History Main / PretextForWar

* When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they claimed it was to stop NATO eastward expansion...except Ukraine was not in the process of joining NATO, only sending in an application after Russia annexed four occupied oblasts. Then they claimed it was to denazify Ukraine...except Ukraine's president is Jewish and far-right parties have minimal support, and neo-Nazis were seen among the Russian invaders[[note]]though non-Russians are far more likely to call bullshit; Russia's PropagandaMachine [[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/06/how-victory-day-became-central-to-putin-idea-of-russian-identity heavily downplays the Nazis' antisemitism]], instead defining the Nazis purely by the fact they invaded the Soviet Union and by extension Russia, and apparently extending that to mean ''all'' opponents of the Russian Federation are Nazis[[/note]]. Then they claimed it was to stop Ukraine from gaining nuclear weapons...which they weren't. Later, they claimed it was to "desatanize" Ukraine...except '''87.3%''' of Ukrainians identify as Christian, largely Orthodox. Needless to say, Russia has yet to provide a halfway convincing reason for invading. Ironically, both Sweden and Finland quickly announced their intention to join NATO shortly after the war began.

* ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'': The United Mankind attacks an Abh ship through a previously unknown hyperspace lane, then declares that they were attacked first and destroyed the ship in self-defense. They use this incident to begin stirring up their allies and begin to build an excuse to go to war with the Abh. The Abh Empress doesn't believe for an instant that the Abh ship is to blame, realizes what the United Mankind is up to, and decides to just cut to the chase and declare war ''immediately'', which catches the United Mankind and their allies off-guard.
* The plot of ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' is kicked off when Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia, the granddaughter of the emperor of Mars, is assassinated in a terrorist attack on Earth during her [[{{Irony}} diplomatic mission]]. The Orbital Knights, the Martian warrior nobility, react immediately with a [[EarthIsABattlefield full-scale invasion of Earth]]. Unbeknownst to the majority of the knights, [[spoiler:the assassination was a FalseFlagAttack perpetrated by a faction of their own government in order to force the conquest of Earth.]]
* A heroic example occurs in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', with [[spoiler:LDS]] (Group A) taking advantage of the team from [[spoiler:Academia]] (Group B) going to [[spoiler: Miami City]] (part of A's territory) on a mission to kidnap two LivingMacGuffin characters. Group A gets footage of B's soldiers using hyper-advanced {{Magitek}} weapons to [[spoiler: seal the souls of]] (metaphor [[NeverSayDie for murder]]) bystanders that get caught in the crossfire. The propaganda created from the footage convinces the people of A's home that B is invading, and that they must militarize and fight back. The reason why it's a heroic example is because B already has invaded a different [[spoiler:dimension]] and committed genocide upon it's inhabitants; [[FramingTheGuiltyParty it just hasn't moved onto A's home]] ''[[FramingTheGuiltyParty yet]]'', and the people running A want to ensure that their home is capable of defending itself when the need arises.

* ''The Emperor's Coloured Coat'' by John Biggins. Otto Prohaska gets caught up in the plot to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand to create a pretext for war against Serbia. There are indications that the Austrian chief of staff is behind it, and he never finds out if the Archduke's death was part of the conspiracy or simply a lucky break by the assassins, who were so incompetent it was assumed they'd be caught long before they got near their target. Regardless, as the assassination triggers World War One and the break-up of Austria-Hungary, it turned out to be an even bigger cock-up.

* That pig thing, in the trope discription? [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859) It was real.]] It wasn't much of a war though: "The pig was the only casualty of the war, making the conflict otherwise bloodless." from Website/TheOtherWiki. The situation was diffused largely because the commanders of both sides flatly refused to fight over something so stupid.

* When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they claimed it was to stop NATO eastward expansion...except Ukraine was not in the process of joining NATO. Then they claimed it was to denazify Ukraine...except Ukraine's president is Jewish and far-right parties have minimal support, and neo-Nazis were seen among the Russian invaders[[note]]though non-Russians are far more likely to call bullshit; Russia's PropagandaMachine [[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/06/how-victory-day-became-central-to-putin-idea-of-russian-identity heavily downplays the Nazis' antisemitism]], instead defining the Nazis purely by the fact they invaded the Soviet Union and by extension Russia, and apparently extending that to mean ''all'' opponents of the Russian Federation are Nazis[[/note]]. Then they claimed it was to stop Ukraine from gaining nuclear weapons...which they weren't. Needless to say, Russia has yet to provide a halfway convincing reason for invading. Ironically, both Sweden and Finland quickly announced their intention to join NATO shortly after the war began.

