Jedi and Sith that both sides were able to 'convince' native populations of distant worlds to accept and connect their existences - as partners or slaves. Every planet pulled into the wars is a world full of individuals and communities that develop strong feelings (love, hate, interest, or fear) for beings who are entire solar systems apart, connecting the civilization to the network and turning their previously isolated world into yet another node for the Force to grow in strength. In the end, whichever side emerges victorious profits with an increase in Force sensitivity and economic strength, even if most of the newest planets to join the galactic scene hate their guts, and the Force always profits no matter how many civilizations are ruined and chained. In effect, the Force allows the losing side to survive because it would wither and die without war.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: A slight inversion of the usual trope: the plot isn't to provoke a war, but to prevent its end. The Federation and the Klingon Empire are contemplating a peace accord that would put an end to seventy years of cold (and occasionally hot) war. The Khitomer Conspiracy, which is trying to prevent this, is largely made up of people who feel directly threatened by peace: leading military figures on both sides, who would find themselves without purpose in the new order, plus the Romulan Star Empire, the third major power in the region, which benefited from the hostility between its two potential rivals.
• In Canadian Bacon, facing the prospect of economic recession from closing arms factories and low popularity among working people, the president of the US and a major arms dealer try to restart the Cold War. Since Russia isn't interested (at this point, anyway) they instead frame up Canada as the new enemy. Canadians, on the other hand, are either unaware, or just confused about the whole thing. There's also the fact that one of the President's advisors is in cahoots with the owner of said arms factories with a personal interest in a new Cold War. Unfortunately for him, not only does he fall to his death, but the Canadians actually end up "winning" the war.
• A different take on this trope appears in The International. The International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC) finances third world revolution and arms sales, but their goal is not to profit from wars, but from the massive debt racked up by those fighting them. This is an interesting case because it only works with small nations. If the same principle was applied to larger ones, it would never work because they are too economically powerful to care about a bank. Sadly, this bank is actually based on a real one, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
• Destro in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is an arms dealer who creates a weapon, steals it back, and then attempts to use it to create global fear of terrorism so the entire world will seek unifying leadership from the most powerful man on the planet - the president of the United States of America, who is really Destro's agent, Zartan. The opening scene and expanded materials clarify that this has been a way of life for his clan for centuries - one of his ancestors was condemned by the French monarchy for selling arms to it at the same time as its enemies.
• Possible Ur-Example: In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane does this in order to sell newspapers. Based on the manipulations of real-life media mogul William Randolph Hearst:
  "Dear Wheeler: You provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."
• In The Man Who Knew Too Little, an English and a Russian official conspire to kill the diplomats at an Anglo-Russian peace conference. They aim to restart the Cold War, apparently because they're bored.
• Toyed with in Wag the Dog in order to get a sex scandal off the front page and get the President re-elected, with the twist that there never actually is a war as far as the viewers know. There may be fighting going on off screen, or there may not at all. We don't know, because it doesn't matter and nobody cares. What's important are the photo ops, the slogans, and the huge PR spin.
• In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Professor Moriarty is attempting to ignite World War I after acquiring stock in a great many arms manufacturing companies, as well as cotton and opium companies (i.e. bandages and medicine). When Holmes figures out his plot and derails it, he points out that the approaching world war is inevitable, and he'll make a profit regardless. Then Holmes reveals he snatched the codebook Moriarty uses to keep track of his fortune and Scotland Yard has been gleefully seizing all of his assets, leaving the good professor with a "significantly diminished fortune" (as in, he just lost all of it.) For further irony, all of the money is being donated anonymously to the Widows and Orphans of War Fund.
• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Big Bad Fantom (who is really Moriarty) is pitting Great Britain and Germany against each other at the turn of the 20th century in order to make a profit by selling advanced weapons (such as a tank, machine guns, and a rocket launcher) to both sides. His plan is to steal the abilities of the League and mass-produce them (Captain Nemo's Nautilus blueprints, Mina's vampiric blood, Dr. Jekyll's serum, a patch of Invisible Man II's skin). When the League prevents the destruction of Venice, which would result in the deaths of delegates in the middle of peace talks, Fantom replies that this is only delaying the inevitable. It's implied that even though Fantom's enslaved scientists were rescued, they refused to forget the wonders they learned in his service and began mass-producing them for their countries, leading to the ludicrously steep technological curve of WWI.
• Three Days of the Condor: The CIA is involved in provoking a war in the Middle East to ensure plentiful oil supplies to the US.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man: Tony Stark of Stark Industries sold weapons and military tech to the rest of the world to fuel his playboy lifestyle. However, an ambush and the death of Yinsen made him take down the weapons division. His business partner Obidiah Stane isn't as willing to stop arming the world...
  • Iron Man 3 features a villain who is attempting this. Aldrich Killian manufactures a bin Laden-esque terrorist to strike at the United States, buys off the Vice President with a promise to cure his daughter's debilitating illness, and develops the ultimate weapon in the form of a new breed of Super-Soldier. In short, he's perfectly poised to control and profit from The War on Terror.
  • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, HYDRA, having reformed itself within S.H.I.E.L.D. stronger than ever, has been doing this for decades. After their initial defeat they realized that the world could never be conquered with force alone, because people would fight tooth and nail for their freedom. Their new strategy was to seed conflict around the world for generations to scare people into willingly surrendering their freedom for security. By the time the movie starts, they have all but succeeded.
  • In Thor: Ragnarok, Hela claims that, contrary to the image of Asgard as a peaceful enlightened civilization guarding the Realms that was built up in the previous movies, Asgard was actually an expansionist empire built on blood and conquest. She even pointedly asks Thor "Where do you think all the gold came from?", implying that all of the shiny gold gilding in Asgard was forcibly taken in conquest. She mocks Odin's turn towards peace as him being "Proud of what he had. Ashamed of how he got it." It's rather sobering to realize that the Scenery Porn of Asgard was built out of the spoils of war.
