what is a proxy war?
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Break apart the terms of the phrase. Hopefully you understand what “war” means.
Proxy, basically means “there’s a middle man involved to handle the transaction”.
That applies to war, just as much as it does to internet lingo and using a VPN to access Korean Netflix while you’re in Miami, Florida. Proxy implies middle man to handle the transaction.
A proxy war then, lets look at the ongoing Ukraine vs Russia conflict; the US is sending a fair amount of aid & equipment there. The US doesn’t dare enter the conflict officially, as both the US and Russia are nuclear powers and that’d risk WW3 breaking out. But the US can fund/support Ukraine in it’s efforts to fight Russia/Putin, without that risk. There’s some shared interest, in that the US can’t/won’t enter outright conflict with Russia, but can/would support a country already fighting Russia.
Thus, the US is fighting a proxy war with Russia, using Ukraine as the middle man. It isn’t US troops fighting & dying in Ukraine, it’s Ukrainians – but they’re using US funds and equipment to fight that war; more definitively, Ukraine is the “proxy” for the “war” between the US and Russia – because direct conflict between US and Russia would risk a whole lot more than just a few thousand people’s death; it’d risk nuclear war.
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