What Is a Proxy War?
- Edmarverson A. Santos
- 4 days ago
- 19 min read
Introduction
A proxy war is an armed conflict in which an external actor seeks to influence political or military outcomes by supporting another actor that performs much of the fighting. International relations scholarship has never settled on a single definition of the concept. Some approaches emphasize indirect intervention by third parties; others focus on sponsorship, strategic influence, delegation, dependence, or the transfer of military risk to an intermediary (Mumford, 2013; Fox, 2023). Foreign assistance by itself does not establish a proxy relationship. States frequently provide weapons, financing, intelligence, training, or diplomatic backing without acquiring the degree of sustained strategic interaction commonly associated with proxy warfare (Pektaş, 2024).
Proxy warfare became closely associated with the Cold War because competition between the United States and the Soviet Union developed under the shadow of nuclear escalation. Both powers had strong incentives to avoid direct large-scale confrontation while contesting influence in conflicts elsewhere, and support for local governments, insurgencies, and armed movements became one means of pursuing those interests (Mumford, 2013; Stone, 2010). Yet conflicts commonly discussed through the language of proxy warfare were rarely products of superpower rivalry alone. The wars in Afghanistan and Angola, for example, were shaped by domestic political struggles, regional intervention, ideological competition, and local actors whose objectives did not necessarily coincide with those of their external supporters.
The end of bipolarity did not remove the strategic incentives for states to work through armed intermediaries. Contemporary scholarship has instead examined more varied sponsorship arrangements involving regional powers and, under broader definitions, governments, militias, insurgent organizations, separatist movements, and private military actors (Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024). The wars in Syria, Libya, and Yemen renewed interest in the concept because several external powers became involved in the same theaters through different local partners and forms of support. These cases also demonstrate the limits of treating “proxy war” as a complete explanation of a conflict: the label identifies important external relationships, but domestic causes, local political competition, and the independent interests of armed actors remain necessary to explain how such wars begin and develop.
For analytical purposes, proxy warfare can be understood as a sustained relationship in which an external sponsor provides significant support to an actor engaged in armed conflict in pursuit of strategic objectives, while the supported actor retains meaningful interests and decision-making capacity of its own. This is a working definition rather than a statement of scholarly consensus. The literature continues to disagree over the importance of deniability, hierarchy, dependence, risk transfer, and the circumstances in which state or non-state actors should be classified as proxies (Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024). A useful analysis must accordingly examine the structure of the sponsor–proxy relationship itself: the assistance provided, the influence exercised, the interests of each actor, the distribution of military and political risk, and the extent to which sponsorship changes the course and possible outcome of the conflict.
1. What Is a Proxy War?
A proxy war is generally understood as an armed conflict in which an external actor supports another actor involved in the fighting in order to influence political or military outcomes. Many influential definitions and frameworks identify some combination of external sponsorship, an intermediary force, material or operational assistance, and a strategic purpose on the sponsor’s side. The literature does not agree, however, on which of these characteristics are indispensable. Indirect intervention, delegation, hierarchical influence, sustained assistance, shared interests, risk transfer, and deniability receive different weight across competing approaches (Mumford, 2013; Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024).
For clarity, this article uses “proxy war” to describe a conflict, or an important dimension of a conflict, in which proxy relationships are present, while “proxy warfare” refers to the strategy of pursuing objectives through an intermediary. This is an analytical convention rather than a universally accepted terminological distinction. It helps avoid treating every conflict involving foreign support as a single, homogeneous form of warfare. The same war may contain proxy relationships alongside direct military intervention, alliances, covert operations, arms transfers, and political struggles generated within the affected state.
The Soviet–Afghan War illustrates the value of distinguishing these forms of participation. Soviet forces intervened directly in Afghanistan and conducted large-scale military operations, while the United States and other external actors supported Afghan resistance forces through indirect assistance. The conflict can consequently be analyzed as containing important proxy relationships without treating every participant as engaged in proxy warfare in the same way (Stone, 2010). Classification depends on the relationship under examination rather than on attaching one label to the entire conflict.
