The Art of Proxy Warfare in the Liberal International Order
Most US conservatives have criticized the funding of the war in Ukraine describing it as a baseless proxy war which does not serve American military or security interests. This hot topic for the 2024 election season is widely debated with the question: should we continue pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine? In order to evaluate some of the current geopolitical narratives we must first understand what is implied by the concept of a proxy war.
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the term “proxy” is defined as “the agency, function, or office of a deputy who acts as a substitute for another; the authority or power to act for another.”[1] When it is applied to warfare, it is really nothing new, because proxy wars have been used for centuries by nation states to fight against a common enemy. From a global perspective proxy warfare has emerged as highly sophisticated statecraft that has the purpose of achieving specific geopolitical objectives and desired outcomes. The global policy think tank RAND Corporation (an acronym for “research and development”) has been influential in influencing foreign policy for over seventy-five years through planning and consulting for the defense industry as well as large private sector international corporations. According to RAND, proxy warfare is a means to accomplish specific geostrategic outcomes through secondary or tertiary combatants giving it an advantage over traditional or conventional warfare:
“Geopolitical factors, including security and diplomatic concerns, are typically the primary motives for states that sponsor local proxies. Often major powers begin to engage in proxy warfare out of a sense of acute vulnerability to the actions of other states. As they develop their capabilities for this form of competition, however, they often begin to engage in proxy warfare on a much wider basis, often drawing themselves and other states into yet more such conflicts.”
Examples of proxy warfare include the Vietnam War (1954-75) where Communist China and the Soviet Union supported the Viet Cong with military equipment, arms, and ammunition in a fight against US military forces. The Chinese and the Soviets did not have to fight in North Vietnam because they equipped and empowered communist revolutionaries to do their bidding. Proxy wars are a way for larger global powers to avoid direct confrontation.[3] The US in the past few decades has utilized proxy warfare in the Middle East with the outsourcing of military operations to various guerilla militias and Islamic faction groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Because these proxy fighters are familiar with the language, local terrain, and the complexities of tribal and cultural entities, the US military equipped and trained them to accomplish certain military objectives.[4] Proxy war has high risks and costs associated with it because there could be serious repercussions. Given the regional instability of these nations, equipping and arming radical Islamic militias becomes a two-edged sword that can be used against our nation or innocent civilian populations when there is a regime change or when US troops withdraw. This is what former Secretary of Defense Christiopher Miller calls Counterinsurgency Operations or COIN, which is a driving force behind today’s defense industries and is influenced by financial gain: “As a result, major defense contractors quickly bought out a bunch of start-ups that provided interpreters, reconnaissance aircraft, intelligence analysts, maintenance personnel, information technology services, and civilian advisors to government...In the Pentagon, everything comes down to money. If you have money, you have power and influence.”[5]
Regardless of the enormous risks involved or the staggering financial costs, proxy warfare is highly regarded as a valuable weapon in the hands of global elites. It is used extensively in covert operations and in the statecraft of intelligence agencies for overthrowing governments and toppling regimes. For decades, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been operating behind the scenes in espionage as saboteurs in nations all around the world wherever proxy war doctrine has manifested. Charles S. Faddis, who served for twenty years as a CIA operations officer, in an article for Hillsdale College titled Why the CIA No Longer Works, highlighted the “bureaucratization and politicization” that have led to the Deep State compromises within the agency. He further addressed the espionage element of the CIA: “At its heart espionage is a very old business...There is a reason intelligence officers talk about tradecraft. Espionage requires innate skills.”[6] These tools of tradecraft in proxy warfare are also described as Fifth Generation Warfare or 5GW which can be an effective means to accomplish geostrategic objectives through stealth or clandestine operations. The foundational principles for 5GW evolved from the work of two Chinese People’s Liberation Army officers Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui who capitulated that “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden...war will no longer be what it was originally.”[7] Examples provided by the PLA officers range from biological weapons, cyberterrorism and media disinformation campaigns. The PLA doctrine of unrestricted warfare has contributed to communist China’s ambitious development of biological weapons. It is no surprise that PLA bioweapons expert Major General Chen Wei was assigned as director of the Wuhan lab which was the ground zero site for the COVID-19 gain of function research.[8]
These new concepts in Unrestricted Warfare challenged centuries of conventional warfare dogma that had been developed by the 19th century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz.[9] Military theorist William Lind postulated that successive generations of warfare evolved from “qualitative shifts that make previous forms of military power obsolete.”[10] These previous forms of military power include: 1GW (focus upon manpower), 2GW (focus upon firepower), 3GW (focus upon maneuvers.) Later in the early 2000’s theorist Thomas Hammes proposed 4GW which focused upon the tactical art of insurgency. Theorist Robert Stelle soon developed the earliest concepts for 5GW from Hammes 4GW to include advances in technology that would empower individuals “to pursue ideological or personal objectives independent of nations but leveraging state-like capabilities.”[11] David Axe another military subject matter expert connected the 5GW dimension of stealth principle to proxy warfare: “5G fighters, by contrast, remain ‘subtle actors.’ They may never wear a uniform or carry a rifle. Their weapon is the desperate population of a society on the brink; their major tactic is unrest; their goal is to undermine the established order in the interest of changing it, or just leaving it in ruins.”[12] For global leaders who are working to achieve their ideal of a new world order, the unconventional warfare tactics of 5GW and proxy war is the means to shift the geopolitical equation in their favor. Daniel Abbot described this concept as follows: “War is no longer the sole purview of the nation-state.
