The Evolution of Proxy War Since 1945 (2024)

any intervention presents risk. Regardless of time or technology, fueling existing violence as a means to intervene in the affairs of another state adds concerns about fog and friction. War has a way of confounding policy because it is so difficult to account for the myriad variables that influence its outcome. In addition, interventions have known second-order effects. A state may get drawn into the conflict deeper than it intended, even leading to a direct intervention. If the conflict breaks bad, domestic and/or political costs could skyrocket. A rival state may enter the fray and raise the costs or spoil the opportunity to achieve the desired objectives. For good or ill, these factors influence the outcome and duration of an intrastate conflict.1Close

In this chapter, I aim to shed some light on how the changing times have influenced the use of proxy war. I argue that the general reason states use proxies has not changed, but the structure of the world order and the underlying factors that accompany different types of order do influence a state’s use of proxy war. More specifically, I develop a model that describes, and potentially predicts, the conditions under which a state will resort to proxy war.

Has proxy war changed? Richard Haass predicted at the end of the twentieth century that “the post–Cold War world promises to be a messy one where violence is common, where conflicts within and between nation-states abound, and where the question of US military intervention becomes more rather than less commonplace and more rather than less complicated.”2Close Haass’s prediction initially appears incorrect. Following the end of the Cold War, the number of armed conflicts and civil wars fell sharply, as did the duration of the civil wars that started afterward.3Close In the past few years, however, the number of armed conflicts has once again begun to increase.4Close Something has changed. Two potential explanations relate to alterations in the global order—often called “polarity” in the international relations literature—and variations in how states with regional or limited global influence intervene in the affairs of other states.5Close All states perceive limitations or barriers that restrain or constrain their foreign policy and the use of force. When concerns abroad warrant some effort to shape international outcomes, but those concerns fall below a threshold that would allow a direct military intervention (meaning the use of a state’s own forces in another country), states (both past and present) have resorted to the use of a proxy to overcome the barriers that would otherwise hinder the pursuit of their objectives. The perception of barriers to intervention has arguably fluctuated over the past several decades. Accordingly, proxy wars have ebbed and flowed as well. How and why have states changed the practice of using proxies to influence the outcomes of intrastate conflicts?

Barriers continue to influence a state’s decision to intervene in the affairs of another state, but the nature and interpretation of those barriers change as the structure of the world order changes. The need for proxy intervention remains, but the conditions under which such a tool of foreign policy operates have apparently changed. I am not arguing that the international order is causal in any of the changes, but looking at the changes from a systemic perspective offers some interesting insights. Based on these three insights, I ask three questions: (1) How does the order of the international system (bipolar, unipolar, quasi-unipolar) influence the use of proxy war? (2) How does a state’s position in that order influence its use of proxy war? (3) How does a state’s perception of the barriers to intervention under different conditions of international order and capability affect the choice to engage in proxy war?

When It Comes to Proxy War, What Drives Choice?

From a theoretical perspective, what drives a state’s desire to intervene directly, indirectly, or not at all? In all three cases, the fundamental motivation stems from the perception that the state both needs to, and can, influence or control events in another state. Direct intervention requires the perception of significant need. The absence of that perception should result in nonintervention. Indirect intervention, however, indicates additional considerations that suggest the perceived need to intervene and the existence of conditions that limit the potential options of intervention. In some cases, states simply don’t see an advantage in directly intervening based on the existing conditions—the benefit of intervening directly won’t exceed the price. In other cases, states want (or some would say “appear to want”) to abide by international norms that describe when intervention is allowed.6Close Proxy war has the potential to tip the balance of cost and benefit or to uphold appearances of adhering to international norms. Therefore, proxy war becomes a product of the motivation driving a state toward intervention and the perceived barriers to proscribe those options.

Using levels of analysis, I classify the drivers into three categories: individual, state, and system. I consider how each level of analysis influences the real and perceived barriers to intervention and how states perceive the utility of indirect intervention as opposed to direct intervention or nonintervention. Lastly, I include the presence of nuclear weapons as an additional consideration to a state’s decision to intervene, given the subject and period of study.

Individual-Level Drivers

History provides numerous examples of powerful individuals influencing a state’s policy. Napoleon, Hitler, and Mao all represent stark images of an individual driving a country’s domestic and international relations. One of realism’s core assumptions is that humans are flawed and that conflict stems from the human desire for power.7Close Increasing one’s power may come from conquering other countries, as Napoleon and Hitler did, or it could be from seizing power inside the state, as Mao did. Regardless of regime type, individuals in a position to directly influence a state’s foreign policy still have to answer to a domestic audience. People in power want to keep their seats.8Close Putting power aside, sometimes leaders have access to information that cannot be released publicly, especially if it compromises a state’s sources and methods of intelligence operations. If leaders want to continue to rule or govern a state, they have to consider how the pursuit and justification of foreign policy will affect future prospects.

Barriers to intervention exist for both autocratic and democratic states. Under such conditions, acting through third parties can provide options to overcome some or all of those barriers. If an executive’s ability to act remains relatively unrestrained, proxy war comes to the fore when it offers an added capability to conduct foreign military interventions. If an executive perceives constraints, either domestically or internationally, then a proxy may allow policy makers and decision makers alike to escape criticism.

The issue, however, is that individual choice is often difficult to separate from domestic politics. As Kenneth Waltz argues in Man, the State, and War, it is difficult (if not impossible) to separate actions taken at the individual level from those driven by state-level forces.9Close Was Indira Gandhi’s decision to support Tamil militants driven by her desire to remain in power in India or was it necessitated by constituents living in the state of Tamil Nadu? Does it matter if state-level forces pushed her into a corner? I do not argue that the individual level is irrelevant. I simply argue that it is difficult to separate the causal factors that drive foreign policy. Therefore, I argue that it is more expedient to subsume the individual level of analysis into the state level when considering what drives the decision to engage in proxy war.

State-Level Drivers

States, regardless of regime type, are rarely free to make decisions regarding foreign policy, let alone when it comes to the use of force.10Close From a domestic politics perspective, the threshold for intervention stems from the government’s ability to convince the relevant audiences at home that an intervention is necessary. Fundamentally, many of the same drivers operating at the international level also apply domestically—states will make the case that the intervention is needed to shore up their security. If a state predicts that intervention in any form will not garner the support necessary to avoid domestic (or international) penalties, it may attempt to circumvent restrictions through the use of covert action, but such choices are difficult to keep hidden from view and often come with significant blowback.11Close Further, covert action places additional burdens on the state, such as requiring support to go through third parties or taking additional risks with its own personnel.12Close Under such conditions, a proxy provides a means to lower the risk to the intervening state by reducing the need for its own personnel, but it compromises its ability to control the proxy with fewer observers or without being able to control the distribution of incentives.13Close

Governments can further justify an intervention policy based on the idea that costs and risks of the intervention will be shared with another actor (the proxy). Under some circ*mstances, a proxy allows the case to be made that an intervention is a moral obligation to protect the rights of people in the target country or to protect those people from an undesirable form of government. Lastly, vast increases in the availability of information, even in information-suppressed states, make it possible for domestic audiences to see responses from other states, both friends and rivals, and make judgments about the efficacy of an indirect intervention. Based on these considerations, all four barriers relate to domestic politics: the risk of escalation increases if a state directly intervenes, a lack of domestic support may risk the sustainability of the intervention, a lack of international support negatively affects the cost/benefit ratio of the intervention, and a lack of capacity makes direct intervention untenable.

System-Level Drivers

On one hand, the global order represents an impossibly complex and unwieldy variable. On the other hand, it significantly simplifies analysis, especially at the macro level. In the study of interventions and proxy war, I use the global order as a means of describing (and crudely measuring) international competition. I acknowledge that diminishing returns occurs quickly for less powerful states; the global order does a poor job of explaining intervention decisions for states with no capacity to rationally intervene in other states. States with regional or global reach, however, logically consider global order (and their standing in it) when intervening militarily abroad.

The Cold War brought a bipolar world order with the United States and the Soviet Union representing the two poles, pulling equally against each other until the Soviet Union’s demise in the early 1990s. In the aftermath, the United States stood alone as the world’s lone superpower and brought forth a unipolar order—a single pole, unbalanced. Immersed in two conflicts, Afghanistan and Iraq, the unipolar order began to fray at the margins in the mid-2000s and drifted into what I describe as a quasiunipolar order. The United States remains unmatched in any category of state influence, but the order has begun to wobble as increasingly influential regional powers push outward.

