The Wars That Never Happened (But Almost Did)
Here’s the strange thing about peace: it can arrive by sheer accident. A cable delayed by weather, a general too tired to fight, a diplomat who chooses careful words over dramatic ones. History’s full of moments where the wrong decision, stubborn pride, or simple miscommunication might have plunged entire nations into conflicts that would have reshaped everything we know about the world.
These almost-wars live in the spaces between what did happen and what very nearly could have happened. They remind you that the course of history often depends on individuals making split-second choices when the stakes couldn’t be higher. Often, it was the actions of a few fortunately placed individuals who prevented further escalations in conflict.
Some came breathlessly close to nuclear devastation. Others might have started world wars decades early or changed the entire trajectory of empires. All are examples of war scares: Crises that nearly resulted in armed conflict, but the powers involved managed to avert coming to blows. The remarkable thing isn’t that these crises happened—it’s that cooler heads somehow prevailed when everything seemed to be pushing toward catastrophe.
The Trent Affair
The winter of 1861 brought more than cold weather to Washington—it nearly brought war with Britain. Neither the United States nor Great Britain wanted war, but it was clear that, at best, the Trent incident had sparked a major diplomatic disagreement and, at worst, appeared to have pushed Great Britain and the United States toward the potential for armed conflict.
On November 8th, Captain Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto captured James Murray Mason and John Slidell, taking them from the British mail steamer Trent, off the coast of Cuba. These weren’t just any passengers—they were Confederate envoys heading to Europe, hoping to win diplomatic recognition for the South. The Americans celebrated Wilkes as a hero, but the British saw it differently.
When news reached London, the reaction was volcanic. The Trent affair caused very serious repercussions in London. So serious was the nature of these repercussions that the United States and Great Britain were almost forced into a war which neither side wanted. France declared that if Britain went to war, it would support them. While the British maintained their neutrality, they ordered troops to Canada and ships to the Western Atlantic.
The crisis boiled through November and December. The British began preparing for war, banning exports of war materials to America and sending troops to Canada. There was talk of attacking the Union fleet blockading the South (which would have essentially forced Lincoln to fight two wars simultaneously).
But Lincoln understood the stakes. President Lincoln knew that beginning another conflict while already in one would not be a good move, famously saying “One war at a time.” By late December, the administration quietly released the Confederate envoys. The gesture worked—Britain accepted the compromise and the two nations stepped back from a war that would have fundamentally altered the American Civil War’s outcome.
The Fashoda Incident
Sometimes the most remote places become flashpoints for global conflict. In 1898, that place was Fashoda, a swampy trading post on the White Nile that most people had never heard of. It may be hard to believe but just over 120 years ago international events revolved around tiny Kodok, then known as Fashoda, and almost started a war between the world’s two pre-eminent imperial powers, Great Britain and France.
The Fashoda Incident, also known as the Fashoda Crisis (French: Crise de Fachoda), was the climax of imperialist territorial disputes between Britain and France in East Africa, occurring between 10 July to 3 November 1898. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from Sudan.
The confrontation itself was almost polite. When Captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand’s tiny French force met General Kitchener’s much larger British-Egyptian army, neither Marchand nor Kitchener was ready to give up his claims to the fort, but, because both wished to avoid a military engagement, they agreed that Egyptian, British, and French flags should fly over the fort. During the wait, both sides became relatively friendly with one another, and most viewed the situation as amusing rather than threatening.
But back in Europe, the mood was anything but amused. Both empires stood on the verge of war with heated rhetoric on both sides. The Royal Navy drafted war orders and mobilized its reserves. French newspapers portrayed the British as aggressively overreaching themselves, while British papers depicted the French as miserable beggars trying to seize scraps in Africa.
The French ultimately blinked first. Under unrelenting pressure from the British government led by Lord Salisbury, who was both prime minister and foreign secretary, the French gave ground and on November 3, 1898, ordered Marchand to withdraw from Fashoda. It was humiliating, but it prevented a war that might have shattered the European balance of power years before the Great War actually began.
The Berlin Airlift
By June 1948, Berlin had become the most dangerous city in the world. The crisis started on June 24, 1948, when Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The United States and United Kingdom responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany.
Stalin’s gambit was audacious: starve West Berlin into submission by cutting off all land routes. The calculation seemed sound—how could you feed 2.5 million people by air alone? But the alternative to accepting the challenge was even worse. Using military force to strike back against the Soviet blockade seemed equally unwise: The risk of turning the Cold War into an actual war—even worse, a nuclear war—was just too great.
The Americans and British chose the middle path: Despite the desire for a peaceful resolution to the standoff, the United States also sent to the United Kingdom B-29 bombers, which were capable of carrying nuclear weapons. It was a signal that couldn’t be missed—America was prepared for the worst while hoping for something better.
