Engineered provocation
Overview
An engineered provocation is a situation wherein a provocateur entity (typically acting on behalf of a country) carefully goads a mark (typically acting on behalf of another country) into making an overt attack on the provocateur – or into taking action which the provocateur can claim is an attack – and thereby publicly justify more intensive hostilities against the mark.
Related Pages
False flag attacks are often used for the same purpose as engineered provocation; when used for this purpose, a false flag attack is one extreme of the engineered provocation spectrum in that the mark does not actually have to do anything in order to be blamed for the attack.
At the other end of the spectrum would be situations where the provocateur deliberately sets up a tempting target and allows lives to be lost in the service of inflaming public opinion, but does not otherwise misinterpret the mark's actions or participate in the attack. Examples of this variety include:
- the attack on Pearl Harbor, which provided the public motivation for the United States to enter World War II
- the 9/11 attacks, which provided sufficient public motivation for the US invasion of Iraq and the disastrous occupation which followed
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