As it stands today, the international system remains quasi-unipolar. Under this system, proxy war will continue its current trend of occurring less than during the Cold War but more than when the system operated under a clear hegemon. Based on this research, I argue that the use of proxy war will increase as the world drifts further toward multipolarity. The reason is that complex interdependence and globalization—two phenomena with the perceived potential to improve a state’s ability to compete in the international system—will make it necessary for global powers to compete on the margins without directly and overtly challenging one another (similar to the Cold War). The expanding influence of regional powers will create overlaps of interest with the United States and other regional powers. Proxy war will give global powers an excuse to pursue interests when attempting to influence events in another state’s perceived sphere of influence. Proxy wars will also give regional or global powers an excuse to look away when their interests are not specifically challenged. In both cases, proxies will provide the means to manage unwanted escalation, including the continued avoidance of nuclear conflict where applicable. Lastly, proxy war will allow global powers the ability to circumvent institutional penalties and maintain the appearance of upholding institutional commitments.

I propose that when and how a state chooses proxy intervention stems from an interaction between a state’s relative capabilities, the alignment and distribution of power in the international system, a state’s perception of the importance of an intrastate conflict, and the barriers to direct intervention. More plainly, a state’s decision is influenced by what the state perceives it can do to influence the affairs of another state and the barriers imposed on it by the international system and/or its own domestic audience. These factors influence a state’s threshold for direct intervention, indirect intervention, and nonintervention.

Interstate Competition

States may respond to the international environment and often make choices, especially regarding the use of force, due to its relative capability vis-à-vis other states, the scarcity of resources available, and the desire for security.14Close In some cases, states act out of self-interest and seek to achieve gains in whatever way provides the greatest benefit.15Close States may view the choice to intervene as an opportunity and look for any means available to provide the greatest gain for the lowest cost.16Close A proxy may potentially serve these interests because it perceivably provides additional resources believed to extend an intervening state’s capability to influence or control an outcome. A proxy may also be seen as a means to lower the amount of risk incurred from intervention, thus lowering the cost and increasing the benefit.

In addition to the pursuit of additional gains in terms of resources and security, states may logically perceive the need to intervene based on the actions of other states. Because states do not always, or often, explain their intentions when it comes to foreign policy and national security, other states must fill in the gaps. Such speculation leads to a security dilemma and understandably creates tension between states. Under such circ*mstances, states may intervene as a countermove to actions perceived as being aggressive or threatening.17Close In this situation, a proxy provides a state with the opportunity to conserve its own resources, should they be needed later, and thereby extends the state’s ability to pursue its interests.

Despite the negative aspects of international competition that can lead to armed conflict, states still cooperate. Over time, international institutions have increased in number and scope, causing states to increasingly seek to protect their reputations and improve their influence. Because of these developments, reputation has become an important means of a state’s influence.18Close Further, as globalization knits a more interdependent world, direct intervention potentially works against a state’s ability to influence other international actors and thrive in the international system.19Close Under these conditions, a proxy offers a state the means to intervene in the affairs of another state with the hope of protecting its reputation, avoiding institutional penalties, and keeping the costs of entering into cooperative agreements with other states manageable. Put more simply, a proxy offers the possibility of circumventing institutional constraints. In cases where the character of the proxy raises eyebrows from institutional partners because of their brutality or politics, a state may seek to engage covertly in a proxy war.

Although rationalist and realist explanations for why states might resort to proxy war appear logical in many instances, states have also engaged in proxy war to protect others from the persecution of abusive governments or to provide people with a better form of government.20Close Under such circ*mstances, a state may hope for some form of gain such as a new ally or trading partner, but the primary motive may be to just help humanity.21Close A proxy war selected for this reason would be used to avoid all of the proposed barriers: the risk of escalation increases if a state directly intervenes, a lack of domestic support may risk the sustainability of the intervention, a lack of international support negatively affects the cost/benefit ratio of the intervention, and a lack of capacity makes direct intervention untenable.

When it comes to interstate competition and the use of force, nuclear weapons should add a sobering dose of sensibility.22Close The existential threat of destroying the world as we know it adds the ultimate counterbalance to any perceived gains attained through intervention. Under such conditions, any state that perceives the possibility of nuclear escalation will look for options to indirectly intervene or skip intervention altogether. So long as a state’s perception of the stakes or its commitment to the outcome of an intrastate conflict remains below what it might accept in terms of risk when considering direct intervention, something less than direct intervention should occur.

The Conceptual Influence of the World Order

The pecking order in the international system significantly influences competition and a state’s perception of the options available to influence events outside its own borders. Changes in the global order influence how states perceive the threshold for intervention. The combination of global order and a state’s position within it—based largely on its relative capability, its identity, and the perceived relationship with other actors—affects a state’s decision to intervene directly in the affairs of another state, to intervene indirectly, or to forgo intervention entirely.23Close Different polarities, meaning different orderings of the international system, should influence a state’s decision to intervene.

The alignment of power in the international system already has well-established categories, with the three most common being multipolar, bipolar, and unipolar. In each case, the poles are defined by their significant advantage in terms of relative capability that allows them to influence global affairs. The Concert of Europe is often considered the benchmark example of a multipolar system. A bipolar structure created the conditions that led to the Cold War era forcing two superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union—to engage in a global, ideological competition.24Close With the fall of the Soviet Union, unipolarity emerged as the United States remained the only state in the system with global reach and influence.

Tracing changes in the global order provides a convenient and effective starting point to understand the changes in the use of proxy war as a means to pursue interests without having to directly intervene. Proxy war has been around for a long time, and the reasons for using proxies to indirectly intervene in another state have not fundamentally changed. For example, prior to World War I, under a multipolar order, proxy wars were used by great powers to avoid direct confrontation that might lead to a large-scale war.25Close The Concert of Europe helped ensure that alliances shifted to maintain the balance of power, pushing great power conflict to play out in small countries and distant regions. Russia did not want to challenge Great Britain directly in South Asia but instead engaged the British in the Great Game fought in the Northwest Frontier.26Close During the interwar period, European states were exhausted and the United States moved toward isolationism. Two regional powers, Germany and Russia, engaged in a proxy war in Spain to test one another, rather than engaging in a conflict neither state could manage overtly because each lacked the resources and wanted to avoid drawing in other states.27Close

Bipolar

Bipolarity should see the two poles doing the majority of the interventions with only minimal interventions by peripheral states. The two poles have the resources, interests, and reach to meet any challenge by an opponent. Further, the two poles will look for opportunities to gain an advantage on their primary adversary. States on the periphery will have been forced to choose between the two poles and will defer to the chosen superpower when it comes to intervention because any action taken may cause a response by the opposing superpower. In addition, independent intervention decisions may incur retribution from the aligned superpower.28Close

Under a bipolar order, proxy war serves as a way to manage escalation between the superpowers. The intense competition of a bipolar order also suggests that domestic factors should play a smaller role in intervention decisions. Intrastate conflicts would only be opportunities to make small gains on the margins that would not threaten the balance of power. As long as the competition at the fringe of each pole’s sphere of influence did not become an overtly obvious sign of commitment or interest, competition could remain limited.29Close Neither superpower should commit to a direct intervention, and they should rarely commit to a proxy war to win because of the risk of escalation and the perception that its influence was waning—something that might overtly signal commitment or interest. Holding action, feeding the chaos, or meddling should be the primary focus of proxy wars in a bipolar structure. As an added measure of protection, interventions that suggest high levels of interest, regardless of how they are pursued, would be pursued covertly.

Unipolar

Unipolarity should result in a single pole, the hegemon, doing most of the interventions. States that see the unipolar system as a benefit to their own security will ally themselves to the hegemon and should not undertake actions that might undermine that system.30Close Other states operating in ways that challenge the hegemon’s established order or in areas that fall within the hegemon’s interest should reduce direct interventions, less they incur a check on their action.31Close From a systemic perspective, the hegemon should feel less constrained and its threshold for direct intervention should increase. A hegemon’s concerns about the stakes should revolve around the need to sustain the unipolar order, and its commitment to the outcome in intrastate conflicts should focus on maintaining stability and ensuring that other states observe its power and willingness to use it.

Under a unipolar system, restrictions on a hegemon’s ability to sustain the system it has created are few. A hegemon’s prestige is the coin of the realm, and a hegemon’s ability to entice rather than coerce other states to accept its position and the system it offers lowers costs and increases benefits.32Close A hegemon should engage in a proxy war only when interventions may harm the unity among regionally powerful states and the concordant international institutions that have adopted and uphold the hegemon’s system.

Under such conditions, a hegemon’s use of proxy wars intended to meddle should predominate. States beneath the hegemon with the ability to intervene outside their own borders, however, have more restrictions. Escalation considerations from the hegemon or regional competitors could drive the need for proxy war. In addition, states may also seek indirect, proxy interventions to avoid reprisals from international institutions to which they belong. States will want to maximize their capabilities; therefore, proxy wars may provide an opportunity to avoid institutionally driven penalties. Under such conditions, regional powers should engage in all four types of proxy wars to gain or maintain a competitive edge within their specific region of influence.