The airlift became a logistical miracle. In time, the airlift became ever more efficient and the number of aircraft increased. At the height of the campaign, one plane landed every 45 seconds at Tempelhof Airport. But the real question was whether the Soviets would try to stop it by force. Neither side wanted a war; the Soviets did not disrupt the airlift.
On May 11, 1949, Moscow lifted the blockade of West Berlin. The city had survived, but it had been eleven months of holding breath, waiting to see if the Cold War would become something much hotter.
The Baltimore Crisis
Most wars don’t start over bar fights, but the autumn of 1891 came uncomfortably close to proving that axiom wrong. On October 16, 1891, outside the True Blue Saloon in Valparaiso, Chile, a brawl between American sailors and Chilean nationals resulted in two American sailors killed, 17 wounded (five seriously), and many arrested.
The incident sparked a diplomatic crisis that lasted for months, occasionally threatening war between the two countries, until a settlement was reached in early 1892. The timing couldn’t have been worse for Chilean-American relations.
During the Chilean Civil War, the American government supported the forces of President Jose Manuel Balmaceda and enforced a ban on exports for the insurgents that was supported partially by the United Kingdom. These and other circumstances troubled relations between the United States and the victorious former insurgents, who were then in power in Chile.
President Benjamin Harrison took the incident as a matter of national honor. He demanded full satisfaction and issued an ultimatum, hinting at war.
The rhetoric escalated through December when Harrison blamed Chile publicly and the Chilean foreign minister responded by calling the American government “insincere, wrong, and bellicose.” But Chile’s position was weaker than its defiant words suggested.
Worse, Santiago feared that Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru would take advantage of a war with the United States to attack Chile. Finally, Chile’s allies in Europe—Germany and Great Britain—indicated they would not attempt to restrain Washington.
Friendless and surrounded by potential enemies, Chile acceded to Washington’s demands, paying compensation and apologizing for the episode. At the last minute, war had been averted.
The Cuban Missile Crisis Close Calls
October 1962 gave the world its closest brush with nuclear war. Most people don’t realize just how many different ways it almost happened.
The most famous incident came with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis wasn’t just one moment of danger—it was thirteen days of multiple near-misses, each one potentially catastrophic.
The first came on October 25th. A faulty alarm at an airbase in Wisconsin scrambled US interceptors. No mention of the warning being a drill meant that pilots thought they were at war.
In an almost cinematic scene, an officer had to drive onto the runway to physically block the planes from taking off once the false alarm had been discovered. A bear climbing the fence was discovered as the culprit.
But the more serious incident came underwater. Soviet submarine B-59 lost contact with Moscow after constant harassment by American destroyers. Noticing dropped depth charges, the Soviet commander called for a nuclear strike against the US fleet.
Only the refusal of one officer to authorize the launch prevented a nuclear torpedo from being fired. These weren’t the only close calls during those thirteen days, just the ones we know about.
Even throughout the airlift operation, Truman’s finger remained on the big red button. If the Soviets had shot down a single airplane, the U.S. response would probably have been atomic.
The Cold War would have ended in 1948, with a series of giant bangs. Harry S. Truman would have gone down in history with a hell of a reputation, and the USSR would have been bombarded into a continent-spanning live re-enactment of Fallout.
Able Archer 83
November 1983 might have been the closest the world came to nuclear war without most people even realizing there was a crisis. Historical consensus views Able Archer 83 as the closest the Cold War came to an actual confrontation between the USA and USSR.
Able Archer 83 was supposed to be just another NATO military exercise. It simulated nuclear war procedures.
But the Soviets, already paranoid and dealing with the aftermath of shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 earlier that year, interpreted the exercise as preparation for an actual first strike. The Soviet nuclear forces went to their highest state of alert.
Intelligence intercepts later revealed that some Soviet commanders believed the attack was imminent. They were preparing to launch preemptive strikes.
The world balanced on a knife’s edge while most of the public went about their daily routines. People were completely unaware that their lives hung in the balance of decisions being made in bunkers and command centers.
The crisis passed without public drama. Intelligence officials on both sides later acknowledged how close things had come.
Unlike other Cold War crises, there was no dramatic diplomacy or last-minute phone calls between leaders. Just the terrifying realization that miscommunication and paranoia had nearly triggered the unthinkable.
The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict
By 1969, the world’s two largest communist powers were pointing thousands of nuclear weapons at each other. The Sino-Soviet split demonstrated that even ideological allies could become mortal enemies when national interests collided.
In 1964, China began challenging established borders with its northern communist partner. Beijing saw this border as a vestige of imperialist unfairness and believed the USSR would negotiate, but when talks failed, the People’s Liberation Army attacked Soviet soldiers on the border in March 1969.
