![Douglas A-26C Invader 435440 Tamiami 26](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Douglas_A-26C_Invader_435440_Tamiami_26.04.09R.jpg)
A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrepresentation of someone's allegiance.
The term was famously used to describe a ruse in
naval warfare
Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Even in the interior of large la ...
whereby a vessel flew the flag of a neutral or enemy country in order to hide its true identity.
The tactic was originally used by
pirates
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
and
privateers
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...
to deceive other ships into allowing them to move closer before attacking them. It later was deemed an acceptable practice during naval warfare according to international maritime laws, provided the attacking vessel displayed its true flag once an attack had begun.
The term today extends to include countries that organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving the nation that was supposedly attacked a
pretext A pretext (adj: pretextual) is an excuse to do something or say something that is not accurate. Pretexts may be based on a half-truth or developed in the context of a misleading fabrication. Pretexts have been used to conceal the true purpose or rat ...
for domestic repression or foreign military aggression.
[deHaven-Smith, Lance (2013). ''Conspiracy Theory in America''. Austin: ]University of Texas Press
The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...
. p. 225 Similarly deceptive activities carried out during peacetime by individuals or nongovernmental organizations have been called false flag operations, but the more common legal term is a "
frameup
__NOTOC__
In the United States criminal law, a frame-up (frameup) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime. While incriminating those who a ...
", "stitch up", or "setup".
Use in warfare
In land warfare, such operations are generally deemed acceptable under certain circumstances, such as to
deceive enemies, provided the deception is not
perfidious
In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith (such as by raising a White flag, flag of truce) with the intention of breaking that promise once the unsuspecting enemy is exposed (such as by ...
and that all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy. Similarly, in
naval warfare
Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Even in the interior of large la ...
such a deception is considered permissible, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle.
Auxiliary cruiser
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
s operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did
Q-ship
Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open f ...
s, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. Such masquerades promoted confusion not just of the enemy but of historical accounts. In 1914 the
Battle of Trindade
SS ''Cap Trafalgar'' was a German ocean liner launched in 1913 for the Hamburg Süd line. In 1914, she was converted for use as an auxiliary cruiser during World War I. She was the first armed merchant cruiser sunk by a ship of the same class; ...
was fought between the British auxiliary cruiser
RMS ''Carmania'' and the German auxiliary cruiser
SMS ''Cap Trafalgar'', which had been altered to look like ''Carmania''. (Contrary to some accounts, the RMS ''Carmania'' had ''not'' been altered to resemble the ''Cap Trafalgar''.)
Another notable example was the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
German commerce raider
''Kormoran'', which
surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser
HMAS ''Sydney'' in 1941 while disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, causing the greatest loss of life on an Australian warship. While ''Kormoran'' was fatally damaged in the engagement and its crew captured, the outcome represented a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.
The British used a ''
Kriegsmarine
The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...
''
ensign
An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be diffe ...
in the
St Nazaire Raid
The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War. The operation was undertaken by the Royal Navy (RN) a ...
and captured a German
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
book. The old destroyer
''Campbeltown'', which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications that involved cutting the ship's funnels and
chamfer
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces.
Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...
ing the edges to resemble a German
Type 23 torpedo boat
The Type 23 torpedo boat (also known as the ''Raubvogel'' (bird of prey) or the ''Möwe'' class) was a group of six torpedo boats built for the '' Reichsmarine'' during the 1920s. As part of the renamed '' Kriegsmarine'', the boats made multiple ...
. By this ruse the British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged ''Campbeltown'' and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.
Air warfare
Between December 1922 and February 1923, a commission of jurists at
the Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
drafted a set of rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare. They included:
:Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exterior mark indicating its nationality and its military character.
: Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forbidden.
This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
states in its introduction on the draft: "To a great extent,
he draft rulescorrespond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea," and as such these two non-controversial articles were already part of customary law.
Land warfare
In land warfare, the use of a false flag is similar to that of naval warfare: the trial of
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including th ...
, who planned and commanded
Operation Greif
Operation Greif (german: Unternehmen Greif) was a special operation commanded by '' Waffen-SS'' commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The operation purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse ...
, by a U.S.
military tribunal
Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bodie ...
at the
Dachau Trials included a finding that Skorzeny was not guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. He had relayed to his men the warning of German legal experts: that if they fought in American uniforms, they would be breaking the
laws of war
The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territor ...
; however, they probably were not doing so simply by ''wearing'' the American uniforms. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement.