For analytical purposes, proxy warfare is treated here as a sustained relationship in which an external sponsor provides significant support to an actor engaged in armed conflict in pursuit of strategic objectives, while the supported actor retains meaningful interests and decision-making capacity of its own. This working definition excludes isolated or incidental assistance that lacks a continuing strategic relationship. It also avoids assuming that deniability, risk transfer, or complete dependence must appear in every case, since the importance of those characteristics remains disputed in the literature (Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024).
2. Sponsors, Proxies, and the Structure of the Relationship
Proxy relationships develop through forms of assistance that increase an intermediary’s ability to fight, organize, survive, or bargain. Sponsors may provide financing, weapons, ammunition, training, intelligence, logistical assistance, communications or other technology, diplomatic support, or access to territory and supply networks. The combination differs across conflicts, and no single form of support creates a proxy relationship by itself. Within the working framework used here, the more significant question is whether assistance forms part of a continuing relationship connected to the sponsor’s strategic objectives and the recipient’s participation in the conflict (Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024).
Who can qualify as a sponsor or proxy remains contested. Much of the literature focuses on states supporting non-state armed groups such as insurgents, militias, or separatist movements. Broader approaches permit governments, conventional forces, private military organizations, and other organized actors to perform intermediary functions under particular circumstances, while some frameworks also allow non-state actors to occupy sponsorship roles (Fox, 2023). Critics of such expansive definitions argue that the concept loses analytical precision when almost any asymmetric military partnership can be described as a proxy relationship (Pektaş, 2024).
Autonomy is a central feature of the debate because sponsorship does not automatically place the recipient under the sponsor’s command. An armed organization may depend heavily on foreign weapons, financing, intelligence, or political protection while maintaining its own leadership, territorial priorities, ideological commitments, constituency, and preferred military strategy. Information asymmetries can further limit the sponsor’s ability to supervise local behavior, since the intermediary often possesses superior knowledge of battlefield conditions and local political networks (Fox, 2023).
The balance between dependence and autonomy can also change during a conflict. A heavily dependent organization may strengthen its bargaining position by acquiring territory, developing domestic revenue, building political legitimacy, or cultivating additional patrons. Conversely, a sponsor may attempt to increase influence by making assistance conditional, restricting access to particular weapons, or supporting rival partners. Proxy warfare is consequently best analyzed as an unequal but negotiated relationship whose internal balance may shift rather than as a fixed chain of command.
3. Proxy Conflict, Alliance, and Foreign Intervention
Proxy warfare overlaps with alliances, coalitions, and other forms of external military support, but these categories should not be treated as interchangeable. Alliances and military coalitions commonly involve participants coordinating policy or operations while accepting some degree of shared political and military exposure. In risk-centered approaches to proxy warfare, the relationship is more asymmetric because the intermediary carries a larger share of the immediate operational burden while the sponsor seeks influence without accepting an equivalent combat role (Fox, 2023). Risk allocation is analytically useful, but it cannot function as a universal test because other approaches emphasize different features of the sponsor–proxy relationship.
Direct military intervention should also be separated from indirect sponsorship. A state has moved beyond indirect support when its own armed forces undertake substantial combat operations in the conflict, even if it simultaneously equips, trains, or coordinates with local partners. Direct intervention and proxy warfare can thus coexist within the same theater. The Soviet–Afghan War again demonstrates the distinction: Soviet forces intervened militarily on a large scale, whereas external supporters of Afghan resistance groups relied primarily on indirect assistance (Stone, 2010).
Civil war and proxy warfare are similarly distinct concepts. A domestic conflict can acquire substantial proxy dimensions when foreign powers establish sustained relationships with local belligerents, but external sponsorship does not erase the indigenous causes of the war or transform local actors into mere representatives of foreign governments. The proxy label is most useful when it identifies a particular external relationship rather than replacing analysis of domestic political competition, state weakness, ideological conflict, or other locally rooted causes.