What started as border skirmishes escalated frighteningly quickly. Both sides mobilized nuclear-capable units and prepared for potential war while diplomats negotiated behind the scenes.
Intelligence reports suggested the Soviets were considering a preemptive nuclear strike against Chinese nuclear facilities. The world watched nervously as two nuclear powers—supposedly allies—prepared to fight each other.
Eventually, backroom diplomacy prevailed. The immediate crisis passed, but the Sino-Soviet split became permanent, fundamentally altering Cold War dynamics and contributing to Nixon’s later opening to China.
The India-Pakistan Standoff of 2001–2002
The aftermath of 9/11 brought many crises, but one of the most dangerous was in South Asia. India and Pakistan faced a standoff that very nearly resulted in nuclear war.
It began with a deadly terrorist attack on India’s Parliament on October 1, 2001. The attack left dozens dead and enraged the Indian government, prompting the mobilization of nearly a million troops along the border.
Both countries possessed nuclear weapons. Each government faced enormous domestic pressure to respond forcefully, raising the risk of escalation to nuclear conflict.
Military deadlock persisted throughout 2002, interrupted only by random artillery duels across the mountains of Kashmir. Fortunately, the crisis ended when India decided to withdraw on October 16, 2002, a gesture Pakistan reciprocated shortly thereafter.
The precedent was ominous. The threat of nuclear war didn’t prevent future confrontations, as exemplified by the 2008 standoff between the two nations.
The Taiwan Strait Crises
One of the issues that has continued to strain US-China relations is the existence of Taiwan. Since 1949, the tiny island of Chinese Nationalists has largely depended on US protection against its much larger communist neighbor.
The first Taiwan Strait Crisis began in 1954 when Chinese forces shelled Nationalist-held islands off the Chinese coast. The Eisenhower administration considered using nuclear weapons to defend the islands and drafted detailed scenarios for strikes against mainland China.
The second crisis in 1958 brought the situation even closer to nuclear conflict. American military commanders openly advocated nuclear retaliation if conventional defenses failed.
Both crises passed without escalation. However, they established a pattern: Taiwan became a potential flashpoint where nuclear powers face off over a small but strategic territory.
The Pig War
Sometimes the smallest triggers produce the biggest scares. In 1859, the shooting of a pig nearly led to war between Britain and the United States.
The incident occurred on San Juan Island, claimed by both American settlers and British authorities. When an American farmer shot a pig belonging to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, tensions escalated rapidly.
Both sides sent military forces to the island. The Americans landed infantry, and the British deployed warships, facing each other across the island for several months.
Diplomats worked frantically to prevent fighting. The “war” ended without a single battle, with joint military occupation agreed upon until arbitration resolved the boundary dispute.
The Dogger Bank Incident
In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Russia nearly brought Britain into the conflict. The Russian Baltic Fleet mistakenly fired on British fishing boats in the North Sea, believing them to be Japanese torpedo boats.
Several British fishermen were killed, and multiple boats damaged. The public demanded war, and the British fleet was mobilized, making conflict appear imminent.
The crisis was resolved through diplomacy and Russian agreement to pay compensation. It demonstrated how quickly international tensions could escalate due to errors and misidentification.
The First Moroccan Crisis
The First Moroccan Crisis in 1905 threatened to pull France into war without its Russian ally. Germany challenged French influence in Morocco, seeking to test the strength of the Anglo-French entente.
Kaiser Wilhelm’s dramatic landing in Tangier and his speech supporting Moroccan independence were designed to humiliate France. The crisis escalated, forcing France to consider fighting Germany alone.
The Algeciras Conference resolved the dispute diplomatically. Germany was left diplomatically isolated, but the precedent was set for future conflicts leading up to World War I.
The Fashoda and the Path Not Taken
What makes these near-wars fascinating is imagining how different the world might have been. Consider the Fashoda Incident: had France not backed down, Britain might have allied with Germany instead, altering the balance in World War I.
The same applies to other crises. If the Trent Affair had led Britain to intervene in the American Civil War, or if the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone hot, the world would look very different today.
These scenarios remind us that history is often balanced on the choices of individuals. Exhausted diplomats and cautious leaders prevented catastrophes that might have rewritten the twentieth century.
Where Pride Ends and Wisdom Begins
The pattern in almost-wars is consistent: initial incidents spark pride, rhetoric escalates, militaries mobilize, and somehow off-ramps are found. Sometimes it was calm voices in government, sometimes the recognition that costs outweighed benefits.
The nuclear age changed the calculus of conflict permanently. Wars that never erupted are among humanity’s greatest triumphs, proof that prevention, though invisible, shapes history profoundly.
These stories of almost-conflicts are ultimately hopeful. Even when every incentive pushes toward war, human beings can still choose differently, reminding us that diplomacy quietly preserves the world we know.
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