Proxy War

The Least Bad Option

Tyrone L. Groh

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781503608733
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The U.S. has indirectly intervened in international conflicts on a relatively large scale for decades. Yet little is known about the immediate usefulness or long-term effectiveness of contemporary proxy warfare. In cases when neither direct involvement nor total disengagement are viable, proxy warfare is often the best option, or, rather, the least bad option. Tyrone L. Groh describes the hazards and undesirable aspects of this strategy, as well as how to deploy it effectively.

Proxy War explores the circumstances under which indirect warfare works best, how to evaluate it as a policy option, and the possible risks and rewards. Groh offers a fresh look at this strategy, using uncommon and understudied cases to test the concepts presented. These ten case studies investigate and illustrate the different types and uses of proxy war under varying conditions. What arises is a complete theoretical model of proxy warfare that can be applied to a wide range of situations. Proxy war is here to stay and will likely become more common as players on the international stage increasingly challenge U.S. dominance, making it more important than ever to understand how and when to deploy it.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

WHEN THE decision to intervene in another state’s affairs becomes a public conversation, a decision maker can be left with only deciding how, rather than whether, to intervene. Senator John McCain consistently pushed the White House to arm Syrian rebels as a means to bring down the Assad regime without committing America’s regular forces. McCain publicly urged the president, “I want to hear him say we’re going to arm the free Syrian army. We’re going to dedicate ourselves to the removal of Bashar al-Assad. We’re going to have the Russians pay a price for their engagement. All players here are going to have to pay a penalty and the United States of America is going to be on the side of people who fight for freedom.”¹ But the threat in Syria just doesn’t look threatening enough to the White House, or most American citizens, to warrant a direct intervention. Enter the idea of proxy war. If a civil war breaks out in another state and overtly threatens your own state’s security, then the situation clearly warrants a direct and overt response. Such circumstances allow the decision maker to quickly move to planning for a direct intervention. If the situation influences national security, but the circumstances do not so strongly engender public support for an overt commitment, then the decision maker has a more difficult choice to make: (1) choose not to intervene and suffer the consequences of political adversaries at home and rival states abroad viewing the administration as weak on security and unwilling to stand up to threats abroad; (2) choose to intervene directly and risk failure or being labeled as aggressive and unconcerned about the ensuing loss of life; or (3) find something in between.

This book is about understanding the “something in between” policy. When “doing nothing” is not perceived as an option, yet direct intervention appears to be a step too far, decision makers and their staffs seek ways to intervene indirectly. Under such circumstances, it may seem alluring to seize an opportunity to outsource the personnel needed for a foreign military intervention. To make such a prospect even more tempting, consider keeping the policy covert and making the involvement deniable. If such a prospect appears even remotely feasible, then the question “Why fight when someone else will do it for us?” will more than likely become a dominant part of the conversation. This kind of scenario is where proxy war makes its entrance into the field of possible policy options.

The term proxy war carries a lot of baggage. During the Cold War, the use of proxies allowed states to be far more adventurous in their efforts to influence world events and gain an advantage over their rivals. Small states on the periphery were often viewed as pawns in a much greater game, allowing the United States and the Soviet Union to compete globally without risking nuclear war. Local actors and conflicts were hijacked to serve the interests of Washington and Moscow. This Cold War image of proxy war continues to dominate the contemporary view of indirect interventions that involve a third party to influence civil affairs abroad and helps explain its continued use (and misuse) as an instrument of foreign policy.

The usefulness of proxy war has unfortunately been overblown. Indirect intervention, and more specifically proxy war, demands more rigorous exploration and study to remedy misperceptions and misunderstanding of its use as a tool of foreign policy. To avoid adding to the confusion about different methods of indirect intervention, I find it necessary to separate the action into two distinct categories: donating assistance and proxy war (concepts I explore in detail in Chapter 2). I define donating assistance as providing resources, without intending to direct the actions of a local actor, to influence political affairs in the target state. I define proxy war as directing the use of force by a politically motivated, local actor to indirectly influence political affairs in the target state. Both provide a middle ground for intervention and help bypass the thresholds for direct intervention and nonintervention.

Using proxy war as a means of indirect intervention requires considering both the policy’s utility—a short-term view that determines whether a proxy can actually provide the ability to intervene—and the efficacy—a long-term view that evaluates the likelihood that supporting the chosen proxy can produce a desirable outcome. Donating assistance is also a means of indirect intervention, the difference being that donating assistance cedes any control over how the local actor uses the support provided. Proxy war entails a hierarchical relationship between an intervening state and its proxy—in more formal terms, a principal-agent relationship. Proxy war requires a higher level of involvement from the intervening state. The trade-off is that proxy war offers an opportunity to help manage some of the uncertainty associated with indirect intervention. For this reason, proxy war is rarely a low-cost policy, and it is never risk free. Proxy war is also far more complex than a policy of donating assistance and therefore requires a much deeper understanding of the phenomenon if it is to be done well.