Covert action, mercenary activity, private military organizations, and strategies commonly described as hybrid warfare require the same caution. Covert methods may be used to create or sustain proxy relationships, but covert operations encompass many activities unrelated to armed intermediaries. Mercenaries and private military companies can perform proxy functions under some analytical frameworks, particularly where a sponsor uses them as intermediaries, although their status alone does not make them proxies (Fox, 2023). Proxy forces can also appear within strategies described as hybrid warfare, alongside conventional operations, cyber activities, information campaigns, or economic pressure. Neither concept should be reduced to the other; the defining question for proxy warfare remains the existence and structure of the sponsor–intermediary relationship.
4. Why States Choose Proxy Warfare
States may choose proxy warfare when they want to influence an armed conflict without assuming the full military burden of direct intervention. Supporting a local partner can help weaken an adversary, preserve an allied government, shape the balance of power within a conflict, or maintain influence in a strategically important region. It can also give the sponsor access to local knowledge, networks, and operational environments that would be difficult to reproduce through an external deployment alone (Mumford, 2013; Fox, 2023).
Domestic and political constraints can reinforce these incentives. Direct military intervention exposes governments more visibly to casualties, financial costs, public scrutiny, and political responsibility for the course of a war. Proxy strategies may reduce some of that exposure by placing a larger share of the fighting on an intermediary while allowing the sponsor to retain influence over the conflict. This does not make proxy warfare inherently inexpensive. Sustained sponsorship can still require considerable financial, military, intelligence, and diplomatic resources, while divergent interests between sponsor and proxy can create additional strategic costs.
Risk transfer is one influential explanation for the appeal of proxy strategies. Fox places particular emphasis on the ability of sponsors to shift much of the immediate physical danger of combat onto an intermediary while preserving some capacity to shape outcomes (Fox, 2023). That advantage has limits. Sponsors can still face escalation, diplomatic pressure, reputational damage, financial burdens, and loss of control when a proxy pursues objectives that diverge from those of its patron. The distribution of risk changes, but the sponsor does not become insulated from the consequences of the conflict.
Plausible deniability may provide a further advantage where governments seek to obscure the scale or nature of their involvement. Concealed or ambiguous support can reduce political exposure and complicate attribution, especially where intervention would carry domestic or diplomatic costs. Yet deniability is not present in every proxy relationship, and some sponsorship arrangements are widely known or openly acknowledged. Pektaş gives deniability a more central place in his conceptual framework, whereas broader approaches treat it as one possible strategic benefit rather than a universal requirement (Pektaş, 2024; Fox, 2023).
5. Why Local Actors Accept Sponsorship
Local actors accept external sponsorship because it can provide resources and capabilities that are difficult to obtain domestically. Support may include financing, weapons, ammunition, intelligence, training, logistical assistance, diplomatic backing, or access to territory and supply routes. These resources can improve an organization’s ability to sustain operations, resist stronger opponents, and remain politically or militarily relevant within a conflict (Mumford, 2013; Fox, 2023).
Many local actors also retain political objectives that are distinct from those of their sponsors. An armed organization may share an enemy with an external state while pursuing its own territorial, ideological, ethnic, sectarian, institutional, or leadership interests. External support can strengthen the organization without eliminating those priorities. Principal–agent approaches emphasize this tension because the proxy often possesses better information about local conditions, internal networks, and battlefield realities than the sponsor, limiting the principal’s ability to direct behavior with precision (Fox, 2023).
Dependence and autonomy can exist at the same time. A group may rely heavily on outside financing or weapons while retaining substantial discretion over recruitment, tactics, territorial priorities, political negotiations, or relations with local populations. The degree of dependence may also change as the conflict develops, particularly when the proxy gains or loses resources, military strength, local support, or access to alternative patrons. These shifts can alter bargaining power without producing a predictable or uniform outcome.
