ABSTRACT
Proxy wars are conflicts between two (or more) actors in which at least one of them entrusts another party to fight on their behalf. The external party (usually referred to as the sponsor or principal) delegates combat action to an agent (known as the proxy) and provides some form of military, economic, or diplomatic assistance to help the latter fight. As such, proxy warfare can be thought of as an indirect military strategy that substitutes direct military confrontation with the opponent. This chapter explores contemporary and future trends in proxy wars. With an argument that is in equal parts actor-centric and process-centric, this chapter provides a corrective to accounts of proxy war dynamics mis-informed by the past, and then presents a set of conjectures on possible future trajectories of proxy wars. Far from following a clear paradigm, proxy wars take multifaceted forms, involve state and non-state actors, both as proxies and as sponsors, and intersect with other phenomena, such as counter-insurgency, competition between great and regional powers, and direct military intervention. Based on these trends, this chapter suggests that proxy war is going to remain a popular strategy for many actors in the future landscape of warfare.