In the transcript of the trial, it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the
Field Manual
''Field Manual'' is the debut solo album by Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla, released on January 29, 2008 on Barsuk Records. This is Walla's first album under his own name. It was previously speculated that Walla may use a moniker, mo ...
published by the
War Department War Department may refer to:
* War Department (United Kingdom)
* United States Department of War (1789–1947)
See also
* War Office, a former department of the British Government
* Ministry of defence
* Ministry of War
* Ministry of Defence
* Dep ...
,
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
, on 1 October 1940, under the entry ''Rules of Land Warfare'' states: "National flags, insignias and uniforms as a rusein practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the
IV Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded."
As pretexts for war
Russo-Swedish War
In 1788, the head tailor at the
Royal Swedish Opera
Royal Swedish Opera ( sv, Kungliga Operan) is an opera and ballet company based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Location and environment
The building is located in the center of Sweden's capital Stockholm in the borough of Norrmalm, on the eastern side ...
received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage an attack on
Puumala
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, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
and impressed the
Riksdag of the Estates
Riksdag of the Estates ( sv, Riksens ständer; informally sv, Ståndsriksdagen) was the name used for the Estates of Sweden when they were assembled. Until its dissolution in 1866, the institution was the highest authority in Sweden next to t ...
, the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an offensive war against Russia. The Puumala incident allowed King
Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates' consent, to launch the
Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)
The Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790 was fought between Sweden and Russia from June 1788 to August 1790. The war was ended by the Treaty of Värälä on 14 August 1790 and took place concomitantly with both the Austro-Turkish War (1788–1791) ...
.
Franco-Prussian War
On July 13, 1870,
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
published the
Ems Dispatch
The Ems Dispatch (french: Dépêche d'Ems, german: Emser Depesche), sometimes called the Ems Telegram, was published on 13 July 1870 and incited the Second French Empire to start the Franco-Prussian War and to declare war on the Kingdom of Prus ...
– an internal message from King
Wilhelm I
William I or Wilhelm I (german: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig; 22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888) was King of Prussia from 2 January 1861 and German Emperor from 18 January 1871 until his death in 1888. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the f ...
to Bismarck regarding certain demands made by the French ambassador. In the version purposefully released to the public, Bismarck instead made it sound like the King had gravely disrespected the ambassador – a ploy to trick Emperor
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
into declaring war on the
North German Confederation
The North German Confederation (german: Norddeutscher Bund) was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated st ...
, with the end goal of unifying the northern and southern German states. This ploy would be successful, as Napoleon III would declare war six days later; and six months later, the Confederation would win and
unify the German states.
Second Sino-Japanese War
![193109 mukden incident railway sabotage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/193109_mukden_incident_railway_sabotage.jpg)
In September 1931,
Seishirō Itagaki
was a Japanese military officer and politician who served as a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and War Minister from 1938 to 1939.
Itagaki was a main conspirator behind the Mukden Incident and held prestigious chief of ...
and other
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
mid- to junior-grade officers, without the knowledge of the Tokyo government, fabricated a pretext for invading
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
by blowing up a section of railway. Though the explosion was too weak to disrupt operations on the rail line, the Japanese nevertheless used the
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
On September 18, 1931, L ...
to seize Manchuria and create a
puppet government
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sovere ...
in the form of the nominally independent state of
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...
.
World War II
Gleiwitz incident
![Alfred Naujocks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Alfred_Naujocks.jpg)
The
Gleiwitz incident
The Gleiwitz incident (german: Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz; ) was a false flag attack on the radio station ''Sender Gleiwitz'' in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31 August 1939. Along ...
in 1939 involved
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
fabricating evidence of a
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
attack against
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
to mobilize German public opinion for war and to justify the
war with Poland.
Alfred Naujocks
Alfred Helmut Naujocks (20 September 1911 – 4 April 1966), alias ''Hans Müller'', ''Alfred Bonsen'', and ''Rudolf Möbert'', was a German SS functionary during the Third Reich. He took part in the staged Gleiwitz incident, a false flag inten ...
was a key organiser of the operation under orders from Heydrich. It led to the deaths of
Nazi concentration camp
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
victims who were dressed as German soldiers and then shot by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
to make it seem that they had been shot by Polish soldiers. This, along with other false flag operations in
Operation Himmler
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...
, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of
World War II in Europe.
The operation failed to convince international public opinion of the German claims, and both Britain and FrancePoland's alliesdeclared war two days after Germany invaded Poland.