Sponsor–proxy relations are consequently better understood as evolving political bargains than as fixed chains of command. The sponsor may attempt to influence the intermediary through funding conditions, weapons access, intelligence, or diplomatic support, while the proxy seeks to preserve enough autonomy to pursue its own interests. Alignment can be close at one stage of a conflict and considerably weaker at another, which helps explain why proxies can be strategically useful yet difficult for sponsors to control over time.
6. Cold War Proxy Wars and Superpower Competition
Proxy warfare became closely associated with the Cold War because US–Soviet rivalry developed under conditions in which direct confrontation carried exceptionally high risks. Nuclear deterrence increased the potential costs of escalation between the two superpowers, while bipolar competition encouraged both to contest influence in conflicts outside the central European theater. Supporting governments, insurgencies, liberation movements, and other armed actors provided one way to compete indirectly while limiting the danger of direct military confrontation (Mumford, 2013; Fox, 2023).
Nuclear deterrence was not the only factor shaping these interventions. Ideological competition, alliance commitments, containment strategies, decolonization, revolutionary movements, and regional balances of power also influenced decisions to support local belligerents. External sponsorship frequently entered conflicts that already had domestic and regional causes, altering their military resources and international significance rather than creating them from nothing. This distinction is essential for understanding Cold War proxy wars without reducing local actors to instruments of Washington or Moscow.
Angola demonstrates this interaction clearly. The conflict emerged from decolonization and competition among rival nationalist movements before becoming deeply entangled with Cold War and regional intervention. External powers supported different factions, while Cuban and South African military involvement added further layers to the conflict. The objectives of the Angolan movements themselves remained shaped by domestic struggles for political control, which means the war cannot be explained solely as a contest between external patrons (Stone, 2010).
Afghanistan presents a different configuration. The Soviet Union intervened directly with its own forces in 1979, while the United States and other external governments supported Afghan resistance organizations through indirect assistance. The conflict consequently involved both direct intervention and proxy relationships at the same time. Afghan actors also pursued their own political, ideological, and organizational objectives, which did not always align neatly with the priorities of their foreign supporters (Stone, 2010; Mumford, 2013).
There is also a genuine scholarly dispute over whether proxy warfare should be treated as a specifically modern phenomenon. Some scholars apply the concept retrospectively to imperial client relationships, dynastic conflicts, and earlier interventions in which powerful states relied on local intermediaries. Others argue that the modern concept is better understood within the post-1945 order, shaped by the prohibition on the threat or use of force and the broader norm of non-intervention. Pektaş develops this narrower interpretation and links modern proxy warfare to efforts by states to pursue strategic interests indirectly under those constraints (Pektaş, 2024).
The disagreement is conceptual rather than merely chronological. A broad definition treats proxy warfare as a long-standing strategic practice that predates the Cold War, while a narrower approach connects it to the institutional and strategic environment created after the Second World War. The article does not need to resolve that dispute categorically. The distinction is more useful when it shows how different definitions produce different historical boundaries for the concept.
7. Proxy Warfare After the Cold War
The end of the Cold War altered the environment in which proxy warfare operated without removing the incentives for states to rely on intermediaries. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the bipolar structure that had organized much US–Soviet competition, and proxy relationships became less closely tied to a single global ideological divide. Regional powers acquired greater prominence in conflicts within their own strategic environments, while broader contemporary frameworks also recognize relationships involving governments, armed organizations, and private military actors (Fox, 2023; Pektaş, 2024).
Conflicts associated with the Arab uprisings and their aftermath renewed academic interest in proxy warfare. Syria, Libya, and Yemen all experienced substantial external involvement, but the structure of that involvement differed across the three cases. Several states could support different governments, armed groups, or political networks within the same theater, while local actors could maintain relationships with more than one patron. These arrangements produced a more fragmented pattern than the conventional image of two Cold War superpowers supporting opposing clients (Bergen et al., 2022).
