Proxy war is a policy option that, under certain conditions, can offer states a workable alternative to direct military intervention. It requires a commitment from an intervening state of substantial resources, including personnel and material support, but does not involve sending its own troops to fight in a conflict. It is not as scalable as an alliance and should not be used to achieve the strategic objectives of a power, but it can provide an efficient way for a major actor to pursue its interests in an otherwise unstable region.
However, proxy warfare can also have significant drawbacks, particularly the power asymmetry that makes it difficult for an intervening state to shape the behavior of its proxies. Proxies often act on their own agenda and may even defy the sponsoring state’s directives. The United States has seen this in the conflict against the Taliban: when the U.S. asked its anti-Taliban Northern Alliance to take Kabul, the Northern Alliance decided to avoid a bloody battle because it was more interested in winning territory than in counting bodies.
In a proxy war, the intervening state must also be willing to accept that its proxies will not always act as it wishes and must continually monitor their performance in order to maintain policy coherence. This involves balancing the convergence of the intervening state’s objectives with those of its proxy, continuously monitoring domestic and international public opinion to assess the intervening state’s credibility, and understanding emerging conditions—both those self-inflicted and those beyond the control of the intervening state—that can disrupt policy coherence.
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