Winter War
On 26 November 1939, the
Soviet army
uk, Радянська армія
, image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg
, alt =
, caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army
, start_date ...
shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet authorities blamed
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
for the attack and used the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the
Winter War
The Winter War,, sv, Vinterkriget, rus, Зи́мняя война́, r=Zimnyaya voyna. The names Soviet–Finnish War 1939–1940 (russian: link=no, Сове́тско-финская война́ 1939–1940) and Soviet–Finland War 1 ...
, four days later.
Cuban Revolution
Operation Northwoods
![NorthwoodsMemorandum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/NorthwoodsMemorandum.jpg)
The proposed, but never executed, 1962
Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against American citizens that originated within the US Department of Defense of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for CIA operatives to both stage and actually co ...
plot by the
U.S. Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
for a war with
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
involved scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs. These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
's communist government. It was authored by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
, but then rejected by President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the
Assassination Records Review Board
The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, or the JFK Records Act, is a public law passed by the United States Congress, effective October 26, 1992. It directed the National Archives and Records Administration (NAR ...
in the mid-1990s. Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by
James Bamford
James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). ''The New Y ...
.
Russian invasion of Ukraine
In January and February 2022, Western government agencies predicted that Russia would use a false flag operation in Ukraine. In the days leading up to the 24 February
Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, the Russian government intensified its
disinformation campaign
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
, with Russian state media promoting false flags on a nearly hourly basis purporting to show Ukrainian forces attacking Russia, in a bid to justify an invasion of Ukraine.
Many of the disinformation videos were poor and amateur in quality, with mismatching metadata showing incorrect dates,
and evidence from ''
Bellingcat
Bellingcat (stylised as bellngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 ...
'' researchers, and other independent journalists, showed that the claimed attacks, explosions, and evacuations in
Donbas
The Donbas or Donbass (, ; uk, Донба́с ; russian: Донба́сс ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. Parts of the Donbas are controlled by Russian separatist groups as a result of the Russo-Ukrai ...
were staged by Russia.
As a tactic to undermine political opponents
Operation TPAJAX
On 4 April 1953, the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
.
[Callanan, James (2009)]
''Covert Action in the Cold War: US Policy, intelligence and CIA operations''
London: I.B. Tauris. p.115 One tactic used to undermine Mosaddegh was to carry out false flag attacks "on mosques and key public figures", to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government.
The CIA operation was code-named
TPAJAX. The tactic of a "directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party",
[Risen, James]
Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran – A Special Report; How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and '79)
''The New York Times'', 16 April 2000 involved the bombing of "at least one" well known Muslim's house by CIA agents posing as Communists.
The CIA determined that the tactic of false flag attacks added to the "positive outcome" of
TPAJAX.
However, as "the C.I.A. burned nearly all of its files on its role in the 1953 coup in Iran," the true extent of the tactic has been difficult for historians to discern.
Lavon affair
In the summer of 1954, a group of Egyptian Jews recruited by Israeli army intelligence were caught with plans to bomb American, British, and Egyptian civil targets in Egypt. The bombings were to be blamed on the
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
, Egyptian
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
, "unspecified malcontents", or "local nationalists", with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to refrain from evacuating its troops occupying Egypt's
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
zone, a move that would embolden
Egyptian President
The president of Egypt is the executive head of state of Egypt and the de facto appointer of the official head of government under the Egyptian Constitution of 2014. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt following the Egy ...
Nasser against Israel. However, the plot was exposed before launch and Egyptian authorities were able to tail an operative to his target, arrest him and later search his apartment where the entire plan, including the names of other agents and explosive materials, was held. The exposé caused a scandal in Israel, with Israeli officials blaming one another for the operation and the Israeli defense minister,
Pinhas Lavon
Pinhas Lavon ( he, פנחס לבון, 12 July 1904 – 24 January 1976) was an Israeli politician, minister and labor leader, best known for the Lavon Affair.
Early life
Lavon was born as Pinhas Lubianiker in the small city of Kopychyntsi in t ...
, resigning under pressure.
Pseudo-operations
Pseudo-operations are those in which forces of one power disguise themselves as enemy forces. For example, a state power may disguise teams of operatives as insurgents and, with the aid of defectors, infiltrate insurgent areas.
[Cline, Lawrence E. (2005]
''Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from other countries''
, Strategic Studies Institute
The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is the U.S. Army's institute for strategic and national security research and analysis. It is part of the U.S. Army War College. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the U.S. Army War Co ...
