False flags: a strategic approach

A “false flag operation” is when one actor covertly carries out an attack in hopes that an adversary will take the blame for it. For instance, the Soviet Union began the 1939 Winter War against Finland by shelling a town on their own side of the border so that domestic and international opinion would blame Finland for starting the war. Why carry out such an attack? Under what conditions would it be rational? I develop a game-theoretic model to address these questions. An actor could carry out a false flag attack in equilibrium if it does not find it too costly, their adversary wants to do that kind of attack and the third party is willing to punish the adversary because they are more likely to be the guilty party. I discuss the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia as a potential case of successful false flag attacks by Vladimir Putin that convinced the Russian public to support a renewed war against Chechnya.