Syria illustrates how differences between sponsor and proxy interests can shape the durability of these relationships. Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah developed over decades around substantial strategic and ideological alignment, whereas US relationships with some Sunni armed groups during the Syrian conflict proved shorter and more difficult to sustain when objectives diverged (Pektaş, 2024). Other external relationships in Syria followed different patterns again, including extensive Russian and Iranian support for the Assad government and US cooperation with Kurdish-led forces against the Islamic State. The resulting conflict contained several distinct forms of sponsorship rather than a single proxy structure.
Foreign involvement did not erase the domestic origins of these wars. Syria developed from an uprising against the Assad government and its violent escalation into armed conflict; Libya’s conflict followed the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and subsequent struggles over political authority; Yemen’s war emerged through the breakdown of an already fragile political transition, Houthi expansion, and competing domestic centers of power. External sponsors changed access to weapons, funding, intelligence, political support, and bargaining opportunities, but foreign rivalry alone cannot explain why these conflicts began or how local actors behaved within them (Bergen et al., 2022).
8. Proxy War Examples and Their Different Patterns
Proxy war examples are most useful when they reveal differences among sponsor–proxy relationships rather than being treated as a catalog of conflicts. Afghanistan, Angola, Syria, and Yemen demonstrate that external sponsorship can operate alongside direct military intervention, decolonization, domestic civil war, counterterrorism, and regional rivalry. The presence of proxy relationships does not make these conflicts analytically identical.
The Soviet–Afghan War shows why classification can depend on the actor whose involvement is being examined. The Soviet Union deployed its own armed forces in Afghanistan after intervening in 1979, making its participation direct. The United States and allied external supporters instead provided Afghan resistance movements with arms, financing, training, and other assistance, with the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence involved in coordinating significant parts of that support. For Washington, the relationship with the mujahideen displayed central characteristics of proxy warfare even though the same war constituted direct military intervention for Moscow (Mumford, 2013; Pektaş, 2024).
Angola followed a different trajectory. Armed nationalist movements had been fighting Portuguese colonial rule since the early 1960s, and rivalry among the MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA intensified as independence approached. Foreign involvement then altered the balance among those movements: the Soviet Union supported the MPLA, the United States backed opposing forces, and Cuba, South Africa, Zaire, China, and other actors became involved in different ways. The conflict consequently joined decolonization, domestic struggles for political power, regional intervention, and Cold War competition within the same theater (Stone, 2010).
Syria demonstrates a more fragmented contemporary pattern. Russia and Iran supported the Syrian government, while the United States developed a sustained military relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces in operations against the Islamic State. Other foreign governments supported different opposition forces at various stages of the conflict. The purposes of these relationships were not identical: preserving the Syrian government, defeating the Islamic State, influencing Syria’s political future, and pursuing regional security interests generated different forms of external involvement. The Syrian conflict consequently contained several sponsor–intermediary relationships rather than a single contest between two external patrons (Bergen et al., 2022; Fox, 2023).
Yemen shows why the proxy-war label can become misleading when it substitutes for local history. The Saudi-led intervention that began in 2015 supported President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognized government, while Iran developed material and political support for Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis. Yet Ansar Allah was not created by Iran and had developed from Yemeni political, religious, and social conditions before the regional confrontation intensified. Saudi–Iranian rivalry became an important dimension of the war, but it does not provide a sufficient explanation of Yemen’s domestic political breakdown, the Houthis’ objectives, or the wider fragmentation of the country (Bergen et al., 2022).
9. A Working Framework for Identifying Proxy Warfare
There is no universally accepted test for determining when external support becomes proxy warfare. Within the working framework adopted here, continuity and strategic significance provide the first indicators. An isolated political endorsement, occasional arms transfer, or commercial sale does not automatically establish a proxy relationship. The external actor should have an identifiable interest in the conflict, and its support should form part of an ongoing relationship intended to influence the recipient’s capacity, behavior, or contribution to the outcome (Stone, 2010; Pektaş, 2024).