. The aim of such pseudo-operations may be to gather short or long-term
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
or to engage in active operations, in particular
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
s of important enemies. However, they usually involve both, as the risks of exposure rapidly increase with time and intelligence gathering eventually leads to violent confrontation. Pseudo-operations may be directed by military or police forces, or both. Police forces are usually best suited to intelligence tasks; however, military provide the structure needed to back up such pseudo-ops with military response forces. According to US military expert Lawrence Cline (2005), "the teams typically have been controlled by police services, but this largely was due to the weaknesses in the respective military intelligence systems."
![Charlemagne Péralte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Charlemagne_P%C3%A9ralte.jpg)
The
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate (also translated as the State Political Administration) (GPU) was the intelligence service and secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) from February 6, 1922, to December 29, 1922, ...
(OGPU) of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926. During
Operation Trust
Operation Trust (Russian: операция "Трест", tr. Operatsiya "Trest") was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) of the Soviet Union. The operation, which was set up by GPU's predecessor Cheka, ran fro ...
, they used loose networks of
White Army
The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв ...
supporters and extended them, creating the pseudo-"Monarchist Union of Central Russia" (MUCR) in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks.
An example of a successful assassination was
United States Marine
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
Sergeant
Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other uni ...
Herman H. Hanneken
Herman Henry Hanneken (June 23, 1893 – August 23, 1986) was a United States Marine Corps officer and a recipient of the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor.
Beginning his career as an enlisted man, Hanneken served in the Bana ...
leading a patrol of his
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
an
Gendarmerie
Wrong info! -->
A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...
disguised as enemy
guerrillas in 1919. The patrol successfully passed several enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla leader
Charlemagne Péralte
Charlemagne Masséna Péralte (1886 – 1 November 1919) was a Haitian nationalist leader who opposed the United States occupation of Haiti in 1915. Leading guerrilla fighters called the Cacos, he posed such a challenge to the US forces in Haiti ...
near
Grande-Rivière-du-Nord
Grande-Rivière-du-Nord ( ht, Grann Rivyè dinò) is a commune in the Grande-Rivière-du-Nord Arrondissement, in the Nord Department of Haiti. Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines ( Haitian Creole: ''Jan-Jak Desalin''; ; 20 Sep ...
. Hanneken was awarded the
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. ...
and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed.
During the
Mau Mau uprising
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', an ...
in the 1950s, captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960,
Frank Kitson
General Sir Frank Edward Kitson, (born 15 December 1926) is a retired British Army officer and writer on military subjects, notably low intensity operations. He rose to be Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces from 1982 to 1985 and was Aide-de-C ...
, who was later involved in the
Northern Irish conflict and is now a retired British general, published ''Gangs and Counter-gangs'', an account of his experiences with the technique in
Kenya
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. Information included how to counter gangs and measures of deception, including the use of defectors, which brought the issue a wider audience.
Another example of combined police and military oversight of pseudo-operations include the Selous Scouts in the former country Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), governed by white minority rule until 1980. The Selous Scouts were formed at the beginning of Operation Hurricane, in November 1973, by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Ronald Reid-Daly. As with all Special Forces in Rhodesia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant General Peter Walls. The Selous Scouts were originally composed of 120 members, with all officers being white and the highest rank initially available for black soldiers being color sergeant. They succeeded in turning approximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Special Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500 members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to offensive actions, including the attempted assassination of Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army leader Joshua Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.
Some offensive operations attracted international condemnation, in particular the Selous Scouts' raid on a Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) camp at Nyadzonya Pungwe, Mozambique in August 1976. ZANLA was then led by Josiah Tongogara. Using Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozambique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in the camp, registered as a refugee camp by the United Nations (UN). Even according to Reid-Daly, most of those killed were unarmed guerrillas standing in formation for a parade. The camp hospital was also set ablaze by the rounds fired by the Scouts, killing all patients. According to David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, who visited the camp shortly before the raid, it was only a refugee camp that did not host any guerrillas. It was staged for UN approval.
According to a 1978 study by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, 68% of all insurgent deaths inside Rhodesia could be attributed to the Selous Scouts, who were disbanded in 1980.
If the action is a police action, then these tactics would fall within the laws of the state initiating the pseudo, but if such actions are taken in a civil war or during a belligerent military occupation then those who participate in such actions would not be privileged belligerents. The principle of plausible deniability is usually applied for pseudo-teams. (See the above section #Laws of war, Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, or "the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgency, insurgent-controlled areas".
"Pseudo-operations should be distinguished," notes Cline, "from the more common police or intelligence espionage, infiltration of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case, infiltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from organized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."
