Small Sparks, Close Calls

Wars tend to arrive with speeches and headlines, yet the first shove is often weirdly small. The grievances are old and heavy, sitting there for years, and then the moment that tips everything can be a detail you’d miss in a retelling. A driver takes the wrong street. A report gets read the worst possible way. A border patrol improvises. Someone stages a little incident that only needs to look plausible for one news cycle. After the shooting starts, the story gets cleaned up until it seems inevitable, because nobody wants to admit how easily the situation tipped. Here are ten wars where the spark was surprisingly minor, followed by ten times things almost went off the rails and didn’t, mostly because luck and timing stepped in at the last second.

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1. The Arrow Incident And A Flag That Became A War

In 1856, Qing officials seized a vessel called the Arrow, and the dispute over its status and the insult to a British flag became the spark for the Second Opium War. What reads like paperwork and maritime theater turned into bombardment, then into a wider conflict once prestige took over.

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2. Jenkins’ Ear Becoming A Case For War

The War of Jenkins’ Ear carries its origin story in the name, built around a British captain who claimed Spanish coast guards cut off his ear in 1731. Years later, the incident was used as a vivid political prop, turning a single grievance into a public justification for a major colonial war.

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3. A Sacred Stool And A Colonial Misread

In 1900, a British governor’s demand for the Ashanti Golden Stool, a spiritual and political symbol, helped trigger a major uprising and war. The demand treated the stool like a trophy, and the response treated the demand like an attempt to take the nation’s core identity.

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4. A Stray Dog And Ten Days Of Fighting

In 1925, a border incident between Greece and Bulgaria spiraled into the Incident at Petrich, sometimes nicknamed the War of the Stray Dog. The details are disputed, yet the core pattern is clear, a minor border moment escalated into an invasion before outside pressure forced a stop.

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5. Soccer Matches That Lit A Fuse

The 1969 Football War between El Salvador and Honduras had deeper causes, yet the immediate trigger was a series of World Cup qualifier matches that intensified nationalist anger and violence. A sports event became the matchstick because it provided a public stage for tension that was already waiting to flare.

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6. A Timber Arrest Turning Into A Mobilization

The Aroostook War in 1838–1839 was a boundary dispute that escalated into militias and mobilization over contested land and timber. It stayed mostly bloodless, yet it still shows how quickly a local enforcement move can harden into a confrontation between states.

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7. Surveyors And Ballots Creating A Militia Standoff

The Toledo War began as a boundary dispute between Ohio and the Michigan Territory and quickly became a militia standoff with arrests and small clashes. It wasn’t a world-historical bloodbath, yet it’s a clean example of how a strip of land and a few local confrontations can pull governments into escalation.

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8. A Frozen River Island Turning Into A Nuclear Flashpoint

In March 1969, fighting on Zhenbao, also called Damansky Island, turned a border dispute between China and the Soviet Union into deadly clashes and a major crisis. It started with an armed encounter on a disputed patch of river, then rapidly became a serious flashpoint between nuclear powers.

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9. A Mythic Bucket That Still Explains The Dynamic

The War of the Bucket is often told as a war started by a stolen bucket, and the bucket tale is widely treated as a story attached to a deeper political struggle. It persists because it captures something real, tiny symbols can become usable excuses when rival powers already want to fight.

梅本忠男 Umemoto, Tadao（ネガ番号: 416C） on Wikimedia

10. The Nomonhan Border Clash 

In 1939, a disputed patch of borderland near the Khalkhin Gol River turned into major fighting between Japan and the Soviet Union after small patrol moves and competing maps escalated into artillery, armor, and air power. What started as a local argument over where the line sat became too charged to walk back without someone losing face. It ended up shaping bigger decisions afterward, including where Japan focused its expansion next.

And now, here are ten wars that were narrowly diverted by pure luck.

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1. A Pig That Almost Started A U.S.–British War

In 1859, a pig being shot on the San Juan Islands set off a confrontation between U.S. and British forces over a disputed border. Troops arrived, tempers rose, and the standoff dragged on, yet it never turned into open war because restraint held long enough for diplomacy to catch up.

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2. Nootka Sound And A Crisis That Deflated

In 1789–1790, seizures and sovereignty claims at Nootka Sound brought Britain and Spain close to war. It cooled instead of igniting, partly because the balance of power and timing made compromise more attractive than escalation.

Agnes C. Laut on Wikimedia

3. A Tree Trimming That Nearly Turned The DMZ Hot

In 1976, two U.S. officers were killed during an attempt to trim a tree in the Joint Security Area, and the moment had all the ingredients for a rapid spiral. A massive show of force followed, yet the situation stopped short of war, in part because neither side took the final step.

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4. A Midair Collision And A Careful Apology

In 2001, a U.S. EP-3 collided with a Chinese fighter near Hainan, then made an emergency landing, and the crew was detained. The crisis ended through carefully worded diplomacy that let both sides claim they weren’t backing down, which is often the only way out.

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5. A Navy Attack That Could Have Split Allies

The 1967 attack on the USS Liberty killed Americans during the Six-Day War and created a moment where anger could have metastasized fast. It did not become a broader conflict, and that outcome depended on rapid containment and a lot of people choosing not to widen the blast radius.

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6. A Bombing Error That Didn’t Become A Fight

In 1999, bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing Chinese nationals and detonating a political crisis. It did not escalate into military confrontation, and that outcome depended on diplomacy and the plain luck that nobody treated the moment as a deliberate declaration.

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7. A Jet Shootdown Between Russia And A NATO Country

In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 near the Syria–Turkey border, and the situation could have spiraled in a region already crowded with weapons and grievances. It didn’t become a direct Russia–NATO clash because escalation was contained before it crossed the final line.

Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on Wikimedia

8. Warships Playing Bumper Cars In The Black Sea

In 1988, Soviet ships deliberately bumped U.S. Navy vessels during a Cold War confrontation over passage rights. The incident stayed physical but limited, and the lack of casualties helped keep it from becoming a trigger for something larger.

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9. A Missile That Landed And Didn’t Detonate

In 2007, a missile landed in Georgia near the South Ossetia conflict zone and failed to explode, with Russia and Georgia blaming each other and investigators disagreeing. The dud mattered because casualties would have created far fewer options for restraint.

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10. The Norwegian Rocket Scare

In January 1995, Russia detected a rocket launch from Norway that briefly looked, on early warning systems, like the opening move of a nuclear attack. The alert chain moved fast enough that Russia’s nuclear briefcase procedures were reportedly activated before the launch was identified as a scientific rocket and the threat assessment was downgraded. It didn’t become a catastrophe because the launch was clarified in time and nobody treated ambiguity as permission to strike.

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