Quasi-Unipolar

A quasi-unipolar order represents a point when only one state in the international system possesses the relative capability to operate on a global level, yet its regional influence in areas with strong states gets increasingly tested. As the single global power makes more and more concessions to regional powers, the unipolar system drifts into unknown territory. Revisionist states that desire to challenge the weakening hegemon become regional powers with increasing reach.

Many of the same logics operating in a unipolar system should continue to broadly influence state behavior under a quasi-unipolar system. The hegemon retains the ability to intervene globally and continues to use its influence to uphold the system that provides its power and advantage. The difference, however, is that the hegemon’s influence has shrunk while other states have made significant gains. The hegemon no longer possesses the overwhelming distribution of power in the international system, causing the hegemon to go to greater lengths to avoid actions that look overly aggressive or tyrannical that might lead bandwagoning states to balance against it.33Close

The waning of the hegemon’s relative capability in comparison to other would-be challengers of the unipolar order should create incentives to avoid direct intervention in areas that do not clearly suggest a direct threat to the hegemon’s security. Proxy war, under this condition, could offer the hegemon an opportunity to influence, or even control, events in areas of interest without appearing overly oppressive. Under these circ*mstances, proxy wars intended to prevent gains by regional actors (holding actions) and meddling should occur. A hegemon should not logically engage in proxy wars intended to feed the chaos because it could undermine the legitimacy of the current international system. Intrastate conflicts that have moderate stakes and in which the hegemon feels some sense of commitment to the outcome should result in direct intervention.

Regional powers sense a greater flexibility to intervene and expand their spheres of influence. Other states seeking to disrupt or unmake the hegemon’s system (known as revisionist states in the international relations literature) will seek opportunities to expand their relative capability and improve their lot in the international system.34Close If a regional power possesses nuclear weapons, the state may perceive an added incentive to be more adventurous and bet on the hope that the hegemon will not want to risk an inadvertent nuclear incident for something that is not clearly a risk to its national security.35Close Given these opportunities, regional powers should be likely to engage in proxy wars intended to provide gains (in it to win it), or further dismantle the unipolar order (meddling and feeding the chaos).

States with even less relative capability might be more willing to risk interventions, especially proxy interventions, that the hegemon will see as stretching its commitments needlessly in an increasingly competitive

international system. Based on that logic, lesser powers should engage in proxy wars to make small gains (in it to win it) or reduce the capability of local competitors (meddling and feeding the chaos). In both cases, holding actions will likely prove too expensive and be perceived as a direct challenge to the hegemonic system.

Case Studies

In this section, I apply the concepts presented in the first part of the chapter to selected cases that represent different aspects of the arguments presented. Table 3.1 contains a breakdown of the different ideas under investigation. Different periods, relative capabilities, and the effects of different barriers will all be applied to see if states choose proxy war based on the logic presented. For each type of global order and the cases selected from those periods, I consider the following questions:

For question 3, I focus on the proposed barriers to proxy war: risk of escalation, lack of domestic support, lack of international support, and lack of capacity. The cases selected for each period reflect one specific type of proxy war. The unipolar order presents one exception, because none of the proxy wars I have found fit the types for “in it to win it” or a holding action.

I do have two limitations in the cases used in this chapter. Because a holding action occurs infrequently, I use two abbreviated versions of the cases presented in Chapters 6 and 7 (U.S. intervention in Laos and South African intervention in Angola).

The Cold War and Bipolarity’s Influence on the Use of Proxy War

During the Cold War, the number of states engaged in civil wars increased dramatically compared to the period preceding World War II. Intrastate conflicts most often ended with one side declaring victory and tended to last longer. Negotiated settlements were rare. The presence of external support made it easier for antagonists to keep fighting, likely causing the two sides to cling to the belief of total victory rather than settling for some power-sharing agreement.36Close In light of such intense competition and with such high barriers to direct intervention, the superpowers (the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]) engaged widely in proxy war to compete at the margins—Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia—to avoid direct confrontation and the possibility of unwanted escalation that could lead to nuclear war.

In this section, I apply my proposed model described earlier and the theoretical and empirical considerations connected to the Cold War. I present cases that represent all four typologies: the United States in Nicaragua (in it to win it), South Africa in Angola (holding action), India in Sri Lanka (meddling), and Pakistan in Afghanistan (feeding the chaos). US support of the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s challenges the idea that a superpower should commit to win an intervention when the stakes remain relatively low in terms of how the intrastate conflict threatens its national security and how domestic restraints can significantly impact an interventionist policy. South Africa’s support of UNITA resembles a regional power operating on the periphery and explores how a state with limited reach (compared to the superpowers) used a proxy war to mitigate the potential threat of a superpower encroaching on its border. India’s intervention in Sri Lanka in the 1980s provides another case of a nonsuperpower engaging in proxy war, this time based on a combination of concerns about the potential of superpower states aligning with the Sinhalese government, the desire to prevent an independent Tamil state from emerging, and the need to mollify the interests of the influential Tamil ethnic group needed to sustain a domestic, political coalition. Lastly, Pakistan’s intervention in Afghanistan did not seek a specific political solution. Instead, Islamabad wanted to keep Afghan militias relatively equal to prevent the emergence of a single faction capable of unifying and leading the diverse groups of anti-Soviet forces, yet still capable of keeping Soviet forces bogged down on the west side of Afghan-Pakistan border.

Unlike the period before World War I and the interwar period, the international system during the Cold War reflected a bipolar order. The character of a bipolar international system derives first from the presence of only two powerful rivals—superpowers—whose relative capability would remain largely unaffected by alliances with lesser powers.37Close According to the theories presented, a bipolar order creates an intense desire to remain relatively equal in capability, forcing each side to stay sharp and vigilant. Kenneth Waltz argued in 1964 that these three factors would continue to feed the stability of the bipolar system and prevent the Cold War from ever turning hot.38Close The two superpowers should have competed in every facet of the global arena—if one gained an advantage, the other would commit the required resources and efforts to catch up. Any intervention in Africa or Latin America by the United States should have caused a counterintervention by the Soviet Union—the reverse also being true. Soviet direct support to Cuba and America’s support of proxies in Angola both support the proposed theory.

Although some instances followed this logic, on some occasions the superpowers did not behave accordingly. In both Rhodesia and South West Africa (Namibia), the Soviet Union supported a proxy to sway the outcome of those intrastate conflicts, but the United States steered clear. The chief adversaries in both cases were the white-dominated, repressive governments in those countries and the Republic of South Africa. In Latin America, the Soviet Union passed on backing a proxy to counter U.S. efforts to remove socialist, anti-American regimes in Guatemala and Nicaragua. In Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union also passed on supporting the communist Pathet Lao in Laos, despite U.S. support for Hmong forces and, to a lesser extent, the Laotian government in Vientiane. On the U.S. side, the lack of support for two repressive regimes suggests that domestic barriers to intervention may have played a role. Adding to this idea, the United States engaged in a covert proxy war to influence events in Angola in hopes of stalling Moscow’s efforts to expand its influence in southern Africa.39Close

During the Cold War, most other states in the international system picked a side. An ally of one of the superpowers intervening in another state was often seen as an attempt to gain an advantage for that side against the other. The perceptions of East versus West, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) versus the Warsaw Pact were just manifestations of the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. There were, however, some exceptions. The United Kingdom intervened directly against Argentina in the Falkland Islands without an armed response from the Soviet Union. The United States, however, made it clear that it would sit on the sidelines for the most part.40Close Both Syria and Israel engaged in proxy interventions in neighboring Lebanon during the mid-1970s, without causing a counterintervention from either of the superpowers.41Close Somalia (a state aligned with the Soviet Union) used a proxy to attempt to capture the Ogaden region from Ethiopia (a state also aligned with the Soviet Union). When Somalia’s efforts stalled, it severed its relations with the Soviet Union and asked the United States to intervene on its behalf. America rebuffed this request, and Moscow shortly thereafter threw significant support behind Ethiopia. Soundly defeated, Somalia not only failed to gain the Ogaden but also lost its military superiority in the Horn of Africa.42Close

Lastly, there were a few instances where a nonsuperpower with significant regional influence engaged in proxy war. Per the theory, regional powers should have engaged in indirect interventions only in areas that were outside a superpower’s sphere of influence because even indirect intervention would have sparked an unwinnable competition with a superpower. Pakistan’s support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan created a serious impediment to the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan. South Africa’s support of proxies in Rhodesia, Angola, and South West Africa (Namibia) in the 1980s and 1990s challenged Moscow’s influence in Southern Africa. India engaged in two different proxy wars—supporting Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan in 1970 and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka in the 1980s—with the intent to intervene in its neighbors’ affairs without incurring a superpower response; in both cases India managed to avoid sparking a counterintervention.43Close Why did the United States and the Soviet Union both sit on the sidelines?