Similar false flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian Civil War, Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the Organisation of Young Free Algerians (OJAL) or the Secret Organisation for the Safeguard of the Algerian Republic (OSSRA). According to Roger Faligot and Pascal Kropp (1999), the OJAL was reminiscent of "the Organization of the French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists created in December 1956 by the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (Territorial Surveillance Directorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise".
Espionage
In espionage, the term "false flag" describes the recruiting of agents by operatives posing as representatives of a cause the prospective agents are sympathetic to, or even the agents' own government. For example, during the Cold War, several female West Germany, West German civil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of the East Germany, East German ''Stasi'' intelligence service pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the ''Stasi'' agents were also described as "Romeo and Juliet, Romeos", indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate their targets, making this operation a combination of the false flag and "Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting#Love, honeypots and recruitment, honey trap" techniques).
According to ex-KGB defector Jack Barsky, "Many a right-wing radical had given information to the Soviets under a 'false flag', thinking they were working with a Western ally, such as Israel, when in fact their contact was a KGB operative."
Civilian usage
The term is popular amongst conspiracy theory promoters in referring to covert operations of various governments and claimed cabals. According to ''Columbia Journalism Review'', this usage mostly "migrated to the right", however because some historical false flag incidents occurred, historians should not fully cede the usage of the term to conspiracy theorists. Perlman says "The real danger is if we use the nonattributive 'false flags' as shorthand for conspiracy theories, without explaining what they are and who is promoting them." At the same time, Perlman writes that "people yelling that any attack attributed to someone on 'their side' was committed by 'the other side' drown out the voices of reason."
Political campaigning
Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in various forms, including in person, print media and electronically in recent years. This can involve when supporters of one candidate pose as supporters of another, or act as "Straw man, straw men" for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidate's knowledge. The Canuck letter is an example of one candidate's creating a false document and attributing it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit that candidate.
In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire and New Jersey after blog comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate (Charles Bass) were traced to the IP address of paid staffers for that candidate's opponent (Paul Hodes).
On 19 February 2011, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor Carlos Lam sent a private email to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (politician), Scott Walker suggesting that he run a "'false flag' operation" to counter the 2011 Wisconsin protests, protests against Walker's proposed restrictions on public employees' collective bargaining rights:
If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions... Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support the media may be creating in favor of the unions.
The press had acquired a court order to access all of Walker's emails and Lam's email was exposed. At first, Lam vehemently denied it, but eventually admitted it and resigned.
Some conservative commentators suggested that October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts, pipe bombs that were sent to prominent Democrats prior to the 2018 mid-term elections were part of a false flag effort to discredit Republicans and supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
Cesar Sayoc, motivated by his belief that Democrats were “evil”, was later convicted of mailing the devices to Trump's critics.
On the internet, a concern troll is a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual perspective (cognitive), point of view is opposed to the one that the troll claims to hold. The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to ingroup bias, share their goals, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt within the group often by appealing to outrage culture.
This is a particular case of sockpuppet (Internet), sockpuppeting and safe-baiting.
Ideological
![Cooper bomb threat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Cooper_bomb_threat.gif)
Proponents of political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false flag tactics. This can be done to discredit or implicate rival groups, create the appearance of enemies when none exist, or create the illusion of organized and directed persecution. This can be used to gain attention and sympathy from outsiders, in particular the media, or to convince others within the group that their beliefs are under attack and in need of protection.
In retaliation for writing ''The Scandal of Scientology'', some members of the Church of Scientology stole stationery from author Paulette Cooper's home and then used that stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed to a Scientology office. The Guardian's Office also had a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known as Operation Freakout, but several Scientology operatives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan was exposed.
According to ''PolitiFact'', some false flag conspiracy theories (such as claims that mass shootings are hoaxes) are themselves spread by astroturfing, which is an attempt to create false impression of popularity in a belief.
See also
Concepts
* Agent provocateur
* Black propaganda
* Casus belli
* Denial and deception
* Fear mongering
* Frameup
* Front organization
* Joe job, a similar online concept
* Mimicry
* Red herring
* State terrorism
* Strategy of tension
Examples
* Celle Hole
* Istanbul Pogrom
* Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands (fake party set up by the Dutch security service)
* Masada Action and Defense Movement (French white supremacists, under the guise of a fake extremist Zionist movement, conducted bombings of Arab targets in France in an attempt to start a war between French Arabs and Jews.)
* First of the Baralong incidents
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:False Flag
False flag operations,
Intelligence operations by type
Diversionary tactics
Propaganda techniques
Psychological warfare techniques
Law of war
Piracy
Deception
Military deception