Strategic Competition: A Study on Conducting and Mastering Proxy Warfare
In the realm of strategic and great power competition, proxy warfare has emerged as a significant influence tactic. This approach allows major powers to indirectly shape conflicts through local actors, minimizing direct military risks and costs while shaping regional outcomes to their advantage.
Episode 6, Season 1 of the Social Science of War podcast, produced by the Department of Social Sciences at West Point, delves into this topic. Proxy war is defined as a hierarchical and strategic relationship where a great power (the principal state) supports a local proxy actor with material aid, intelligence, and guidance to pursue shared strategic goals against a common adversary. The benefactor state gains influence by keeping the proxy dependent, using this arrangement to shape conflict outcomes without direct involvement in combat operations.
This method serves multiple strategic purposes:
- It mitigates risks associated with direct military engagement by outsourcing conflict to proxies.
- It is less costly than deploying own troops and reduces international political costs.
- It allows the patron state to influence regional geopolitics and deter rivals indirectly while managing escalation and maintaining plausible deniability.
A recent example of this strategy is NATO's support to Ukraine, where Ukraine retained operational autonomy, but Western aid bolstered resistance against Russia. This example demonstrated that proxy warfare can be an effective deterrence-by-denial strategy if the supporting alliance can meet logistical and production demands.
Furthermore, proxy wars can be central components of great power competition, such as the ongoing broader U.S.-China strategic rivalry, which has manifested in proxy conflicts like the Ukraine war, where competing coalitions back opposing sides to advance their geopolitical interests without escalating into direct superpower confrontation.
Dr. Jahanbani, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point and a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and Dr. Vladimir Rauta, a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Reading and a fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative, are among the experts studying this phenomenon.
Lieutenant General Ken Tovo, a career Special Forces Officer who retired, provides operational experience in this field, with a background that includes the first Gulf War, refugee relief operations in northern Iraq, noncombatant evacuation operations in Sierra Leone, peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, five tours in Iraq, and one tour in Afghanistan.
For those interested in learning more about proxy warfare or the Social Science of War podcast, Kyle Atwell, the host of the podcast, can be contacted with questions. The Department of Social Sciences at West Point's website also provides information about becoming a student or teacher, or connecting with instructors.
[1] Atwell, K. (Host). (2021). Episode 6: Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition [Audio podcast episode]. Social Science of War. West Point, NY: Department of Social Sciences at West Point.
[2] Image credit: Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian Peninsula. Image credit for article: Emmanuel Rios.
[3] [4] [5] References available upon request.
- Proxy warfare, where major powers support local actors to pursue shared strategic goals against a common adversary, is a significant influence tactic in the realm of national security, particularly in the context of war-and-conflicts and politics.
- In this strategy, military powers can mitigate direct military risks and costs, gain influence through dependence, and indirectly shape regional geopolitics and deter rivals, while maintaining plausible deniability.
- An example of this strategy is NATO's support to Ukraine, where Ukraine retained operational autonomy but Western aid bolstered resistance against Russia, demonstrating the effectiveness of proxy warfare as a deterrence-by-denial strategy.
- Proxy wars can be central components of great power competition, such as the ongoing U.S.-China strategic rivalry, which has manifested in proxy conflicts like the Ukraine war, without escalating into direct superpower confrontations.
