Proxy war

Soviet military advisers planning operations during the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), a proxy conflict involving the USSR and United States

In political science, a proxy war is as an armed conflict fought between two belligerents, wherein one belligerent is a non-state actor supported by an external third-party power. In the term proxy war, the non-state actor is the proxy, yet both belligerents in a proxy war can be considered proxies if both are receiving foreign military aid from a third party country. Acting either as a nation-state government or as a conventional force, a proxy belligerent acts in behalf of a third-party state sponsor.[1] A proxy war is characterised by a direct, long-term, geopolitical relationship between the third-party sponsor states and their client states and non-state clients,[2] thus the political sponsorship becomes military sponsorship when the third-party powers fund the soldiers and their matériel to equip the belligerent proxy-army to launch and fight and sustain a war to victory, and government power.[2]

  1. ^ Osmańczyk, Jan Edmund (2002). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements. Abingdon: Routledge Books. p. 1869. ISBN 978-0415939201.
  2. ^ a b Hughes, Geraint (2014). My Enemy's Enemy: Proxy Warfare in International Politics. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. pp. 5, 12–13. ISBN 978-1845196271.