How does proxy war fit into today’s context? The United States has been fighting abroad on a relatively large scale since 1991. A perception of overstretch and increasing global competition have created a growing political and fiscal impetus for conserving resources and drawing down U.S. forces and deployments. The desire, and arguably the need, for U.S. intervention, however, continues. Discussions regarding the prospects of proxy war tend to focus on the benefits of such a policy. Developing partnerships and participating vicariously through them have become an answer for shifting away from the long-held requirement of having an armed force capable of fighting two major wars at the same time.² Little work, however, has been done to understand the actual utility (short-term) and efficacy (long-term) of proxy war. Many studies in the realm of proxy war are made up of anecdotal compilations of superpower conflict taking place on the periphery during the Cold War. Because of that, the use of proxies continues to be portrayed as a way to reduce the costs and risks of military intervention abroad.³

To date, there is little consideration for the potentially negative implications of acting through a third party. For example, updates to the National Security Strategy discuss the importance of shifting costs and risks to partners due to fiscal constraints. Both the 2006 and 2010 versions of the Quadrennial Defense Review discuss the need to work with and through partners to pursue common security interests while simultaneously promoting U.S. security. There is no warning or caution about the potential for partners to use American support in ways that hinder U.S. interests, nor is there a discussion of the need to put monitoring mechanisms in place to protect against such activities. Proxies, like adversaries, are self-interested, a fact that can drive costs far beyond expectation and significantly increase uncertainty.

The world, however, is becoming increasingly competitive. Under such conditions, the United States will continue to focus on working with and through partners to pursue American interests abroad. When the United States is faced with difficult scenarios such as whether to intervene in Crimea, Syria, Egypt, or Bahrain, proxy war will likely gain popularity as a potential course of action. Before America commits to a strategy of developing partners with the intent to expand its influence via proxy, decision makers and strategists need a better understanding of the potential risks as well as the potential rewards. More importantly, policy makers and strategists need better ideas about how best to execute a proxy war under varying conditions.

Proxy war is risky, but it is not something to be avoided at all costs. This type of indirect intervention has its place; it just demands careful consideration. For the foreseeable future, proxy war will remain an integral part of any state’s foreign policy options that meet the following three conditions: (1) the state’s interests and identity push outside its own borders, (2) the security and well-being of the state is connected to conditions in other states, and (3) the state maintains the capacity to engage in international affairs. Naturally, the states that fit this profile best are those with significant regional or global interests and the means to pursue them, but proxy war as a tool of foreign policy does not belong exclusively to powerful states.

In today’s world, a rigorous study and understanding of proxy war will only continue to grow in importance. The United States has already started on the path to proxy war in Syria and may find it extremely difficult to change course even if the context changes significantly. Caught between fiscal needs to limit military involvement and political pressures—both domestic and international—to intervene, Washington faces a potentially recurring issue in world politics: there is no good policy option. Unfortunately, intervening in world affairs will likely become more about choosing the least bad option. When the perceived threat to national security remains below the threshold of direct intervention and the presence of a potential partner appears workable, proxy war often quickly rises to the top of the least bad options.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS BOOK

In this book, I address interests from two different communities. For academics interested in international relations or security studies, this study delves into the ontological nature of indirect intervention. Focusing mostly on proxy war, I develop a more specific definition of the phenomenon and explore the different ways states use it to intervene militarily in conflicts abroad. In addition, I discuss how proxy war has changed since the end of World War II and provide insights about how proxy war will likely operate in the future. For practitioners involved in strategy and foreign policy, this book offers a theory of how to conduct proxy war in a way that maximizes its utility and efficacy. Further, I provide recommendations for improving how to consider and deliberate proxy war as a potential policy option.

To help balance the needs and interests of these two very different communities, this book follows Alex George’s sage advice: “Scholars may not be in a good position to advise policymakers how best to deal with a specific instance of a general problem that requires urgent and timely action,” but “they can often provide a useful, broader discussion of how to think about and understand that general problem.”⁴ Proxy war, as a phenomenon, has only been lightly explored. Three recent works have engaged on the topic of proxy war to promote a better understanding for why states choose proxy war. Michael Innes explores new lenses for analyzing proxy war to escape many of the well-established views of proxy war that have been carried over from the Cold War.⁵ Geraint Hughes offers a brief but interesting exploration of proxy war seeking to shape the narrative about the viability of proxy war as a tool of statecraft.⁶ Hughes also develops ideas, looking at historical cases, for why and how proxy wars have been fought in the past.⁷ Andrew Mumford provides a similar effort, providing additional cases and examples that expand the scope of proxy war.⁸ Although I also engage on the reasons why an intervening state might choose proxy warfare, the principal focus of this book is to understand the phenomenon better in its application. This book offers insights and explanations about proxy war to those who study foreign policy from an academic perspective, as well as those involved in the development and practice of foreign policy. The principal idea behind this book is to leave the policy making to the professionals and focus instead on providing a useful way to think about a policy of proxy war.

