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Vol. 72 No. 4 (2019): Russia and Belarus: difficult neighbours

Security

Proxy wars – an attempt to conceptualising the phenomenon

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35757/SM.2019.72.4.08
Submitted: August 28, 2020
Published: August 21, 2020

Abstract

Proxy wars are a phenomenon widely encountered in the history of armed conflicts. The character and particularity of a proxy war is not determined by direct warfare but by the orchestration of a military conflict serving the political needs of a third state without its direct involvement. This orchestration may assume a variety of forms, and the scale and specifics of each case are determined by the third party’s aims and interests. The category of proxy wars is known in Polish strategic studies, although so far not much attention has been paid to it. This article is an attempt to fill this gap. The main research problem undertaken by the author is to answer the question of what characterises the phenomenon of proxy wars. To answer this question, the author has formulated the following specific problems: 1) what are the definitional frameworks of the phenomenon of proxy wars? 2) what are the strategic goals of waging a war by proxy? 3) what are the forms of the external orchestration of a conflict?

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