From this systemic look at proxy war, it appears that there is a link between geography, the perception of stakes involved in an intrastate conflict, a state’s commitment to the outcome of an intrastate conflict, and the barriers that determine the spectrum of intervention options. Africa and South Asia fell mostly within the Soviet sphere of influence, while Latin America and Southeast Asia fell within America’s. The word mostly is important here. Except for Angola, it appears that superpower efforts, when constrained by indirect intervention, succeeded in staving off a counterintervention by the other superpower. The fact that regional powers managed to sustain proxy interventions against a superpower suggests that the use of proxy war effectively avoided unwanted escalation.

In the remainder of this section, I present four cases (one for each type of proxy war) that provide anomalies to the presented logic. A communist beachhead in Latin America would have been a landmark accomplishment for the Soviet Union, but Moscow failed to counter the proxy intervention by the United States. Further, America was committed to deciding the outcome in Nicaragua, but its efforts seemed more constrained by its domestic politics than by the possibility of a clash with the Soviet Union. South Africa used proxy war as a holding action in the border region between Angola and South West Africa (Namibia) without being subjected to an untenable counterintervention by the Soviet Union. India meddled in Sri Lanka’s affairs without backlash from either superpower. Pakistan challenged a direct Soviet intervention, feeding the chaos in Afghanistan to ensure that Moscow could not achieve victory, without an overwhelming Soviet response.

In It to Win It: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua

As the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the early 1980s, the presence of a socialist regime in the Western Hemisphere open to Soviet influence was an anathema to the Reagan administration. The American public, however, continued to resist a policy resembling a limited intervention in the Third World based on the shadows of the Vietnam War.44Close When the Sandinista government first came to power in 1979, the United States immediately recognized the new regime and offered aid to the troubled country. Although the new Nicaraguan regime openly stated that it desired good relations with the United States, the Sandinista government mostly rejected U.S. overtures and instead moved closer to Cuba and the Soviet Union.

In 1981, the Reagan administration directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin covert paramilitary operations to interdict arms transfers from Cuba and Nicaragua to insurgencies in Central America. In 1982, Congress enacted the Boland I Amendment to prohibit the use of public funds aimed at bringing down the Sandinista government. In the same year, Walter Raymond Jr., a veteran CIA officer experienced in covert operations, was moved to the National Security Council to resume pressuring Nicaragua’s government to stop working against U.S. interests.45Close

Between 1982 and 1986, Soviet military assistance increased significantly, fueling the Reagan administration’s concerns about the dangers of the Sandinista government. The Soviet Union repeatedly claimed that the United States was trying to unseat Nicaragua’s elected government, but Moscow also appeared to believe that the Sandinista government would prevail in the conflict.46Close Congress, however, did not seem to share President Ronald Reagan’s view of the stakes involved and continued to impede the administration’s efforts. After the CIA’s mining of Nicaraguan harbors became public in 1984 (an effort designed to overcome the Contras’ ineffectiveness), Congress enacted the Boland II Amendment, which specifically denied funding in fiscal year 1985 to “the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, or any other agency or entity of the United States involved in intelligence activities that may be obligated or expended for the purpose or which would have the effect of supporting directly or indirectly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua by any nation, group, organization, movement or individual.” This language left the door open for the National Security Council to remain involved with the Contras.47Close

In response to Congress’s decision, members of the National Security Council created a covert program to resume funding the Contras.48Close The funding, however, proved inadequate. In 1986, President Reagan persuaded Congress to reinstate significant military support for the Contras totaling $70 million.49Close Shortly thereafter, Congress found out that the United States had been selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras. Although Congress had already approved $100 million in aid, it firmly stated that it would provide only humanitarian aid in the future. The nature of the operation apparently protected the White House from long-lasting domestic disappointment. After eight months of news coverage on the Iran-Contra affair, only 54 percent of the people in the United States knew that the United States supported rebels trying to overthrow the government in Nicaragua.50Close President Reagan’s approval rating dropped from 63 percent to 47 percent after news of the Iran-Contra affair had been made public; it remained relatively low throughout the next two years but rebounded back to 63 percent at the end of his presidency.51Close

In 1986, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the United States, having mined Nicaragua’s harbors and promoted civil dissent, had violated international law. Despite the ICJ’s ruling, the United States ignored the ICJ’s order to pay reparations and continued supporting the Contras.52Close Operations reached their peak in 1987 as ten to twelve thousand Contra insurgents conducted attacks against the Sandinista government. In early 1988, the Contras and Sandinistas agreed to a cease-fire and began negotiations. By the end of 1988, operations promptly ceased and the Contras fled to neighboring countries. In 1989, the Sandinistas honored their agreement to allow the Contras to return to Nicaragua and to hold open elections. In 1990, the Sandinistas lost the presidential election, and after the new president took office the Contras demobilized. In 1991, Nicaragua informed the ICJ that it no longer wanted to pursue the case against the United States, relieving Washington from any obligation to pay Nicaragua reparations.53Close

Holding Action: South African Intervention in Angola

There are only two cases of a holding action in the Cold War era, both of which are detailed case studies in this book (Angola and Laos). A detailed description of this case can be found in Chapter 4. I do, however, include a discussion in the summary of this chapter of how the South Africa/UNITA case informs the ideas and concepts presented earlier and in the previous chapter.

Meddling: Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka

India’s intervention in Sri Lanka is interesting due to New Delhi’s leading role in the nonaligned movement. It demonstrates how proxy war served more than just the superpowers during the Cold War. A more detailed description of this case can be found in Chapter 5. I include discussion in the summary of this chapter of how the India/LTTE case informs the ideas and concepts presented above and in the previous chapter.

Feeding the Chaos: Pakistani Intervention in Afghanistan

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan presented two serious threats to Pakistan. First, the rapidly increasing number of refugees threatened to overwhelm Islamabad’s domestic security. Second, Pakistan’s buffer from communist pressure had been removed. To avoid unnecessarily provoking Moscow and to keep its domestic situation under control, Islamabad sought to disguise its involvement. In addition, Pakistan wanted to create the ability to strongly influence Afghanistan’s domestic politics to ensure that it did not jeopardize Pakistan’s security.54Close

Pakistan’s geographical position made it the logical distribution hub for the substantial amount of aid flowing in from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Islamabad used its position to control the mujahideen groups, giving greater support to those more in line with Pakistan’s strategic objectives. Pakistan also allowed the mujahideen, either tacitly or deliberately, to engage in illicit operations such as gun running and drug trafficking to further finance their operations.55Close Allowing these illicit activities, however, later caused problems for Islamabad as the mujahideen groups became more self-reliant and more resistant to government control in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.56Close

Pakistan made extensive use of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its intelligence service. ISI personnel operated mujahideen training camps, distributed U.S. intelligence, and directly participated in mujahideen operations. Most importantly, the ISI managed to foster cooperation and discord between mujahideen factions in a way that maximized Pakistan’s benefit. Pakistan’s objective was not only to harass Soviet operations in Afghanistan but also to keep mujahideen groups sufficiently weak to prevent the emergence of a dominant faction that could challenge Pakistan’s control. The tenacious and adaptable mujahideen fighters proved highly capable, but most importantly, they were fiercely independent and prone to factionalism. These qualities enabled Pakistan to manipulate the mujahideen. By 1982, the ISI had managed to reduce the number of mujahideen groups from over forty to just seven. This allowed Pakistan to keep closer tabs on mujahideen operations and to monitor the relative strength of each group.

When the Soviets withdrew in 1989, Pakistan fueled the civil war that ensued. In the short term, Pakistan’s efforts paid great dividends and allowed Islamabad to continue to influence Afghanistan’s domestic politics. The policy, however, also fostered greater unrest and resistance in the Tribal Areas.

Bipolar/Cold War Summary

During the Cold War, all four types of proxy war occurred (see Figure 3.1). The U.S. government, under the Reagan administration, resorted to a proxy (Contras) to usurp a leftist government in Managua. The threshold for direct intervention had not been crossed, considering that the Sandinista regime was elected into office and both Congress and the American public still wanted to avoid another quagmire in the Third World. Undoubtedly, President Reagan and his national security team felt that a Soviet satellite in Central America jeopardized America’s security. Domestic limits to influence the outcome of the intrastate conflict

in Nicaragua challenged Washington’s efforts, but the presence of the Contras as a proxy combined with covert support enabled the indirect intervention. Further, the fact that the Contras struggled militarily resulted in an escalation of U.S. efforts, to include the mining of Managua’s harbor—a point that demonstrates the Reagan administration’s commitment to the conflict. What is interesting, however, is that Moscow remained on the sidelines. Even Cuba, which was willing to engage in an intrastate conflict in Angola, elected to essentially sit out the civil war in Nicaragua. This suggests that the world order had exceptions on the rules of the road when it came to intervention and that the United States had the right to intervene in Latin America without a counterintervention or a threat of escalation from the Soviet Union.

