A proxy war is a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.
Proxy wars have also been fought alongside full-scale conflicts. It is almost impossible to have a pure proxy war, as the groups fighting for a certain nation usually have their own interests, which can diverge from those of their patron.
Typically proxy wars function best during cold wars, as they become a necessity in conducting armed conflict between at least two belligerents while continuing cold warfare.
Examples
Spanish Civil War
The first proxy war of the 20th century was the Spanish Civil War. The conflict that started between the Second Spanish Republic and Francisco Franco's National Syndicalists soon involved the Soviet Union and Mexico on the Spanish Republic's side and Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Portuguese Republic on the Spanish Nationalist side. This war served as a useful testing ground for both the Axis and the Soviets to experiment with equipment and tactics that would later be employed on a wider scale in the Second World War.
Cold War
Proxy wars were common in the Cold War, because the two nuclear-armed superpowers (the Soviet Union and the United States, and to some extent, China) did not wish to fight each other directly, since that would have run the risk of escalation to a nuclear war (see mutual assured destruction). Proxies were used in conflicts such as Afghanistan, Angola, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Latin America.
The first proxy war in the Cold War was the Greek Civil War, which started almost as soon as World War II ended. The Western-allied Greek government was nearly overthrown by Communist rebels with limited direct aid from Soviet ally or client states in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. The Greek Communists managed to seize most of Greece, but a strong government counterattack forced them back. The Western Allies eventually won, due largely to an ideological split between Joseph Stalin and Josip Broz Tito. Though previously allied to the rebels, Tito closed Yugoslavia's borders to Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) partisans when Greek Communists sided with Stalin, despite the lack of direct material support from the USSR. Albania followed Tito's lead shortly thereafter. With no way to receive aid, the rebellion collapsed.
In the war between the Mujahadeen and the Soviet Army during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the aid given by the U.S. to the Mujahadeen during the war included sophisticated weapons such as the FIM-92 Stinger, supplies and training. Eventually, Al Qaeda and the Taliban emerged as the primary power holders from the civil war.
In the Lebanese Civil War, Syria supported the Maronite Christian dominated Lebanese Front with arms and troops, while Syria's enemy Israel also supported the Lebanese Front by providing them with arms, tanks and money. The Soviets tended to support Syria, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the leftist Lebanese National Movement (NLM).
Portugal had been fighting three major liberation movements in Angola (National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)) and one in Mozambique (FRELIMO) (see: Portuguese Colonial War). While transition of power in Mozambique was a rather simple affair, the three movements in Angola had been rivals for years during the Angolan War of Independence, each receiving low-key support from a motley assembly of countries, making a transition very difficult. The MPLA and initially UNITA, an offspring of the FNLA, were more or less left leaning and mainly supported by socialist countries; the FNLA, at that point by far the strongest of the three, was mainly supported by Zaire. After the Alvor Agreement in early 1976, according to which the three movements set up a joint interim government with Portugal and independence was to be granted in November 7, the US decided to support the FNLA, fighting between the three movements resumed and the agreement fell apart.
In Mozambique power was handed to the one liberation movement, FRELIMO. The new leftist Mozambique government supported liberation movements against the white-minority-led governments of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. The Rhodesian government organized and funded an anti-communist rebel group called Mozambique National Resistance, later RENAMO beginning the Mozambican Civil War. After Rhodesia collapsed and became Zimbabwe in 1980, South Africa took over supporting RENAMO until the decline of the apartheid regime. In 1992 RENAMO and the government of Mozambique signed a peace accord.
The conflict between Israel and the Arab countries has been described as a proxy war, with Israel acting as a proxy for the United States and the Soviet Union's proxies being Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. According to Pennsylvania State University Professor of Political Science Stephen J. Cimbala, this theater was the site of the greatest Cold War setback to America when, under the influence of anti-Israeli attitudes after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, American allies Saudi Arabia and Iran (under the shah) drifted from the American sphere of influence, leading to the 1973 oil crisis as well as the eventual Iranian Revolution in 1979.
An example from Latin America is the long-time struggle between the United States and the communist government of Cuba during and after the Cuban Revolution. Many attempts have been made by the United States to overthrow Cuba's government, often by using Cuban exiles as proxies. One of the most notorious is the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961.
Second Congo War
Since the end of the Cold War the largest war by proxy has been the Second Congo War in which the governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Rwanda all used third party armed irregular groups.
Nicaraguan Revolution
Following the American occupation of Nicaragua in 1912, as part of the Banana Wars, the Somoza family political dynasty came to power, and would rule Nicaragua until their ouster in 1979 during the Nicaraguan Revolution. The era of Somoza family rule was characterized by strong U.S. support for the government and its military[15] as well as a heavy reliance on U.S. based multi-national corporations.The Nicaraguan Revolution (Spanish: Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista) encompassed the rising opposition to the Somoza dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s, the campaign led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to violently oust the dictatorship in 1978-79, the subsequent efforts of the FSLN to govern Nicaragua from 1979 until 1990[13] and the Contra War which was waged between the FSLN and the Contras from 1981-1990. The Revolution marked a significant period in Nicaraguan history and revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War with the events in the country rising to international attention.
Footnotes
References
- Bernd Greiner / Christian Müller / Dierk Walter (Ed.): Heiße Kriege im Kalten Krieg. Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-936096-61-9 (Review by H. Hoff, Review by I. Küpeli)
- Scott L. Bills: The world deployed : US and Soviet military intervention and proxy wars in the Third World since 1945. From: Robert W. Clawson (Ed.): East West rivalry in the Third World. Wilmington 1986, p. 77-101.
- Chris Loveman: Assessing the Phenomeon of Proxy Intervention. From Journal of Conflict, Security and Development, edition 2.3, Routledge 2002, pp 30â€"48.
