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Did a Tyrian pig farmer lose a pig when it cross into Viridia by accident, whereupon a Viridian caught and <s>cooked</s> made it his pet? [[This Means War]]! Maybe a Viridian girl disappeared near the Tyrian border? Tyrian slavers must want to [[Mars Needs Women|capture Viridian women]] since theirs are so ugly! A favorite is for [[Star-Crossed Lovers]] from both sides (preferably royalty) to elope, causing both sides to assume the other kidnapped their heir.
 
One interesting and [[Irony|ironic]] 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 [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] 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. [[False -Flag Operation]] is one of classical moves too, and almost XX century theme song.
 
Point is, an incident any two sane heads of state would quietly defuse is treated as a [[Rant-Inducing Slight]] in order to start the war.
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A technical term for this is the latin term ''Casus Belli'', or case for war.
 
Since [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression: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 [[Idiot Plot|Idiot]] [[Fawlty Towers Plot]].
 
See also [[War for Fun And Profit]].
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== Live Action TV ==
* The Silurian captured by the humans in the recent ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' two-parter hopes to be killed and tries to get killed, just to start the war.
** And several seasons earlier, the Slitheen try to start [[World War Three]] so they can [[War for Fun And Profit|sell]] the radioactive remains of the planet as fuel.
 
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== Real Life ==
* That pig thing, in the trope discription? [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_WarPig War|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 [[The Other Wiki]].
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear:War of Jenkinschr(27) Ear|The War of Jenkins' Ear]]. The British had managed to get themselves exclusive rights to trade slaves in the Spanish colonies in America, but at the cost of Spanish crews being allowed to board British ships and search their cargo. Relations became rather strained, and then a one-eared merchant captain by the name of Jenkins showed up in Parliament with a severed ear and a story of Spanish brutality that sparked the above war. It is doubtful as to whether the ear exhibited in Parliament was actually Jenkins' lost ear, as historians today and his contemporaries believe that he lost his ear in a bar fight years before.
* [[World War I]]. The assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was just an excuse for destroying Serbia. Which sounds a bit unreasonable until you realise that the very existence of Serbia, an independent nation of ethnic Serbs who aimed to someday unite all of Greater Serbia, was a threat to the unity of the Habsburgs' multi-national empire. Right from the start they thought that, with Germany backing them all the way, Russia would back down rather than risk war with them 'and' Germany at the same time, as happened 6 years before over the formal annexation of Habsburg-occupied, technically Ottoman Bosnia.
** Furthermore, right from the start the German High Command's universally accepted plan of action was the Schlieffen plan, which involved invading France through Belgium and taking her out of the equation before the Russian steamroller could mobilise and flatten the Allies from the east. So when Russia mobilised her armies Germany delivered an ultimatum to France as a pretext for war, demanding her neutrality despite being an ally of Russia and asking her to hand over fortresses integral to France's defences along their shared border within 24 hours. The French were only too happy to refuse with indignation; the ''Revanche''-ist movement, a movement seeking revenge for France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the re-annexation of the province of Elsaß-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine) was a force not to be denied.
*** In other words, the true causes were jingoism, militarism, alliances, imperialism, commercialism, and nationalism.
**** Or to make a long story short, a bunch of people wanted some stuff and threatened to go to war if they didn't get it but only mostly wanted a war. Some other people didn't want to give it to them but kind of wanted a war too. One thing led to another and there was a war. A really, really big war. Then about 6 months later they all thought to themselves, 'Why the hell did we do that?'
* The [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila:Shelling of Mainila|Mainila incident]], which the Soviet Union used as a pretext for invading Finland during the Winter War. It has been established that there is no way the Finns could have been responsible, as none of their artillery was in range at the time. See [[False -Flag Operation]].
* Similarly, the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident:Gulf of Tonkin incident|Gulf of Tonkin incident]], in which an American ship on patrol claimed to have been attacked by Vietnamese gunboats, serving as a pretext for the Vietnam War; but the reports may have been fabricated to gain popular support for escalating military operations in Southeast Asia.
* To make a trifecta, the sinking of the ''[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR:USS Maine chr(28)ACR-1%1chr(29 )|USS Maine]]'' in Havana Harbor provided America with the perfect excuse to start the Spanish-American War and take over Cuba and Spain's Pacific possessions. Investigations since then seem to be split on whether it was a deliberate act of war by the Spanish, a [[False -Flag Operation]] by Cuban rebels, or a genuine accident caused by a fire in a coal bunker.
* The independence of the Republic of Colombia was supposedly triggered by "El Florero de Llorente" (the vase of Llorente) which was a trick by the supporters of the independence to upset a spanish merchant so they will have an excuse to arise the crowd against the spanish people. This lead to the popular expression used when you need a excuse to start a fight.
* The [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident: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.
 
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Pretext For War]]
[[Category:Trope]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/618387"
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