To deliver on these objectives, this book makes three arguments. First, I argue that the phenomenon of proxy war requires sharper boundaries. The term proxy war continues to be used both too broadly and too vaguely. In Chapter 2, I lay out the constitutive elements of proxy war (its ontology) and explain how it fits into the context of indirect military intervention. Proxy war involves (at least) two actors—an intervening state and its proxy—cooperating to achieve some common security objective. Cooperation, however, does not automatically indicate the existence of a proxy war policy. The practice of giving support to a third party to act on your behalf exists in very different ways. People support lobby groups with resources to forward their desired agenda. The use of a third party in this sense reflects the practice of donated assistance. Some organizations outsource services to a third party acting on their behalf to make the most of existing opportunities. For example, the U.S. government has a federal postal service, but it uses Federal Express (FedEx) or United Parcel Service (UPS) to ship important cargo domestically. The U.S. Postal Service could deliver the item, but the government can send it either quicker or faster (often both) using a private, third-party carrier. The relationship provides opportunities for both; the U.S. government gets a cost-effective and time-efficient means of shipping goods with an extremely high likelihood that the service will meet its expectations, and FedEx or UPS profits from the U.S. government’s business.

Proxies, however, are not always so reliable. If you employ a tenant in an apartment building you own to shovel the snow off the sidewalks and walkways, the quality of the service may not be what you expect, but it does not have to be perfect either. In either case, you (as the owner) place a premium on not having to be involved on a daily basis. To manage costs, you will not pay much for the service, perhaps a small credit on the tenant’s lease. The tenant is self-interested—shoveling the snow may not be a priority the same way it is for you as the owner. Under such conditions, the tenant will likely encounter a day when he or she would rather do something else and is willing to take the risk that you either do not notice or are willing to overlook the lack of service on that day. Proxies operate with the same mind-set. Having different goals and objectives complicates the relationship between an intervening state and its proxy—each wants something from the relationship and each has different priorities. Looking at a similar relationship put into another context, intervening in another state’s civil war indirectly through the use of a proxy adds risk and uncertainty—the proxy may not want the same things or hold the same priorities unless made to do so by the intervening state.

Unlike direct intervention where a state’s relative capability is on full display, indirect intervention affords an intervening state the ability to influence affairs in another state without such commitment. The benefit of indirect intervention comes from the avoidance of displaying those capabilities, preserving those capabilities for times of greater need, and obscuring its level of commitment and involvement to obtain a particular outcome. Direct intervention requires a win to sustain an intervening state’s reputation and position in the international system. Indirect intervention broadens the spectrum of acceptable outcomes and opens the possibility that winning is not always the goal of an intervention. From this perspective, proxy war improves the state’s ability to control the situation, especially when the proxy functions as intended—when it pursues the intervening state’s objectives with the same commitment and vigor as if it were fighting alone. Such commitment from a proxy, however, requires an exorbitant amount of control. Without control, the proxy will likely pursue its own agenda with little regard for the costs to the intervening state. If the outcome is relatively unimportant, however, intervening indirectly through the means of donated assistance might be best. Donated assistance reflects a policy that provides an indigenous third party with the means to fight but cedes all control to the third party. Donated assistance helps reduce an intervening state’s involvement in an indirect intervention but bears an equal reduction in the intervening state’s ability to control the outcome.

To expand the understanding of proxy war as a means of indirect intervention, I argue that it can be divided into four distinct types: in it to win it, holding action, meddling, and feed the chaos. Each has its own purpose and utility depending on the context surrounding the intervention of an intrastate conflict. All four adhere to the idea that a state perceives that “doing nothing” is too weak and committing the state’s own forces is too risky. Caught in between, an intervening state will look for opportunities to advance its vital and desirable interests.⁹ Balancing the pursuit of these two types of interests contributes to how an intervening state might use the different forms of proxy war.

In it to win it should occur when a state perceives a greater need to influence the outcome of an intrastate conflict because of the intervening state’s vital interests, such as its pursuit of security, or when an intervening state strongly desires a specific outcome based on its worldview and will offer more support and a higher level of commitment to enable its proxy to win. A holding action approach applies when localized threats to vital interests in and around the target state are low, yet the likelihood that instability could spread to other states or regions in a way that would threaten vital interests precludes nonintervention as an option. In some cases, the available proxy lacks the capability to actually win the conflict, but helping prolong the civil war may improve the outcome in terms of the intervening state’s interests. A good example of this is when the available proxy has little political capacity and corres...