South Africa’s support for UNITA upends the notion that a regional power would not challenge a superpower, even in an indirect intervention. The Soviet Union did respond, as did Cuba, but neither state was able to amass sufficient military capability to break South Africa’s proxy. In this situation, a regional power achieved a stalemate against a counter-intervention from a superpower. This suggests that holding actions provided an effective type of proxy intervention. It also suggests that South Africa’s proxy and the management of that proxy may have been superior to Moscow’s. Pretoria managed to control its proxy and did not let its objectives go beyond keeping communism from reaching into Southwest Africa. Equally important, South Africa did not let UNITA drag it into a deeper commitment in Angola; Pretoria cut its ties when its proxy no longer served its interests.

In Sri Lanka, meddling was an effective means of intervention to avoid attracting unwanted attention from either superpower. The need for Tamil support domestically, however, hurt India’s ability to avoid deeper commitment. Adding to this, India’s desire to serve as a regional power led to a direct intervention that further entrenched New Delhi in the Sri Lankan crisis and ultimately ended in an unwanted, direct intervention.

Pakistan challenged a direct Soviet intervention without suffering overwhelming conventional escalation. Using a “feeding the chaos” method of indirect intervention in Afghanistan ensured that Moscow could not achieve victory and maintained Islamabad’s desire to have an unstable government in Afghanistan. This raises questions about why the Soviet Union intervened directly in Afghanistan and why it avoided shutting down Pakistan’s support of the mujahideen. The United States did participate through donated assistance, sending the signal that it would risk competing with Moscow in South Asia. Events suggest that the Soviet Union lacked the capacity to bring Afghanistan under control—an outcome that history all but confirms.

Post–Cold War and Unipolarity’s Influence on the Use of Proxy War

When the global order transitioned to a unipolar order, external support for intrastate conflicts decreased sharply. “Immediately after 1991, the number of civil war onsets declined, whereas terminations went up. These two trends converged to produce a decline in the number of ongoing civil wars in the post–Cold War period.”57Close Further, civil conflicts during the unipolar era ended in victory far less often—from 58 percent during the Cold War to 13 percent between 1989 and 2009. Negotiated settlements also jumped by 30 percent (from 10 percent to 40 percent) after the Cold War. Lastly, “more conflicts ended in the 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall than in the preceding half-century. The proportion of countries fighting civil wars had declined to about 12% by 1995.”58Close

The change in the global order also coincided with a change in how interventions were justified. In 1992, the UN Security Council authorized the use of “all means necessary” to restore security in Somalia.59Close Similar guidance was given to restore security in Bosnia and Herzegovina.60Close Humanitarian interventions during this time also increased.61Close

Regionally influential states that perceived the flexibility to intervene, especially in areas of significant concern, were decisively put in check. Iraq’s intervention in Kuwait in 1990 illustrates this best. Although the United States pulled together a broad coalition of states to counter Iraq’s attempt to annex Kuwait, the United States provided the overwhelming preponderance of capability. States with significant relative capability vis-à-vis the rest of the world, such as the United Kingdom, were demonstrating their commitment to the newly established world order led by the United States. Lesser power states, such as Saudi Arabia, were simply bandwagoning.62Close Other regionally powerful states such as Russia, China, and India sat out the conflict and did not attempt to counter.

Some cases of direct intervention and nonintervention—essentially negative cases of indirect intervention—during the early stages of the unipolar era are also instructive. For almost two years, President George H. W. Bush’s administration avoided intervening in the intrastate conflicts in Bosnia and Somalia. Both conflicts were considered humanitarian crises. Little gain would come from intervening in places with so little at stake. After avoiding intervention in Bosnia and Somalia for over a year, the United States decided to directly intervene in Somalia to curb the humanitarian crisis caused by internecine violence because it was considered the easier of the two conflicts. Although Somalia was still perceived as an enormous challenge for direct intervention, the Bush administration changed its position to change the opinion that it was callous to human suffering.63Close What is interesting is that the United States felt no restriction to intervention other than the operational challenge of trying to influence the outcome of bitter tribal conflict. Restrictions on intervention that would have driven an indirect approach were absent. Despite the direct intervention and the use of highly trained soldiers, the United States found its forces stalled and taking unwanted losses in the streets of Mogadishu. The prospect of the United States looking incapable of accomplishing its objectives against an uncoordinated and relatively untrained adversary, as well as sacrificing the lives of its personnel with no real threat to its homeland, revived the belief that Washington should continue to ignore such squabbles.

Not long afterward, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 found the United States committed to sitting on the sidelines. President Clinton, who had campaigned on the need to intervene in the humanitarian crisis in Bosnia, put off intervening there for two years. The extent of the genocide and America’s refusal to weigh in to stop it created the impetus for recalculating the threshold for direct intervention. In 1995, the United States directly intervened in the humanitarian crisis in Bosnia, and a few years later in Kosovo. All three of these cases suggest that something changed. From the perspective of states with the capability of intervening in other countries, the perceived utility or need for indirect intervention, especially via proxy, apparently evaporated after the end of the Cold War.

The observed change lends strength to the theoretical notion that the hegemon in a unipolar order should feel less constrained. Further, the inefficiency associated with using a proxy to intervene directly and the overwhelming capacity enjoyed from its extreme advantage in relative capability should dissuade the hegemon from using proxies. A hegemon’s desire to promote its desired world order, however, could alter the threshold for intervention.

The fact that the United States is a republic further complicates the calculation and highlights the relevance of domestic politics. Without an external, existential threat, the notion that politics stops at “the water’s edge” begins to fall apart. The prevailing view during the Cold War was that America could be partisan and divided domestically, but foreign policy enjoys widespread bipartisan support. Leading up to the end of the Cold War, and especially thereafter, partisan politics began to complicate foreign policy; parties began to use foreign policy to influence domestic political races. Executives and representatives had to consider how their support for different interventions (or noninterventions) could affect their political position. Such considerations pushed policy makers to alter their intervention decisions.64Close

In this section, I apply my proposed model to the period after the Cold War. I present only cases that represent two of the four typologies: Uganda/Rwanda in Zaire/the Democratic Republic of the Congo (meddling) and Liberia in Sierra Leone (feeding the chaos). During this period, there are no examples of proxy wars where a state is in it to win it or engaged in a holding action.65Close Both cases represent examples where small, regionally influential states use proxy war to indirectly intervene. They are interesting because they address the notion that Africa may have been less important to the United States, allowing small levels of competition among neighboring states without incurring an admonishment from the hegemon.66Close The cases also demonstrate that states, especially the hegemon, can be moved to intervene directly when the stakes are lower but the desire for a particular outcome (cessation of violence) is higher.

Meddling: Ugandan/Rwandan Intervention in DRC

For years, Zaire had poor relations with Rwanda and Uganda. In 1996, President Mobutu Sese Seko ordered the Banyamulenge (ethnic Tutsis) to leave Zaire’s territory. In retaliation, Rwanda and Uganda provided advisors, weapons, and regular forces to help the AFDL bring down the Mobutu regime.67Close The AFDL’s role was critical because it kept Uganda’s and Rwanda’s involvement from looking like an occupation to Zaire’s people. Internationally, the combination of Mobutu’s reputation as a harsh, tyrannical leader and the support of an indigenous insurgency provided sufficient political cover.68Close With considerable help from Rwanda and Uganda, AFDL’s forces led by Laurent Kabila took control of the capital in Kinshasa in May 1997 with relative ease. The insurgency was largely welcomed by Zaire’s population after they had suffered under Mobutu’s regime for over thirty years. Kabila, once in power, renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Kabila’s ties to Uganda and Rwanda were strong immediately following his ascension to power. Kabila granted both Uganda and Rwanda access to DRC territory for the purpose of pursuing terrorist groups that had retreated from their countries inside DRC borders. Kabila also allowed Uganda and Rwanda to position regular forces in DRC territory to help them root out terrorist camps.69Close

The ties to Kabila’s patrons, however, became problematic—most Congolese citizens chafed at the presence of high-ranking Ugandan and Rwandan advisors in Kabila’s government and military.70Close In response to domestic pressure, Kabila removed Ugandan and Rwandan Tutsis from office and ordered Ugandan and Rwandan forces to leave DRC territory.71Close Although both countries were still allowed to pursue hostile groups in Congolese territory, both countries complained that Kinshasa was incapable of stopping terrorists from invading their borders and also charged that Kabila was allowing genocide of Banyamulenge living in eastern Congo.

