Proxy War

Great Power Competition by Other Means

7 min read 1,399 words conflict cold-war great-power-competition military strategy 0% read

Between 1950 and 1989, the United States and the Soviet Union never fired a shot at each other. Yet during this same period, an estimated 14 million people died in wars that the two superpowers armed, funded, trained, advised, and in some cases directed—in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and dozens of other countries that became battlefields for a conflict not their own. These were proxy wars: conflicts in which major powers pursue their strategic objectives through local allies, surrogates, or client states rather than engaging each other directly. The logic is straightforward and grim: nuclear weapons made direct superpower confrontation potentially suicidal, but they did not eliminate the geopolitical competition that would otherwise have produced such a confrontation. Proxy war offered a way to compete without risking annihilation.

The concept has not become obsolete with the Cold War’s end. Russia’s military intervention in Syria (2015), Iran’s network of armed proxies across the Middle East (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iraqi militias), and the Western support for Ukraine against Russian invasion all demonstrate that proxy warfare remains a central feature of international politics. Understanding how proxy wars begin, escalate, and end—and who bears their costs—is essential for grasping the dynamics of contemporary conflict.

The Logic of Proxy War

Why Proxies?

Great powers resort to proxies for several interconnected reasons:

Avoiding escalation: The primary driver of proxy warfare in the nuclear age is the fear that direct confrontation between major powers could escalate to nuclear war. The United States and Soviet Union understood that a conventional war in Europe could rapidly become nuclear, making the stakes literally civilizational. Proxy wars allowed competition to continue in theaters where the risks of escalation were lower—the Korean Peninsula, the jungles of Vietnam, the mountains of Afghanistan.

Reducing costs: Fighting through proxies is cheaper than deploying one’s own forces. Providing weapons, training, and funding to a local ally costs a fraction of what an expeditionary military campaign would require. The United States spent approximately $3 billion supporting the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union—a small investment that contributed to the Soviet withdrawal and, arguably, to the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Maintaining deniability: Proxies provide a degree of political cover. A great power can claim it is merely assisting a local ally rather than waging war. The Soviet Union denied direct involvement in Korea (though Soviet pilots flew combat missions) and claimed its “advisors” in Vietnam were non-combatants. The fiction was transparent, but it served a diplomatic function by allowing both sides to avoid acknowledging a direct confrontation.

Exploiting local knowledge: Local allies understand the terrain, the population, and the political dynamics of their theater in ways that foreign forces cannot. Afghan mujahideen fighters knew the mountains; Vietnamese guerrillas knew the jungle; Hezbollah fighters know southern Lebanon. This local knowledge can be more valuable than the technological superiority of a great power’s own forces.

Cold War Proxy Wars

Korea (1950-1953)

The Korean War was the Cold War’s first major proxy conflict—though it blurred the line between proxy and direct war. North Korea invaded the South with Soviet approval and equipment; the United States intervened under UN authority; China entered when American forces approached the Chinese border. Over 2.5 million people died. The war demonstrated that proxy conflicts could escalate dramatically and that the costs were borne primarily by the local populations caught between the superpowers.

Vietnam (1955-1975)

Vietnam was the proxy war that consumed a superpower. The United States committed over 500,000 troops to prevent communist unification of Vietnam—a commitment that cost 58,000 American lives, an estimated 2-3 million Vietnamese lives, and ultimately failed. North Vietnam, supported by Soviet weapons and Chinese supplies, demonstrated that a determined local force with great power backing could defeat a technologically superior adversary willing to commit limited resources to an unlimited objective.

Afghanistan (1979-1989)

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the American response created the Cold War’s final and most consequential proxy war. The CIA’s Operation Cyclone—channeling approximately $3 billion in weapons and funding through Pakistan’s ISI to the Afghan mujahideen—helped transform Afghanistan into the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. The Soviet withdrawal in 1989, after approximately 15,000 Soviet deaths and over a million Afghan deaths, contributed to the Soviet Union’s dissolution. But the proxy war’s consequences extended far beyond the Cold War: the mujahideen networks that the United States helped create became the foundation for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Africa and Latin America

The Cold War produced proxy conflicts across the developing world:

  • Angola (1975-2002): Cuban troops supported the Marxist government; South African forces and American-backed UNITA rebels opposed it. The war killed approximately 500,000 people.
  • Mozambique (1977-1992): Rhodesian and later South African-backed RENAMO fought the Soviet-supported FRELIMO government. An estimated one million died.
  • Nicaragua (1981-1990): The Reagan administration funded the Contras against the Sandinista government, producing a constitutional crisis (the Iran-Contra scandal) and approximately 30,000 Nicaraguan deaths.
  • Ethiopia-Somalia (1977-1978): The superpowers switched sides—the Soviet Union abandoned Somalia for Ethiopia; the United States picked up Somalia—in a conflict that killed tens of thousands and displaced over a million.

Contemporary Proxy Conflicts

Syria

Syria’s civil war (2011-present) became the 21st century’s most complex proxy conflict. Russia intervened militarily in 2015 to support the Assad regime, providing air power that turned the tide of the war. Iran deployed Hezbollah fighters and Iraqi Shia militias in support of Assad. The United States supported various Syrian rebel groups and, later, Kurdish forces fighting ISIS. Turkey intervened against Kurdish groups it viewed as threats. The Gulf states funded Sunni rebel factions. The result was a conflict with at least six external powers pursuing conflicting objectives through local proxies—producing over 500,000 deaths and the displacement of approximately 12 million people.

Yemen

Yemen’s civil war (2014-present) pits the Houthi movement, supported by Iran, against the internationally recognized government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States and United Kingdom. The war has produced what the UN called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”—approximately 150,000 combat deaths and an estimated 227,000 total deaths from the conflict’s effects, including famine and disease.

Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (2022-present) has elements of both direct war and proxy conflict. Russia fights directly, but Ukraine’s defense has been sustained by massive Western military and financial support—over $100 billion in aid from the United States and European allies. The West provides weapons, intelligence, training, and economic support while avoiding direct military engagement with Russia—a conscious decision to support Ukraine as a proxy rather than risk direct NATO-Russia confrontation and potential nuclear escalation.

The Costs of Proxy War

The fundamental injustice of proxy warfare is that the costs are borne disproportionately by the local populations whose countries become battlefields. The superpowers during the Cold War—and the great powers today—fight to the last Korean, Vietnamese, Afghan, Syrian, or Ukrainian. Local civilian casualties vastly exceed those of the sponsoring powers. Infrastructure is destroyed. Economies collapse. Refugees number in the millions. And when the great powers lose interest or reach an accommodation, they withdraw—leaving the local population to deal with the consequences.

The mujahideen fighters who served American interests in Afghanistan were abandoned after the Soviet withdrawal; their country descended into civil war and Taliban rule. The Kurds who fought ISIS with American support were abandoned when Turkey invaded northeastern Syria. The pattern recurs because the logic of proxy war dictates that local allies are instruments of great power strategy, not partners whose interests matter independently.

Sources & Further Reading

  • Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents by Eli Berman, David A. Lake, and Gerard Padró i Miquel — A systematic analysis of why states use proxies and the conditions under which proxy relationships succeed or fail.

  • The Cold War’s Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace by Paul Thomas Chamberlin — Challenges the idea of the Cold War as a “long peace” by documenting the millions who died in proxy wars across the developing world.

  • Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden by Steve Coll — The definitive account of America’s proxy war in Afghanistan and its unintended consequences, from the Soviet invasion through September 11.

  • The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk — A journalist’s encyclopedic account of Middle Eastern conflicts, many of them proxy wars, drawn from decades of firsthand reporting.