Several additional indicators should be considered together rather than applied as a mechanical checklist. They include substantial material or operational support; an identifiable strategic purpose for the sponsor; recurring coordination or interaction; some degree of influence, dependence, delegation, or bargaining; and meaningful military or political activity by the intermediary. Retained agency also helps distinguish a proxy relationship from straightforward command: the supported actor normally possesses interests, information, and decision-making capacity that cannot be reduced entirely to the sponsor’s preferences. Principal–agent analysis is particularly useful for explaining this combination of dependence and autonomy (Fox, 2023). Risk transfer and plausible deniability may strengthen the classification in particular cases, but neither is treated here as a universally necessary condition.
The boundaries remain deliberately cautious. Limited foreign assistance without continuing strategic interaction may amount to external support rather than proxy warfare, while very extensive operational control can move the relationship closer to direct command. Between these positions lies a wide range of relationships in which sponsors supply resources and seek influence while intermediaries retain varying degrees of autonomy. The framework is intended to discipline classification by examining the relationship itself, not to create a rigid definition capable of turning every externally supported armed conflict into a proxy war.
10. Agency Problems and the Limits of Sponsor Control
Principal–agent theory provides one influential explanation for why sponsors often struggle to control proxies. Sponsors may possess greater financial, diplomatic, or military resources, while local partners often hold better information about battlefield conditions, political networks, organizational capabilities, and their own intentions. This information asymmetry can make supervision difficult and give the intermediary bargaining advantages that are not obvious from the unequal distribution of material power alone (Fox, 2023).
Agency problems arise when sponsor and proxy preferences diverge. An intermediary may withhold information, pursue its own priorities, perform below the sponsor’s expectations, or exploit dependence on its capabilities to resist external pressure. Sponsors can respond through monitoring, changes in assistance, incentive structures, or attempts to cultivate alternative partners, but these measures do not remove the underlying information and preference problems. The sponsor can possess considerable influence without exercising complete control over the proxy’s decisions (Fox, 2023).
Principal–agent theory does not describe every proxy relationship equally well. Fox distinguishes coerced, exploited, transactional, cultural, and contractual relationships, each associated with different forms of dependence, power, durability, and agency costs (Fox, 2023). Other relationships may be shaped more strongly by ideology, identity, patronage, coercion, networks, or bargaining between actors with partially shared interests. Analysis should consequently begin with the actual structure of the relationship rather than assume that every sponsor delegates authority in the same way.
11. Escalation, Conflict Duration, and Political Settlement
External sponsorship can alter the military balance of a conflict by giving armed actors capabilities they could not sustain independently. State support may increase access to weapons, financing, training, intelligence, and other military resources, allowing an intermediary to resist defeat or operate more effectively against stronger opponents. Research on state-supported violent non-state actors has found that such support can substantially increase their military effectiveness and lethality (Watts et al., 2023).
Sponsorship can also affect escalation. When external states become increasingly invested in opposing local actors, a conflict may acquire strategic significance beyond its original domestic setting. Additional weapons, intelligence, advisers, or political commitments can raise the costs of defeat and increase the risk that outside patrons become more deeply involved. Escalation is not inevitable, however; much depends on the sponsors’ objectives, their willingness to accept risk, and the mechanisms available for limiting direct confrontation.
External involvement may also influence the duration of civil war. Cunningham’s study of external intervention found that conflicts involving outside states pursuing independent agendas tend to be harder to terminate and can last substantially longer than wars without such interveners (Cunningham, 2010). This relationship is conditional rather than automatic. The effects of sponsorship vary according to the type of assistance, the number and objectives of external actors, the military position of local belligerents, and the terms on which sponsors would accept a settlement.
