# Scripted Events in Global Politics?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 20, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403 "2006-07-20T22:39:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403/1 "2006-07-20T22:39:03Z")
Is there clearcut evidence that it has ever happened that, what appeared to most people to be a conflict between two governments, was in fact secretly explicitly scripted by those two governments?
Or if not governments, then some other set of organizations?
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2006, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403/2 "2006-07-21T03:25:37Z")
In the [Suez Crisis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis), the intervention of Britain and France was a set up:
> [@](#):
>
> In the months that followed Egypt’s nationalization of the canal company, with the support of the former managers of the company that operated the canal, Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez, a secret meeting between Israel, France and Britain took place at Sèvres, outside Paris. Details only emerged years later, as records of the meeting were suppressed and destroyed. All parties agreed that Israel should invade and that Britain and France would subsequently intervene, instruct the Israeli and Egyptian armies to withdraw their forces to a distance of ten miles (16 km) from either side of the canal, and then place an Anglo-French intervention force in the Canal Zone around Port Said. It was to be called “Operation Musketeer”
Things didn’t go to script for very long, though.
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### Author:  [@moof12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moof12)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2006, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403/3 "2006-07-22T04:16:51Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Is there clearcut evidence that it has ever happened that, what appeared to most people to be a conflict between two governments, was in fact secretly explicitly scripted by those two governments?
>
> Or if not governments, then some other set of organizations?
>
> -FrL-
Hows this for an answer. The United States secretly funded the Third Reich. The United States destroyed Nazi Germmany in 1945. Today, Germany is the third richest nation in the world, the United States being its biggest importer. Doesn’t quite all add up.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403/4 "2006-07-22T04:22:39Z")
> [@moof12](#):
>
> Hows this for an answer. The United States secretly funded the Third Reich. The United States destroyed Nazi Germmany in 1945. Today, Germany is the third richest nation in the world, the United States being its biggest importer. Doesn’t quite all add up.
As I indicated in the OP, I was looking for “clearcut evidence.”
What you’ve brought up is fine for the fun activity of spinning conspiracy theories. (Good times! Good times!) But I was hoping for something much more solid.
The Suez Crisis post was very interesting! I’d say if I can say I know government’s have tried it on one occasion, I’m licensed to feel I can bet with some certainty that they’ve tried it on numerous other occasions. What say the good people of the Dope to this principle of inference?
-FrL-
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scripted-events-in-global-politics/365403/5 "2006-07-22T17:16:42Z")
I don’t know of any governments running a sham war – war is too unpredictable – but there are many cases where a government urged another to fight a third.
In WWI, the French government openly urged Serbia to not back down to Austria, and openly urged the Russians to back Serbia. The France wanted to go to war with Germany, and these actions were likely to lead to that result.
Japan entered the war on the urging of the Allies; Japan had no real beef with the Central Powers, but were promised territory if they went to war.