Purposes and pitfalls of war by proxy: A systemic analysis

Abstract

The structure of the emergent global system – a volatile ‘polyarchy’ of state and non-state actors – accentuates temptations to employ military proxies, but also multiplies the risks when the priorities of the patron states and their proxies diverge. The motivations of proxies and the interests of the countries employing them are hardly ever sufficiently close, and the command-and-control arrangements sufficiently tight, to ensure that the battlefield behavior of proxies will not distort the military strategies and political objectives of their patrons. This article offers guidelines for reducing the risks and minimizing the consequences of such loss of control.

Keywords:

• Proxy wars
• Cold War
• polyarchy
• international relations
• governance
• Vietnam War
• Afghanistan
• Iraq
• Syria

Notes

1. My conceptualization of the emergent global system as ‘polyarchic’ differs from political scientist Robert A. Dahl’s use of the term to describe a model for domestic political systems that are largely peaceful representative democracies (see Dahl, Polyarchy). I use the term consistent with its etymological root – ‘rule by many’ – to describe a volatile pattern of world politics which is neither democratic nor very peaceful.

2. Bull, The Anarchical Society, especially pp. 268–9. In quoting him, I have retained the older English spelling of ‘mediaevalism’.

3. For an earlier forecast of the emerging global polyarchy, see my New Forces in World Politics I discuss the military implications in The Illusion of Control and the grand strategy implications in Higher Realism, 25–46

4. Obama, ‘Remarks’; ‘Letter’.

5. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster, 235.

6. President Kennedy, interview with Walter Cronkite, in Public Papers, 652.

7. Gravell, The Pentagon Papers, III, 3.

8. US Congress, Senate Committee. The Gulf of Tonkin.

9. Tonkin Gulf Resolution: Public Law 88-408, 78 Stat. 384 (7 August 1964).

10. US Congress, Senate Select Committee. Iran-Contra Investigation Report.

11. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 488–9.

12. For detailed analysis of the capabilities of these Afghan proxies, see Vanda Felbab-Brown’s article in this issue.

13. Obama, ‘Remarks’.

14. Meet the Press, NBC transcript of 27 March 2011.