History doesn't necessarily make it clear when a war might have started but didn't because of some specific factor. Mainly you see the wars that did happen. (It

History doesn't necessarily make it clear when a war might have started but didn't because of some specific factor. Mainly you see the wars that did happen. (It has a strong survivorship bias in the sense that a war "survived" history if it went ahead for real rather than being considered and decided against.)