In the middle of 1998, relations between Kinshasa, Kampala, and Kigali soured. Kinshasa began complaining that Uganda and Rwanda were stealing the DRC’s resources, and Uganda and Rwanda began supporting a Banyamulenge insurgency to remove Kabila from power.72Close Kabila’s decision to limit Rwandan and Ugandan influence in his country convinced both countries to remove Kabila’s regime from power. The disaffected Tutsi officers that Kabila had forced out of their government positions formed the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD). Uganda and Rwanda saw the RCD as another opportunity, similar to Kabila’s AFDL, to intervene in their neighbor’s affairs.

The RCD, along with a significant number of Rwandan regular forces, made gains quickly against Kabila’s forces and would have taken Kinshasa had Angola and Zimbabwe not sent expeditionary forces to stop them. As a result, RCD’s progress (supported by Rwandan regulars) quickly stalled. Rwanda’s difficulties increased when the United States, its main supplier of military aid, decided to cut off its support in retaliation for Rwanda’s involvement in DRC. To prevent a collapse in Rwanda and damage to the regime’s domestic prestige, Uganda’s president sent forces to assist RCD and Rwandan forces.73Close Although both Uganda and Rwanda attempted to conceal their activities, a UN Security Council report confirmed that both were involved.74Close

Under international pressure, Uganda and Rwanda signed a cease-fire agreement with DRC. Rwanda and RCD, however, continued to conduct insurgency operations in an attempt to gain control of DRC’s natural resources.75Close The split between Uganda and Rwanda led to a falling-out between the two countries and divided the ranks of RCD. Later, Ugandan and Rwanda forces began fighting against each other. The UN Security Council enacted Chapter VI I powers to the UN mission in the DRC. In 2001, both Uganda and Rwanda, under international pressure, began removing their troops from inside DRC’s borders. Both countries, separately, signed a peace agreement with Kinshasa in 2002.76Close

Feeding the Chaos: Liberian Intervention in Sierra Leone

Liberia’s notorious president Charles Taylor had a close relationship with the leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), an insurgency group operating in Sierra Leone.77Close In October 1998, the RUF launched an offensive against Sierra Leone’s government and captured Freetown (the capital of Sierra Leone) the following January. Liberia provided weapons, funding, and sanctuary to the RUF. Taylor wanted an RUF-led government in Sierra Leone to reduce his political isolation and to gain control over the country’s lucrative diamond mines.78Close Although Taylor tried to keep his support secret, numerous reports revealed Liberia’s involvement. In addition to gaining influence in Sierra Leone, Taylor’s regime used the RUF to probe the limits of the United Nations’ willingness to intervene in his affairs in West Africa.79Close

When the RUF first began its insurgency operations in Sierra Leone in 1991, its habit of conducting wanton violence and terrorizing the population distanced the movement from the rural population.80Close In this respect, RUF strategy differed significantly from most insurgency operations; there was no attempt to gain the support of the population but only to terrorize it into submission. During the 1998 offensive, President Taylor directed the RUF to commit atrocities, believing that this would lead the international community to push for a settlement rather than further subject innocent civilians to the torturous and murderous acts of the RUF.81Close

In response to the RUF capturing Freetown, the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) intervened. Led by Nigeria, ECOMOG quickly took back the capital and reinstalled Sierra Leone’s previous regime.82Close The European Union (EU) also took action and withheld a $53 million aid package intended for Liberia.83Close

Unfortunately, the costs of the peacekeeping operation quickly surpassed Nigeria’s and the UN’s available resources. To avoid having to pull the peacekeeping forces out before a cease-fire had been initiated, the United States pushed for a settlement. The RUF agreed to halt its operations in exchange for the creation of a unity government and amnesty for its members. Under both international and domestic pressure, Sierra Leone agreed. The settlement left the RUF with a considerable hold on the country, especially over the diamond-producing areas. Surprisingly, the RUF was in many ways rewarded for its brutal policies. In addition to getting amnesty, RUF members received incentive packages, job training, and reintegration benefits from Sierra Leone’s government.84Close

President Taylor used his position to profit from the diamonds being smuggled out of Sierra Leone by the RUF.85Close Although Taylor seemed to benefit in the short term, increasing pressure from the international community and a waxing domestic insurgency in his own country forced him to step down in 2003. Taylor, however, escaped to Nigeria, where he was offered sanctuary. After three years, Nigeria agreed to release Taylor to Sierra Leone to stand trial; he has been charged with crimes against humanity for his support of the RUF by the UN-sanctioned Special Court for Sierra Leone.86Close

Unipolar/Post–Cold War Summary

The post-Cold War period reveals a shift in the intervention axis. The space for indirect intervention shrank compared to the period during the Cold War. The threshold for direct intervention decreased as the relative capability of states became extremely lopsided, favoring the United States as the global hegemon (see Figure 3.2). The willingness of the United States to engage directly in civil wars abroad also appears to have deterred other countries from using proxies or crossing the threshold for direct intervention. As long as small, regional proxy wars did not get too violent and did not grossly cross the boundaries of human rights—at least under the unipolar system led by the United States—they avoided any kind of check from the hegemon. This makes sense because a hegemon’s desire to maintain the system will lead it to intervene in the affairs of states only when those affairs threaten the global system it supports.87Close Gains that did not threaten the status quo and employed lower levels of violence to accomplish objectives, such as when Uganda and Rwanda backed the AFDL in 1997, meant that the United States and the international institutions that supported its interests were willing to forgo intervention. Charles Taylor used the RUF to probe the limits of the hegemon’s tolerance. In the face of wanton violence, a regional institution (ECOMOG) and Nigeria intervened; their efforts, however, stalled without support from the United States or the UN Security Council. Restoring the former regime in Sierra Leone appears to have been enough to prevent an American intervention. Liberia obliged the United States and agreed to settle the conflict but managed to hold on to its significant gains in Sierra Leone.

Regional powers, especially those attempting to influence events in geopolitically important areas, find proxies useful when they want to avoid direct intervention because of international barriers. Uganda and Rwanda were concerned that a direct intervention would anger ethnic Tutsis in Zaire. The AFDL took control of Zaire with little resistance from the domestic population or the international system. The RUF provided just enough international cover to allow Liberia to get what it wanted from Sierra Leone.

In both cases, widespread violence and human rights violations, however, attracted the hegemon’s attention. When Rwanda and Uganda blurred the line between direct and indirect intervention, the United States and the UN Security Council began to pressure the two countries. Additionally, the UN Security Council enacted a Chapter VI I operation to stop the violence and forced the antagonists to settle the conflict. Charles Taylor was eventually extradited back to Sierra Leone for his atrocities.

Post-9/11 and the Drift Toward Quasi-Unipolarity

Following the terrorist attack on 9/11, the United States began contemplating options to defeat Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was given the option to give up the network and its leadership or suffer the consequences. When Mullah Mohammad Omar refused, the United States intervened. Although Washington had broad international and domestic support, the George W. Bush administration elected to use the Northern Alliance to decrease the footprint of American forces. In a sense, it was a choice of efficiency over effectiveness. Why would the United States feel so constrained in a unipolar order with a mandate to intervene?

When presented with intelligence that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq might have connections to Al Qaeda, the Bush administration felt less constrained. Although the desire was to avoid a large-scale intervention similar to the one under Bush’s father in 1991, the United States still intervened directly to topple Iraq’s regime, an operation that would later suffer the challenges of occupying a country torn apart by sectarian violence. As the situation in Iraq became more violent, U.S. involvement suffered a bitter sentiment in the American public and in many countries worldwide. President Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to withdraw from Iraq and refocus America’s efforts on Afghanistan. Within four years after the promised withdrawal, what had once been an Al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq morphed into the Islamic State.

It was also around 2005 when interventions for humanitarian reasons required greater justification. The term responsibility to protect (RtoP) emerged in 2001 and was endorsed by the World Summit in 2005, but the content of RtoP “essentially provided that the Security Council could authorize, on a case by case basis, things that it had been authorizing for more than a decade.”88Close The U.S./NATO intervention called on RtoP to justify its intervention in Libya in 2011.89Close

The rising competition presented by regionally powerful states to the U.S.-driven world order has created space for small-level competitions among lesser powers—interests have diversified from being on one side or the other (Cold War) and from the concern of U.S. intervention (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq). Smaller states are making plays for regional hegemony—a signal of a waning unipolar world. Regional challengers started expanding aspirations. Russia intervened in Georgia in 2004. North Korea has ramped up its nuclear weapons development and continues to improve its rocket technology. Iran was on a similar path but accepted the lifting of sanctions in exchange for increased monitoring of its nuclear program and promises that it will cease weaponization. China’s efforts to expand its influence in the Indian Ocean, Africa, and the South China Sea further mark the transition. Russia’s seizure of Crimea, intervention in Ukraine, support for the Assad regime in Syria, and interference in U.S. elections exemplify the drift from unipolar to a more quasi-unipolar structure. Although Iran has curbed its nuclear aspirations for now, it has continued to expand its influence in the Middle East, causing other regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Israel to respond. How the drifting quasi-unipolar system of today manifests later will most likely continue to influence how proxy wars are used in the future.