• Inverted in The Grand Illusion, where von Rauffenstein lists the silver plate in his skull and other silver items implanted into his heavily wounded body, adding wryly: "Yes, the war provided me with considerable riches."
• And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself. Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa strikes a deal with Hollywood to make a movie about his life, even arranging his battles for Rule of Drama. Villa is able to finance his revolution, and gets favorable publicity to counter the press campaign being run against him by the Hearst media empire. In turn D. W. Griffith gets the first feature-length movie. This is Truth in Television, incidentally.
• Iron Sky: Although she didn't start the war, the US President is overjoyed when the Nazi's attack earth since she is now a war time president, which significantly increases her changes of getting re-elected. Plus, it gives her a chance to invoke America Saves the Day with their space weapon, the USS George W. Bush.
• In The Vietnam War documentary In the Year of the Pig, Senator Thruston B. Morton muses that since such a large portion of the U.S. economy is geared towards the military, there is a risk of a military-industrial alliance affecting policy, and Vietnam is a case in point.
• In The Outlaws IS Coming!, Rance Rodan is exterminating the buffalo in order to set the Indians on the warpath, so he can make money selling arms to the Indians.
• The King's Man: The Flock secret society led by the Shepherd serve as the film's antagonists, engineering WWI and then prolonging it as long as possible to drain Europe's population and resources. The end goal of this is to see Britain's monarchy toppled by either a victorious Germany or a rebellion by a war-weary British populace, all because the Shepherd is a Scottish nationalist who hates being ruled by the English.
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: Kurt Hendricks is a former Russian nuclear strategist trying to cause a nuclear war between America and Russia. Unlike most examples, he isn't doing this for selfish reasons; he truly believes that "world destruction is an unpleasant but necessary part of evolution," and that what rises from the ashes of human civilization can be better than what there was before. Nicely summarized by Brandt's short description:
  Brandt: Kurt Hendicks. IQ 190. Professor of physics, Stockholm University. Specialist in nuclear endgame strategy. Asked to resign... well... because he's crazy.
• Men in Black: The Bug, the villain of the movie, comes from an alien species that thrive off of the death and decay of other species. The movie's plot revolves around his attempt to steal a miniature galaxy in the hopes of inciting a war.
  Lauren: You don't want to eat me! I'm a very important person on my planet! Like a queen! A goddess, even! There are those who worship me! I'm not saying this to impress you, I'm just warning you it could start a war!
  Edgar the Bug: Good! War means more food for my family. All 78 million of them. That's a lot of mouths to feed, Your Highness.
• The Legend of Zorro: The Knights of Aragon are an aristocratic secret society that is said to control all the royal courts in Europe. They plot to incite the American Civil War about a decade early, hoping that it will destroy the democratic United States before it has a chance to grow into something much more powerful than the monarchic world in which they thrive.
• In The Lone Ranger (2013), the villain is an American railroad baron who fakes Comanche raids on white settlements in order to provoke the U.S. Army into retaliating, wiping them out to make room for his railroad and ensure his exploitation of the hidden silver mines is left undisturbed.
• The Comancheros by John Wayne similarly features villains trying to profit from the Comanche wars, although in this case they're manipulating the Comanches rather than the U.S. Army, and they're bandits whose very existence is unknown to the world rather than a Villain with Good Publicity running a large corporation. The titular characters are a group of renegade American and Mexican criminals who have made themselves the main suppliers to the Comanche tribesmen that have been giving the Texan government so much trouble. They give the Comanches the modern rifles and ammunition that make their raids so effective, and in return, get a share of the plunder from the raids.
• Fort Apache, an earlier John Wayne film, is an even darker take on this trope in that the corruption and profiteering behind the war are happening right in the open, and being done by government officials. The Apache uprising takes place because the local Bureau of Indian Affairs agent has been embezzling the goods allocated by the government to the Apaches as per treaty terms, until their leader felt he had no choice but to rebel.^note Truth in Television, unfortunately: even in a time when public servants' jobs were assigned through political patronage rather than a professional civil service, the BIA was notorious as a dumping ground for people who were considered too corrupt or inept to be trusted with anything "important." Unlike many examples of this trope, the war isn't incited deliberately so much as caused through negligence, but when the Apaches break the treaty, the BIA agent demands that the U.S. Cavalry bring them back under control, effectively asking them to fight a war to clean up the mess caused by his own corruption. Suffice it to say, "unscrupulous villain attempting to profit from the Indian Wars" is a very common archetype in classic Westerns.
• Lethal Weapon 3 does this on a smaller scale, with urban gang wars rather than major military conflicts. The villain of the movie is a corrupt former LAPD cop who sells military-grade weapons to Los Angeles' street gangs. Not only does he make money from the gun sales, he reinvests some of the profit in the construction of Los Angeles suburbia... which is a booming industry because the gang wars he's helping to fuel have made the inner city so dangerous that anyone who can afford it is picking up and looking for a new place to live.
• The Princess Bride: Buttercup's kidnapping is orchestrated by her husband-to-be, Prince Humperdinck. He intends to blame the neighboring nation of Guilder for the murder, thus giving him a pretext to go to war. There's a nod to how prolific this trope is:
  Vizzini: I've hired you to help me start a war! It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition!
• Erik the Viking: Halfdan, Loki and Keitel seek to stop Erik's quest to end Ragnarok, because if the endless wars between men stop, then warlords and weaponsmiths like them will find themselves out of a job.