what is a proxy war?
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It’s like Pokémon. The Pokémon are the proxies for the trainers. But instead of a battle, it’s an entire war.
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.
You and your neighbor are fighting. You don’t want to go over and actually try to beat each other up, that will make the wives mad and the neighbors wont like it.
So instead, you both rather give each of your 8 year old kid some socker boppers and let them go at it in the front yard. “They’re just playing, not fighting for real” and you and the other dad aren’t directly interacting so all is good.
Imagine you have a sister. Your mom and dad are not getting along, mom likes you, dad likes your sister. Now you started a fight with her.
Instead of grounding your ass, your mom tells you to beat up your sister. Meanwhile Dad gives her a baseball bat and so on. They’re fighting their fight using you two, the proxies. They made it worse by giving you powerful weapons like the baseball bat.
When someone is a proxy, they are operating on your behalf.
If there are massive consequences for starting a war, you don’t get directly involved, you just hire/encourage/entice some other nation or some other group to fight your enemy for you.
If you are supporting one side in a war, and your enemy finds out, they may begin supporting the other side. Now two nations are fighting with each other, despite having no official involvement in the war.
This is a proxy war.
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