In this section, I apply my proposed model and the theoretical and empirical considerations connected to the post-9/11 world. I present cases that represent all four typologies: the United States in Afghanistan (in it to win it), Saudi Arabia in Yemen (holding action), the United States/NATO in Libya (meddling), and Iran in Yemen (feeding the chaos).

In It to Win It: U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan

Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the United States enjoyed overwhelming international and domestic support for Operation Enduring Freedom. NATO ratified Article V and pledged its support. The authorization for the use of military force passed easily through the U.S. Congress. The Taliban’s refusal to extradite Al Qaeda leaders and broad support for U.S. retaliation led Washington to seek a regime change in Kabul. Afghanistan’s isolated, landlocked territory, however, lacked a feasible location for deploying ground forces, and Afghanistan’s neighbors offered relatively poor options as well.90Close Further, Afghanistan had earned worldwide notoriety as an exceedingly difficult place to conduct military operations, persuading Washington to look for other options.91Close

The United States saw an opportunity to use the Northern Alliance, a coalition of three anti-Taliban factions, as a proxy ground force. The Northern Alliance provided a capability that allowed the United States to avoid the expense of deploying a sizable US force, conserved its equipment and manpower, and prevented Washington from having to expend an enormous amount of political capital to carve out a staging area for its forces. To accomplish its objectives, the United States embedded Special Forces and CIA operators with Pashtun warlords and Northern Alliance forces to provide them with highly effective air and space assets. Although the fighting got off to a slow start, the Taliban quickly fell to the combined forces of the United States, its NATO allies, and the Northern Alliance. As a result, the American people and the international community remained overwhelmingly supportive of Washington’s policy.92Close

The quick victory over the Taliban, however, also brought some unexpected costs. First, the United States overestimated the loyalty and ability of its proxy forces. Al Qaeda leaders slipped out of the Tora Bora region and into Pakistan because of insufficient support and commitment, dashing U.S. hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants.93Close Second, factional leaders of the Northern Alliance reestablished their fiefdoms shortly after the Taliban had been removed from power. American desires for a strong central government that could deny sanctuary to transnational terrorist networks would remain an elusive goal, especially after the United States provided factional leaders with the material resources necessary to resist Kabul’s authority.94Close Third, the United States faced a significant challenge in bringing an ethnically fragmented Afghanistan under the control of a predominantly non-Pashtun government. Although the Taliban proved remarkably easy to remove from power, the United States found itself drawn deeper into the conflict.

Holding Action: Saudi Arabian Intervention in Yemen

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the current state of Yemen merged the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the north, supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), previously supported by Moscow, in the south. The ruler of the YAR since 1978, Ali Abdullah Saleh, gained control of the newly unified state. Despite unification, Saleh’s reach was confined mostly to area around the capital in Sana’a. Yemenis in the south and the Houthis in the north felt underrepresented and fought against Saleh’s rule. Making things even more complex, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took root in central and southern Yemen.95Close

Although the United States offered limited support to the government in Sana’a after the bombing of the USS Cole, Saleh’s widespread corruption, domestic backlash, and international pressure convinced Saleh to step down. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), supported by the United States, enabled Yemen’s vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi to become the interim president. Unfortunately, Yemen was unable to reach an agreeable political situation, leaving Yemen essentially ungoverned. Military forces loyal to Saleh joined the Houthi movement—a Zaydi Shi’a group. Other military forces remained supportive of Hadi. Because the turmoil created opportunities for intervention, the two local powers—Saudi Arabia and Iran—expanded their regional competition.96Close

Houthis, supported by Iran, managed to seize much of Sana’a in September 2014. Hadi fled Yemen and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh perceived that a Houthi-dominated state would present a dangerous and hostile neighbor on its southern border. The Houthis’ connection with Iran made its removal an imperative. Therefore, Saudi Arabia responded to Houthi advances with an air campaign to assist pro-Hadi government forces and Sunni southern tribesmen reinstate Hadi in Sana’a. Pro-Hadi forces, with support from Saudi airstrikes and a Saudi naval blockade, regained control of Aden a few months after Hadi’s exit.97Close

Indicative of the way intrastate conflicts played out during the Cold War, the duration of the conflict in Yemen continues well past where the sides would have likely been exhausted and willing to negotiate.98Close As of March 24, 2017, the United Nations claims that there were over thirteen thousand civilian casualties in the previous two years.99Close The UN has warned that the crisis in Yemen will create an epic humanitarian disaster. The conflict in Yemen jeopardizes most of the necessary functions that enable the people there to survive.100Close

A resurgent Iran spooks Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Supporting pro-Hadi forces in Yemen has enabled Saudi to intervene in Yemen without incurring significant costs from other international states. The Houthi threat has not reached a level that drives the stakes high enough for direct intervention, and Riyadh isn’t committed enough to the political outcome in Yemen to directly intervene either. Lastly, Saudi Arabia’s capacity to directly intervene on the ground and put Hadi back in control is questionable. As long as the government in Yemen does not become a puppet of Iran, the Saudis will likely continue to support its proxy and fuel the intrastate conflict. No victory in Yemen for the Houthis is almost as good as reinstating Hadi. As the conflict in Yemen continues, the reality that the world continues to slip away from a definitively unipolar to a quasi-unipolar order becomes more apparent. Under such conditions, intrastate conflicts fought by regional players in areas of higher geopolitical importance will likely pop up more often and last longer.

Meddling: U.S./Nato Intervention in Libya

Libya, from a geopolitical perspective, was of relatively minor interest. Muammar Gaddafi’s ascension to become the ruler of Libya in 1969 was unremarkable in a period of intense competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Libya did, however, become of interest in 1986 when it was discovered that Gaddafi’s regime sponsored a terrorist attack on a German nightclub and killed American personnel.101Close Gaddafi’s notoriety worsened with the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, an action that incurred a UN Security Council resolution prohibiting member states from selling military equipment or supporting previously purchased items, selling or servicing aircraft, denying overflight of aircraft originating or terminating in Libya, and denying entry to Libyan citizens suspected of terrorist activity by any other state.102Close

Gaddafi did regain some international favor in 2003 when he took responsibility for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 and turned over the perpetrators to international authorities, but the Arab Spring in 2011 pushed his regime to brutally repress the pro-democracy rebellion. The African Union pleaded against the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya but acknowledged that the violence should stop. On March 12, the Arab League and the GCC asked the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, and the council complied five days later with a vote of ten in favor and five abstentions (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Germany).103Close The council approved “all means necessary” to protect the citizens of Libya.104Close The United States facilitated the resolution and called on the “responsibility to protect” norm as the justification.105Close In relatively short order, Libya was freed from Gaddafi’s tyranny.

Publicly released figures put the cost of the campaign to protect Libya’s people at “$1.1 billion for the United States and several billion dollars overall … a fraction of that spent on previous interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq.”106Close The operation in Libya definitely confirms some long-held beliefs about proxy war: that it lowers risks and costs. The Libyan opposition successfully ousted the country’s dictator. During the conflict, NATO maintained firm control of the execution of the conflict. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy all provided advisors on the ground to help rebel forces.107Close All aspects of this case fit into the definition of proxy war, but the type is questionable: does this case reflect an example of meddling, or was the US/NATO “in it to win it”?.

The resounding military success of the campaign in Libya and the commitment of the fourteen NATO member states suggest that they may have been “in it to win it.” Such a case is interesting and further supports the idea that the world order may have not yet changed to a quasi-unipolar order, especially considering that revisionist states like Russia and China elected to abstain rather than challenge NATO’s efforts. Two things, however, raise questions about the indirect intervention in Libya. First, why intervene indirectly? Second, why work so hard to bring about the end of the Gaddafi regime and then walk away?

The answer to the first question is likely as simple as the fact that the costs didn’t warrant the benefits of intervening directly. Interventions in the Middle East had already been viewed with suspicion by the domestic audiences of the NATO states. The stakes were simply insufficient to warrant a direct intervention. Further, the fact that NATO had no political stake in the outcome suggests that it was not really committed to any outcome other than the ousting of Gaddafi. Based on that observation, the indirect intervention most closely resembles meddling. What the United States and NATO likely wanted was to get rid of Gaddafi and promote the idea that the unipolar order led by the United States would not tolerate such horrific suffering. Both objectives could be accomplished through meddling. Going any further, however, would have likely incurred a costly occupation. Further, another bitter civil war amid a U.S./NATO led occupation would further cast doubt about the benefits of the unipolar order. To stave off a sharper decline toward multipolarity, it makes sense that the U.S. and NATO cut their losses and declared their mission to protect the Libyan people a success.

