Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order

Atrocity fabrication – the invention and reporting of atrocities committed by an adversary without knowledge that they ever occurred – has a centuries-long history at the heart of propaganda and power politics as an effective means of moving public and international opinion. Its use can provide pretext for a range of hostile measures against its targets, transforming in the public eye wars of unprovoked aggression into wars of liberation of the oppressed, or turning blockades to starve enem...