Riding Tigers

The Strategic Logic of Proxy Warfare

A novel examination of interstate competition, considering how and why states employ proxies to perpetrate violence on their behalf.

A novel examination of interstate competition, considering how and why states employ proxies to perpetrate violence on their behalf.

Today’s global security environment is characterised by great power contests. As we know from previous histories of strategic competition between states, such heightened rivalry routinely manifests in violence perpetrated by proxy forces—a dynamic intended either to avoid war, or to assist in its prosecution.

This book explores the use of proxies in arenas of international strategic competition characterised by force. It looks at why, where and when proxy warfare is waged, examining how states seek to employ proxies, to cajole them to act on their behalf, and then to ensure their compliance. Today, states wishing to avoid war, yet still to pursue competition, often turn to proxy warfare as an attractive low-cost option. This policy response is informed by history, from Europe’s Napoleonic-era competition and the Great Game during the age of empire, to interwar competition in East Asia and, later in the twentieth century, the global Cold War.

Proxy warfare is not the preserve of major powers, but a tool of statecraft available to all. Andrew Maher illuminates current trends, deriving a strategic logic to the proxy wars that will continue to influence today’s geopolitical competitions—and tomorrow’s.

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