A proxy war is a conflict between two major states where the states don’t fight each other directly. Instead, they support local groups or other countries to fight for them. This allows the powerful states to hurt their opponents without risking a direct war that would cost them huge sums of money and lives. It’s also a way for the powerful states to test out new weapons or strategies without risking their own troops.
Proxy wars often lead to massive humanitarian crises. They can also destabilize whole regions and cause a wide range of other problems. They can even lead to global governance problems, such as eroding state sovereignty and undermining international norms like democratization, human rights, and the responsibility to protect.
Despite their widespread occurrence, proxy wars are still rarely studied. This article seeks to rectify that gap in scholarship and offer a more comprehensive understanding of this type of intervention strategy.
In order to successfully engage in a proxy war, intervening states must understand the convergence and divergence of their own objectives with those of their proxies. This requires continuously monitoring the proxies’ access to resources, leadership capabilities (militarily and politically), and how the character of the conflict changes over time.
In addition, it is critical that intervening states monitor their proxies’ capacity to act in their own self-interest. This requires understanding their motivations, including what they want to achieve from this conflict and why. This will help them identify when their proxies might pursue methods or goals that contradict their own interests, as well as how those objectives can change over time.