The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 5 plus 5 letter word CASUS BELLI
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More clues leading to the result CASUS BELLI
- Reason to fight roughly, with suspicion libel involved
- Reason for scrapping cue balls: one’s defective
- Averting maiden, miscue balls horribly: declaration follows this?
- Justification for fighting bullies, as chaos begins to develop?
- CIA worried about suspect ring being origin of conflict
- Use basic reforms beyond limits in legal justification for war
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "justification for war" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case justification for war = casus belli.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.