Maj. Juan J. Quiroz
Although the United States is competing and preparing for conflict against near-peer adversaries, proxy wars will be the most likely venue for great powers to advance their interests without incurring the costs of direct conflict against each other.1 However, future proxy wars will also look vastly different from their Cold War antecedents, resembling the destructive conventional wars that great powers previously sought to avoid.2 The Russo-Ukrainian war is emblematic of this new dynamic, with sponsors overtly supporting their favored belligerent and the escalating use of high-end weaponry.3 In other conflicts as well, sponsors are forgoing deniability in favor of achieving objectives by fighting side-by-side with proxies or deploying conventional forces like Saudi Arabia in Yemen.4
This trend toward escalation is driven by strategic factors that favor direct conflict on the part of sponsors.5 Identifying these factors is crucial for U.S. Army leaders because the Army is responsible for shaping operational environments to the United States’ advantage, preventing conflict through credible deterrence, prevailing in large-scale ground combat when deterrence fails, and consolidating gains to make operational successes enduring.6 As the global order continues to fragment, proxy wars will abound. The Army will be charged with deterring revisionist states from escalating proxy wars into conventional interstate conflicts that would be even more destabilizing and costly to U.S. interests. This will require adaptations in information sharing and employment of forward-stationed forces, such as Army special operations forces (ARSOF) and security force assistance brigades (SFABs), and theater armies that manage force tailoring and command the Army component during the initial stages of crises that include escalation from low-level proxy wars into direct conflict.7
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