Since [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression wars of aggression]] have technically been banned, you'll find that these are a lot more common today than they were previously, since both sides are at pains to show that the other side started it. As a result, the history of many a 20th-century war reads like a really, really dark [[IdiotPlot Idiot]] FawltyTowersPlot. Mind you, "civilized" countries have more or less always deemed it improper to declare war on your neighbors "because we want your stuff" or "because we feel like it"[[note]]With the exception of Sparta, which freely admitted that it would go to war "[[BloodKnight because we have nobody else to fight right now]]."[[/note]] or even "because we're afraid of you"; even an aggressive war would have to have some kind of triggering incursion, insult, or violation behind it. (Look up how each of the three UsefulNotes/PunicWars got started — the pretexts are hilariously flimsy.)

* That pig thing, in the trope discription? [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859) It was real.]] It wasn't much of a war though: "The pig was the only casualty of the war, making the conflict otherwise bloodless." from Wiki/TheOtherWiki. The situation was diffused largely because the commanders of both sides flatly refused to fight over something so stupid.

* When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they claimed it was to stop NATO eastward expansion...except Ukraine was not in the process of joining NATO. Then they claimed it was to denazify Ukraine...except Ukraine's president is Jewish and far-right parties have minimal support, and neo-Nazis were seen among the Russian invaders[[note]]though Russia's PropagandaMachine [[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/06/how-victory-day-became-central-to-putin-idea-of-russian-identity heavily downplays the Nazis' antisemitism]], instead defining the Nazis purely by the fact they invaded the Soviet Union and by extension Russia, and apparently extending that to mean ''all'' opponents of the Russian Federation are Nazis[[/note]]. Then they claimed it was to stop Ukraine from gaining nuclear weapons...which they weren't. Needless to say, Russia has yet to provide a halfway convincing reason for invading. Ironically, both Sweden and Finland quickly announced their intention to join NATO shortly after the war began.

* When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they claimed it was to stop NATO eastward expansion...except Ukraine was not in the process of joining NATO. Then they claimed it was to denazify Ukraine...except Ukraine's president is Jewish and far-right parties have minimal support. Then they claimed it was to stop Ukraine from gaining nuclear weapons...which they weren't. Needless to say, Russia has yet to provide a halfway convincing reason for invading. Ironically, both Sweden and Finland quickly announced their intention to join NATO shortly after the war began.

** 9/11 aside, the main pretext for war as sold to the public was the Iraqi government failing to hand over it's hidden chemical weapon stockpiles. Weapons it would later turn out they did not actually possess.

* ''Film/ThePrincessBride'' has this as its entire plot: the men who kidnap Buttercup are doing so in order to start a war between Florin, her home country, and their enemy of Guilder. [[spoiler:The plot is masterminded by her fiancé Prince Humperdinck, who intends to murder Buttercup on their wedding night after Vizzini's kidnapping plot is foiled.]]

Point is, an incident any two sane heads of state would quietly defuse is treated as a RantInducingSlight in order to start the war. In these cases, heroes typically have to uncover the plot in order to PreventTheWar.

* When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they claimed it was to stop NATO eastward expansion...except Ukraine was not in the process of joining NATO. Then they claimed it was to denazify Ukraine...except Ukraine's president is Jewish and far-right parties have minimal support. Then they claimed it was to stop Ukraine from gaining nuclear weapons...which they weren't. Needless to say, Russia has yet to provide a halfway convincing reason for invading.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree "World War Three"]]: The Slitheen try to gain access to Britain's nuclear arsenal and start WorldWarThree so they can [[WarForFunAndProfit sell]] the radioactive remains of the planet as fuel.

** In ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' the Clone Wars are sparked when revelation that the Separatists have built a secret army of droids on Geonosis prompts the Republic to deploy the recently discovered clone army grown on Camino, despite the shady and unknown details of ''their'' secret commissioning years earlier. Of course, ''both'' these armies were built by Palpatine's design and the war itself is just a pretext to seizing control and turning TheRepublic into TheEmpire

* In ''VideoGame/TriangleStrategy'', Dragan's death [[spoiler:as part of a FalseFlagOperation]] is used by Gustadolph as a pretext to invade Glenbrook and take control of the Grand Norzelian Mines.