The convergence of ubiquitous networks with pervasive sensors can elicit tectonic shifts in geopolitics.”[13] The Russo-Ukraine proxy war has the same objective to create the elicit tectonic shift that is referenced above by Abbot for the liberal international order. For decades since the Carter administration it has been the goal of progressive US foreign policy experts to further the democratization of Ukraine which was in the domain of the former USSR.[14] In order to accomplish this goal, the liberal US foreign policy advisors have supported collaboration with liberal global elites such as George Soros with his Open Society Foundation[15] and Klaus Schwab[16] the Great Reset architect with the World Economic Forum. These international progressives have poured billions of dollars into the corrupt government of Ukraine to insure that it maintains its place as a socialist power in Europe. Ukraine has been long regarded as the “gateway to Europe” and occupies an important strategic geopolitical position in globalism’s New World Order.[17] Therefore, the Biden administration, NATO, and the EU deem it as their mission to fight Russia by supplying funding and military equipment to Ukraine.
This war has proven to be a costly protracted conflict not only in terms of billions of dollars of funding but also in the catastrophic loss of human life on both sides. It comes at great risks with the provocation of a major nuclear power. With the staggering US national debt, it is in our best interest to stop the funding of the proxy war through the corrupt nation (Ukraine) to fight another corrupt regime (Russia). Rather than promoting foreign policies that support proxy wars, we must have an America first agenda to secure our borders, strengthen our national security and to build a strong military that is capable of protecting our citizens from enemies that are either foreign or domestic.
Adapted from Mark Fulmer’s manuscript The Proxy War in Ukraine: A Geopolitical Strategy of the Global Elites.
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[1] Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, MA: G & C Merriam, 1977).
[2] Stephen Watts, Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition: State Motivations & Future Trends, RAND Corporation Published Research, March 9, 2023. Source accessed October 18, 2023, from https://www.rand.org.
[3] L. Sue Baugh, Proxy War; Armed Conflict, August 31, 2023, Britannica, source accessed October 19, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/proxy-war.
[4] Daniel L. Byman, Why Engage in Proxy War? – A State’s Perspective, May 21, 2018. Brookings Institute. Source accessed October 19, 2023, from https://www.brookings.edu.
[5] Miller, Soldier Secretary, 143-44.
[6] Charles S. Faddis, Why the CIA No Longer Works – and How to Fix It. Imprimis, October 2023; Vol. 52, No. 10. Hillsdale College.
[7] Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, (Battleboro, VT: Echo Point Books, 1999), xvii-xviii.
[8] Mark Fulmer, The Wuhan Incident: Bioweapons & the Emerging Global Reset, (Maitland, FL: Liberty Hill Publishing, 2022), 95.
[9] Armin Krishnan, Fifth Generation Warfare, Hybrid Warfare, & Gray Zone Conflict: A Comparison. Journal of Strategic Security, Vol. 15, No. 4; Article 23. (Greenville, NC: East Carolina University & Berkley Electronic Press, 2022), 15.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid, 16.
[12] David Axe, Piracy, Human Security, & 5GW in Somalia; from The Handbook of 5GW, Daniel H. Abbott, editor. (Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books, 2020), 152.
[13] Daniel H. Abbot, The Handbook of 5GW, 19.
[14] Yuri Shcherbak, The Strategic Role of Ukraine: Diplomatic Addresses & Lectures (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 12-13.
[15] Open Society Foundations, The Open Society Foundations in Georgia, February 13, 2020. Accessed on July 19, 2023, from https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org.
[16] Klaus Schwab, COVID-19: The Great Reset, 11-12.
[17] Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. (New York, Basic Books, 2021), xxiii & 35.