Originally published October 4, 2022
World War II was the deadliest war in human history, claiming between 60 and 100 million lives through battles, starvation, disease, and mass killings. In the nearly 80 years since the war ended, we have never seen a conflict on the same scale. The Cold War was global in its reach and occasioned widespread militarization until the 1990s, but fortunately never ended in a cataclysmic World War III. Sometimes termed the “Long Peace,” political scientists explain this period as a time of heightened peace due to the presence of nuclear weapons. However, there are some problems with this theory. Although global total wars have not recurred, lethal proxy wars have claimed millions of lives and ruined many parts of the war. Because of constant resupply with equipment and material by outside powers, proxy wars can go on much longer than other types of wars. The Angolan Civil War, for instance, started in 1961 as a war of independence and did not end until 2002. Similarly, the War in Afghanistan has continued unabated since 1978.
Proxy wars have grown more complicated and multi-lateral. This is especially true in places like Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan. Proxy wars may avoid direct confrontation between nuclear armed powers, but they can easily generate entanglements that lead to wider war. We likely face a heightened risk of nuclear war—even if accidental—as a result to the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine.
To date, arms control treaties have limited land mines, cluster bombs, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and in some places, stockpiles of strategic arms.[1] Instead of the very granular and difficult to enforce instruments like the newly created Smalls Army Treaty, world leaders would be better served by negotiating a new instrument to prevent proxy wars.
For the purposes of this article, let’s identify two types of proxy wars. In one, two large adversaries pour weapons, food, fuel, and medical supplies into a third country to arm two or more sides in a civil war. In the other, a major power sends its armed forces or allied armed forces to help one side in the war prevail over the other, and may encounter weapons and advisors supplied by their advisor. Examples of the second case would be the US in Korea and Vietnam or Cuba doing the Soviet Union’s bidding in Angola. Some situations blur these lines, like the US assistance to Ukraine with targeting HIMARS missiles and advising the Ukrainian military with satellite imagery and strategic guidance.[2]
A treaty would need to limit resupply to only neutrally available food and medical supplies, except where countries have a preexisting or newly created mutual defense arrangement. Situations where one country sends its uniformed armed forces to intervene on another country’s behalf might be excluded from this instrument. The US had the permission of South Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong.
Unlike many treaty instruments, a proxy war prevention treaty satisfies the reciprocity found in traditional statecraft and would be easier to self-enforce—or retaliate among parties subject to such an agreement.
References [1] Treaties & Agreements, Arms Control Association, (2022), https://www.armscontrol.org/treaties. [2] See generally Mia Jankowicz, The US has a veto on what Russian targets Ukraine hits with its HIMARS artillery, general suggests, Business Insider, (Aug. 3, 2022), https://www.businessinsider.com/himars-us-has-effective-veto-over-russian-targets-report-says-2022-8.
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