* Creator/ParadoxInteractive's grand strategy games usually require you to come up with a ''casus belli'' ([[FanNickname called a CB in fandom]]) before you can declare war on someone:

** ''[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing: Isard's Revenge]]'' uses this for some MoralDissonance. The New Republic is picking a fight with the neutral (if admittedly pro-Imperial) Ciutric Hegemony. Prince-Admiral Krennel is obviously not a nice man, but the best pretext the New Republic can come up with for starting the war is Krennel's execution of Sate Pestage several years previously when the latter tried to defect to the Rebellion, which at worst is a case of KickTheSonOfABitch (Pestage was an AssholeVictim), along with Krennel's family (over a hundred people died in that purge alone) and a number of other purges he committed to keep himself in power. Myn Donos notes that one of his former squamates came from Toprawa, a planet deep within Imperial territory that's being repressed much more harshly than the worlds in the Hegemony due to its people's role in the theft of the Death Star plans, while even the generally saintly Admiral Ackbar more or less confesses that going after Krennel is as much about New Republic sabre-rattling to frighten bigger warlords like Teradoc as it about "liberating" the people under his rule (it takes place in the immediate aftermath of [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn's invasion of the New Republic]] and the Republic brass doesn't want the remaining warlords getting ideas). And then things get muddled further when the New Republic stumbles upon a hidden lab that they claim proves that Krennel is trying to build another planet-killing superweapon, while Krennel claims that he never knew about the lab and it's obvious a New Republic trick to justify their actions. [[spoiler:He's half-right: the lab is bait for the Republic by a clone of Ysanne Isard who is playing them and Krennel off against each other, and the superweapon indeed doesn't exist.]]

One interesting and {{iron|y}}ic variant is when hardline elements from both sides will collaborate to stage a high profile assassination or other incident to kickstart a war, proving just how well they work together to achieve their goals despite hating each other's guts. This one is especially common when one or both nations have a ReasonableAuthorityFigure as a head of state, since it can force their hand to war, or if they're the assassination target, get them out of the picture ''and'' make them an unwitting martyr. FalseFlagOperation is one of the classical moves too, and almost a Twentieth Century theme song.

*** After Rome won the First War, Carthage's influence zone in the Iberian Peninsula was limited to the area south of the Ebrus river... And ''then'' made an alliance treat Hamilcar and later his son Hannibal then proceeded to subjugate the tribes and cities south of the river, only to hit a snag when they got to Saguntum, as the city was an ally of Rome.

* UsefulNotes/TheCrimeanWar started thanks to a dispute between Catholic and Orthodox clergymen in Bethlehem (present-day Israel, then part of the Ottoman Empire), over the keys to the Church of the Nativity. This led to the awkward situation of Catholic France and Anglican Britain siding with Muslim Turkey against Orthodox Russia over a religious argument.

* ''VideoGame/Humankind'' has a more abstract form of this in its War Support. Grievances against other empires aren't themselves a valid pretext, but if demands for reparations go unmet, it builds public support for war. Notably, this also works the other way. When war support hits zero during a conflict, that side is forced to capitulate, and gets no say in the terms.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident Gleiwitz Incident]] was used as a pretext for Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. An SS commando in Polish uniforms attacked a radio station near the Polish border and broadcast anti-German propaganda. They even dressed a prisoner in Polish uniform and shot him to add authenticity.
** It was actually bigger than people think. During the summer of 1939, the Nazis staged attacks on ethnic Germans in Poland, claiming this was the work of Polish terrorists.

** ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has a range of ''casus belli'' based on a star nation's ethics and government type. Normal nations can declare wars of conquest only after spending Influence to stake claims to other empires' systems, while Pacifistic empires can only "liberate" worlds, creating a new nation with identical ethics to their own. You can also declare war to specifically humiliate a nation you've declared your rival, force someone to become your vassal, or impose your ideology upon them. [[AbsoluteXenophobe Fanatical Purifiers]], [[TheAssimilator Driven Assimlators]], and [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Devouring Swarms]], on the other hand, don't really need a ''casus belli'' to attack a neighbor, and likewise other nations can use the "Contain Threat" justification against them. And just owning a [[PlanetDestroyer Colossus]] is enough to justify another power waging total war against you, or vice versa.

** ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has a range of ''casus belli'' based on a star nation's ethics and government type. Normal nations can declare wars of conquest only after spending Influence to stake claims to other empires' systems, while Pacifistic empires can only "liberate" worlds, creating a new nation with identical ethics to their own. You can also declare war to specifically humiliate a nation you've declared your rival, force someone to become your vassal, or impose your ideology upon them. [[AbsoluteXenophobe Fanatical Purifiers]], [[TheAssimilator Driven Assimlators]], and [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Devouring Swarms]], on the other hand, don't really need a ''casus belli'' to attack a neighbor, and likewise other nations can use the "Contain Threat" justification against them. And just owning a [[KillSat Colossus]] is enough to justify another power waging total war against you, or vice versa.

* The very first scene of ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' is a Klingon warlord speechifying to his followers that TheFederation is a threat that must be destroyed. It's part of a GengisGambit to unite the feuding houses against a common foe. He gets his wish in the next episode when open war breaks out.