Proxy war: A robust challenge

Mukhtar Kareem
Quetta: Having fought out number of wars in 20th century and before, world may have realized that wars are not that effective in achieving the objective.

The costs involved often surpass the benefits. Military conflicts are costly and destructive in many respects- human lives, infrastructure, economic and political stability.

The costs involved in recovery are rebuilding are usually huge.
Driven by insatiable interests wars often become the means to an end. Interests must be achieved whilst keeping the costs involved to minimum. One way of doing this is to engage in proxy wars as an effective option to achieve the desired objectives.
Proxy wars are where countries sponsor other countries to engage in conflicts to achieve their mutually intended objectives. As the sponsoring countries are not directly involved and the conflicts are not conducted inside their borders or on their lands, the costs of these proxy wars are minimum to the sponsoring countries.
These type of wars may cost low and can continue for long time without tangible outcomes. This way the sponsoring country can avoid the loss of military personnel and public reaction at home.
During the Cold War, proxy warfare was motivated by fears that a conventional war between the United States and the Soviet Union would result in nuclear holocaust thus ideological proxies were deemed safer ways of exercising hostilities.
In the current war between Ukraine and Russia it can be argued that the American and the NATO allies are conducting a proxy war against Russia by sponsoring Ukraine. It is estimated that almost 100 hours of war has casted around $7 billion for the economy of Russian federation. Both sides are expected to lose thousands of lives before any resolution is achieved. On the other land, the cost to America and NATO would be minimum.
In current world, many new dimensions are also added to proxy wars. Media and propaganda  are non-conventional war tools which are also playing a  huge part.
In order to achieve their objectives, many countries may resort to use of proxies and Asian countries are more vulnerable to it. Every country across the world has fault lines, cause by economic, ideological and social differences. These divisions may be exploited by other countries to their advantage, more so, in countries where socio- economic and ethnic divides are greater. To mitigate such challenges, reducing inequalities may be an effective way to face modern challenge.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Balochistan and covering socio-economic issues with a special focus on political economy. He has done MBA from Iqra University Karachi and is preparing for competition exam.