Battlefield effectiveness must also be separated from political success. A proxy may capture territory, weaken an opponent, or prevent the defeat of an allied government while lacking the administrative or political capacity needed to govern effectively after combat subsides. Research on Syria, Libya, and Yemen has highlighted the difficulty of converting the military usefulness of local partners into durable governance and political settlement (Bergen et al., 2022). Sponsors may influence how a war develops more readily than they can determine the political order that follows it.
12. Proxy Warfare in Contemporary Strategic Competition
Contemporary proxy warfare operates in an environment less neatly organized than the bipolar Cold War system. Regional powers, major states, and capable non-state actors may compete within the same conflict while relying on different intermediaries and forms of assistance. Modern sponsorship can include financing, weapons, training, intelligence, logistical support, and increasingly sophisticated military capabilities. RAND’s study of the military implications of proxy warfare finds that state sponsorship can significantly enhance the effectiveness of violent non-state actors (Watts et al., 2023).
These capabilities do not establish proxy warfare by themselves. Intelligence sharing, advanced weapons, cyber assistance, or the use of private military organizations becomes relevant only when such support forms part of a sustained sponsor–intermediary relationship directed toward strategic objectives. The analytical focus remains on the relationship: the purpose of the support, the influence sought by the sponsor, the dependence of the recipient, and the degree of independent agency retained by the actor carrying out the relevant military activity (Fox, 2023).
The basic logic of operating through intermediaries predates the technologies used in contemporary conflicts. What distinguishes many present-day settings is the possibility of several patrons, competing channels of assistance, overlapping networks, and intermediaries capable of seeking support from more than one external actor. These conditions can expand a proxy’s bargaining options and complicate efforts by any single sponsor to exercise control. Contemporary proxy warfare thus retains an older strategic logic while operating through relationships that can be denser and less hierarchical than the familiar Cold War model.
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Conclusion
For the purposes of this analysis, a proxy war is an armed conflict containing a sustained relationship in which an external sponsor provides significant support to an actor involved in the fighting in pursuit of strategic objectives, while the supported actor retains meaningful interests and decision-making capacity of its own. This working definition captures recurring features of proxy warfare without treating a disputed concept as settled international relations terminology.
Foreign assistance alone does not establish a proxy relationship. Classification depends on the interaction of sustained support, strategic purpose, sponsor influence, dependence, bargaining, and the intermediary’s continuing agency. Risk transfer and plausible deniability may be important in particular cases, but neither provides a universal threshold. The usefulness of the concept lies in identifying a relationship that is more structured than incidental support but less direct than ordinary military command.
States use proxy strategies because intermediaries can provide local access, military capabilities, political influence, and reduced direct exposure. Local actors accept sponsorship because external resources can strengthen their position within conflicts they pursue for reasons of their own. Those interests can diverge as circumstances change, limiting the sponsor’s ability to translate assistance into durable control. Proxy warfare persists because it offers states a means of influencing conflict indirectly; its central strategic limitation is that influence over an intermediary never guarantees control over either the proxy or the political outcome of the war.
References
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Cunningham, D.E. (2010) ‘Blocking resolution: How external states can prolong civil wars’, Journal of Peace Research, 47(2), pp. 115–127. doi:10.1177/0022343309353488.
Fox, A.C. (2023) ‘On proxy war: A multipurpose tool for a multipolar world’, Journal of Military Studies, 12(1), pp. 1–17. doi:10.2478/jms-2023-0001.
Mumford, A. (2013) Proxy Warfare. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Pektaş, U. (2024) ‘Proxy War: An Attempt to Put a Retrospective and Ambiguous Concept into a Specific Framework’, The Turkish Yearbook of International Relations, 55, pp. 47–65. doi:10.58699/tyir.1433340.
Stone, G.D. (2010) Proxy War: A Critical Examination of Superpower Indirect Conflict in Africa. MA thesis. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/1993/4170 (Accessed: 14 August 2026).
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