Backwards Expressions

Ever wonder why they call it a tug-of-war? Shouldn't it be a war-of-tug? We know what a fog of war is, confusions produced on the battefield, so a tug-of-war should be some kind of tugging that is the result of a war being fought. A prisoner of war is a someone held captive for the purposes of war. If war comes after the "of" then war is the subject of the sentence, and the "tug" is the object. On the other hand, we have wars of attrition, wars of independence, wars of the worlds, and rightly should have wars-of-tug, since the tugging part is the subject of the object war. 'Two tugging things are opposing eachother to the point that the conflict can be considered a war.' Not, 'two warring things are opposing eachother to the point that the conflict can be considered a tug.'

Another one that baffles me: a near miss. A near miss is actually a near hit. When two planes almost crash into eachother but escape unscathed, they call that "a near miss." Seems to me like they nearly hit, but completely missed. If the planes crashed into eachother and blew up, that would be a near miss. "They nearly missed eachother. But unfortunately they didn't miss, they hit."