proxy war

Conflict between two actors in which neither directly engages the other

Also known as war by proxy

Instance of: type of war
Subclass of: war

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

In political science, a proxy war is an armed conflict where at least one of the belligerents is directed or supported by an external third-party power. In the term proxy war, a belligerent with external support is the proxy; both belligerents in a proxy war can be considered proxies if both are receiving foreign military aid from a third-party country. Acting either as a nation-state government or as a conventional force, a proxy belligerent acts on behalf of a third-party state sponsor.

Overview

All data

20 statements · 25% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Has list: list of proxy wars

On other databases

17 identifiers linking proxy war across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

25%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 12, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). proxy war (Q864113). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/proxy-war-Q864113