Feeding the Chaos: Iranian Intervention in Yemen

Is the Houthi-Saleh coalition in Yemen really an Iranian proxy? Building on the background offered in Saudi-Arabia’s proxy war in Yemen, this case explores the notion that the Houthis, a Zaydi Shi’a sect, is Iran’s proxy in Yemen. Based on the limited evidence available, a reasonable conclusion is that Iran is engaged in an indirect intervention in Yemen. On several occasions, weapons shipments attributed to Iran have been seized during transport to Houthi forces.108Close Peter Salisbury challenges the possibility that Iran is conducting a proxy war, citing personal interviews with Houthi leaders that claim that the majority of its revenue and capability come from tax collections in Houthi-controlled areas and that weapons are mostly purchased from Saleh supporters on the black market.109Close Thomas Juneau makes a similar claim but acknowledges that Iran has steadily increased its support. Juneau argues that despite these increases, Iran’s support has not “reached significant levels” to confirm Iran’s hold over the Houthi-Saleh coalition.110Close Juneau’s question gets to the heart of this book: does Iran have a hierarchical relationship with the Houthi-Saleh coalition? Juneau’s principal argument is that Iran is intervening in Yemen indirectly through the use of donated assistance. The question that remains is whether Iran controls, or at least is attempting to control, the Houthi-Saleh coalition or is just donating its assistance.

Iran has likely avoided directly intervening in Yemen for fear of backlash from the international system, especially from the United States. America’s relative capability to influence affairs in the Middle East remains significant. Iran’s release from the crippling sanctions in exchange for deescalating its nuclear program also provides a significant carrot to avoid intervention. Lastly, the United States has already backed Saudi Arabia’s efforts in Yemen and would predictably take Saudi’s side if Iran were to directly intervene. Put simply, the projected benefit of intervening in Yemen directly does not warrant the cost. These factors also suggest that Iran may not indirectly intervene in a way that would significantly challenge Saudi Arabia’s position on the peninsula, meaning Iran isn’t “in it to win it.” The conflict in Yemen could reflect a holding action if there were an Iranian interest that needed protection, similar to the way that South Africa used UNITA to keep communism from gaining direct access to its border. This leaves the question of whether Iran is meddling or feeding the chaos.

Iran opposes the current world order. Iran tends to support conflict where it challenges the existing status quo in the region rather than pushing for the expansion of Shi’a Islam.111Close Because Iran is a lesser power with revisionist intentions, pushing conflict provides it with opportunities to persuade other states that the current system is undesirable.112Close This behavior best reflects the desire to use proxy war to feed the chaos; the objective is not to influence the outcome of the political situation in specific states but rather to create as much havoc as possible to hobble greater powers and increase Iran’s freedom of movement in the region.

If the quasi-unipolar order remains, Iran should only be committing to feeding the chaos. The United States has already shown that it is willing to provide some donated assistance to support the Arab coalition’s efforts to roll back the Houthis.113Close If the quasi-unipolar moment is fading, it signals a further drift toward multipolarity and the waning influence of the United States. Iran may perceive this to be the case. There is evidence that Houthi supporters report having been flown to Iran for training in civil affairs.114Close If true, this demonstrates that Iran may have different plans for the Houthis and may actually be meddling, providing political capacity to its Houthi proxy in the hopes of eventually gaining an ally on the Arabian Peninsula.

Quasi-Unipolar, Post-9/11 Summary

The descent from a unipolar to a quasi-unipolar order has opened the doors to the full complement of proxy war (see Figure 3.3). The restrictions on direct intervention remain, but the ability to indirectly intervene in regions where multiple states have significant interests shifts the political terrain. Both internationally and domestically driven cost/benefit calculations have placed a premium on using indigenous forces to aid interventions. Regional powers use proxies to offset international costs, and global powers, including the remaining hegemon, use proxies to offset domestic and international costs.

One paradox in the U.S./Afghanistan case is why the United States, still clearly and overwhelmingly the dominant state in the international

system, felt constrained from a direct intervention. The United States, as mentioned, enjoyed broad domestic and international support. Washington’s view in some ways reflects that of an unleashed hegemon. NATO’s offer of support was nice but unnecessary.115Close The Afghan Model was initially touted as an unqualified success but has since fallen from that pinnacle.116Close Perhaps America’s overconfidence in proxy war and the lessons learned from Operation Allied Force in Kosovo led to the operational failure that prevented the capture of Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the United States started to perceive the need for efficiency and a light touch to sustain its unipolar position—a notion that captures the transition to a quasi-unipolar system.

The Iran/Saudi Arabia/Yemen cases suggest that the types of proxy war and the states that use them may evolve over time. As they both stand now, they reflect barriers indicative of a unipolar order. If the world order shifts more toward multipolarity, the Yemen conflict could potentially change as Saudi and Iran view the stakes of the conflict in Yemen going up. Unlike the cases in the DRC and Sierra Leone, the United States has actually contributed to the duration of the conflict, again showing a change in the system. Under a strictly unipolar order, I would expect the United States to pressure the actors in much the same way it did Uganda, Rwanda, and, to a lesser extent, Liberia.

Conclusion

Civil wars decreased somewhat after the end of the Cold War, and the duration of intrastate conflicts markedly shrank. The unipolar order appears to have curbed proxy interventions in many areas, with regions likely deemed a lower interest such as central and western Africa as exceptions. The threshold for superpower intervention appears to follow the suggested model until the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States in 2001.

Intrastate conflicts are on the rise in the international system, and one of the main constraints against external intervention appears to be weakening—the unipolar order. The recent increase in interventions and the return of the diversity of the types and users of proxy war suggest that the unipolar order reflects more of a quasi-unipolar order. Proxy war continues to provide states with the ability to intervene indirectly when conditions do not cross the threshold of direct intervention. If globally minded regional powers are able to use proxy wars to their advantage, it may further erode the unipolar order and lead the international system into multipolarity. If that is the case, intrastate conflicts will continue to increase as the competition between global powers finds its balance.

Looking at the use and types of proxy wars used in the Cold War, it appears that the two superpowers conceded certain regions—Southeast Asia and Latin America to the United States and South Asia and Africa to the Soviet Union. Competition in those areas remained limited, but it appears that the superpowers took their adversaries’ use of a proxy as a means to look the other way in certain areas. As long as the proxy sustained a thin veil of cover, each superpower was freed from the threat of unwanted escalation.

In a multipolar order with multiple states possessing or about to gain nuclear weapons, I expect similar divisions of interest to occur. The reason is that complex interdependence and globalization will make it necessary for global powers to compete on the margins without directly and overtly challenging one another (similar to the Cold War). Proxy war will give global powers an excuse to look away when their interests are not specifically challenged and will provide the means to manage escalation to avoid nuclear conflict. Proxy war will also allow global powers the ability to circumvent institutional penalties and maintain the appearance of upholding institutional commitments.

As it stands today, the international system remains quasi-unipolar. Under this system, proxy war will continue its current trend of occurring less than during the Cold War but more than when the system operated under a clear hegemon. China and India will compete for dominance in the Indian Ocean—a region where proxy wars could certainly heat up. China will likely receive acknowledged dominance in Eastern and Southern Africa but will be challenged by the United States in the Horn of Africa. The Middle East will continue its current trajectory as a hot bed of intrastate conflicts fed by external states using proxies to gain an advantage.

States currently are limited in their choices of proxy war. States with higher degrees of relative capability can find all four types of proxy war useful. If the world order drifts further away from unipolarity, regional powers will be able to expand their selection of proxy war types to best fit their needs as well. Proxy wars are here to stay, but they are likely to become a lot more popular in the near future.

Given the apparent drift away from unipolarity, I expect to see the United States increase its use of the rhetoric of “responsibility to protect” to justify increased reliance on indirect interventions, especially when the stakes are low but the commitment to the outcome is higher (humanitarian interventions being the most likely case). Much like the Cold War, in confrontations with regional powers, especially when they possess nuclear weapons, the United States will avoid direct interventions that do not clearly threaten its homeland. Instead, Washington will look for proxies that challenge the influence and reach of those regional powers. For example, if Iran increases its support for the Houthis and gains a significant advantage over Hadi’s forces, I expect to see covert support (likely brokered through Saudi Arabia) to begin.

If the world shifts completely to multipolarity, Washington will keep the pressure on states such as North Korea and will likely signal a willingness to directly intervene to prevent Pyongyang’s aggression. In other areas, such as non-NATO states in Europe (Moldova being one possibility), the United States will seek a holding action via proxy to tie up Russian resources. Meddling will occur in Africa or Latin America if needed. The polarization of America’s domestic political landscape, however, will prevent the use of proxies to feed the chaos.