Proxy War Ethics: The Norms of Partnering in Great Power Competition

While proxy relationships can be an effective means international actors use to transfer risk and lower their costs to compete, they also enable actors to circumvent international norms as well as create moral hazards that can make the practice self-defeating if not simply unethical. Applying the framework of the Just War Tradition, this book highlights some of these ethical gaps and addresses how proxy relationships introduce additional obligations for both sponsor and proxy. The author examines specific examples of how current precedents set a very high bar for accountability, and perversely incentivizes sponsors to employ proxies while discouraging any effort to moderate proxy behavior since that could imply effective control. In light of this, the book offers policy recommendations on how to best manage these relationships while maintaining certain moral commitments.

 

"Tony Pfaff's excellent book examines the ethics of an increasingly important aspect of warfare:  supporting proxies who do the actual fighting and dying to accomplish their national objectives while furthering the interests of their sponsor.  With proxy wars exploding in Europe and the Middle East, the topic could not be more timely or more critical to American national security policy.  Highly recommended for those who care about keeping America both safe and morally strong." (--Dr. John Nagl, author of Eating Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya to Vietnam)

 

“At a time when proxy wars are being fought across the globe, this book should be required reading for senior military and national security officials. Professor Pfaff, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on Just War, gives us a fresh and indispensable guide to the ethics and legality of proxy wars and how they fit into the long tradition of Just War. He also provides a much-needed blueprint for the containment and resolution of such conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East.” (–Michael Hirsh, Columnist, Foreign Policy Magazine and the former foreign editor and chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek and national editor for POLITICO Magazine.)

 

“Professor Pfaff's book brings clarity and rigor to an increasingly important feature of international relations: states' use of proxies to achieve indirectly what they prefer not to do directly.  It makes a crucial contribution to the normative analysis of international competition by carefully identifying the potential moral harms and hazards of this type of relationship.  In an era in which many conflicts feature hostilities between proxies, this book is an essential guide to understanding their nature and complexity.” (--Mitt Regan, McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence and Director, Center on Ethics and theLegal Profession, Co-Director, National Security Center, Georgetown University Law Center)

 

"A seasoned soldier and policymaker with a penetrating philosophical mind, Tony Pfaff has written the first and definitive monograph on the ethics of proxy wars.  This empirically perceptive, normatively sophisticated and timely work will be the starting point for all future debates on the topic." (--Dr Ed Barrett, US Naval Academy) 

 

DR. C. Anthony Pfaff (Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.) is Research Professor for Strategy, the Military Profession and Ethics at the Strategic Studies Institute, Senior Non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, and Distinguished Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. Dr. Pfaff has previously served on the National Security Council where he was the Director for Iraq and the State Department’s Policy and Planning Staff where he advised on cyber and regional military affairs.