The Risks of Russia’s Proxy Warfare Strategy

The above discussion illustrates the way Russia has often deftly used PMSCs as part of a proxy warfare strategy deeply tied to and reliant upon deception and covertness. It is a strategy shaped and constrained by the complex networks that shape Russian interests and policy, but the proxy warfare strategy has also turned these complex networks into an advantage. Yet, in the twenty-first century, social media accounts and digital sleuthing have repeatedly proven to be the Kremlin’s undoing.

The U.S. strike on Russian PMSCs in Deir Ezzor during the Battle of Khasham illustrates the potential for miscalculation and escalation when the covertness—whether agreed upon by governments or not—of proxy warfare breaks down. For Russia and the United States, releasing specific details about Russian casualties in the Deir Ezzor incident at any level would have posed a significant strategic dilemma. For Moscow, admitting that those killed at the Conoco gas field were Russian citizens engaged in combat would mean owning up to long-reported and rumored suggestions that Russian PMSCs carry out offensive operations. Such an acknowledgement would also risk igniting a domestic public outcry over Russia’s involvement in Syria, setting up a potential reprise of the backlash sparked by the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Similarly, for the national security establishment in Washington, an admission that U.S. forces had killed Russian citizens could prove dangerous. If the rumors of high-casualties were true, then the U.S.-Russian clash would constitute the first publicly reported incident of a major escalation of hostilities between the longtime rivals since the Cold War. Since the United States had already imposed stiff sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine and Syria, few rungs on the escalatory ladder were left other than an escalation of force.

Consequently, the Kremlin has poured considerable resources into deploying disinformation about the activities of the Wagner Group and other PMSCs. Some of the active measures taken involve misdirection while others more nefariously have involved silencing sources and murdering messengers who promote alternative versions of the storyline on PMSC operations.¹

Information control is an intrinsic feature of escalation management and sowing confusion is part and parcel of proxy strategies. The narratives that sponsors promote about their proxies are as important for power projection as they are for escalation management. The above observations lead to one final and critical implication for those looking to respond to Russia’s tactical innovations.

Opaque Russian PMSC structures make it challenging to attribute actions to actors, but tightly overlapped networks of Kremlin insiders and PMSCs are often hidden in plain sight. Globalization and Russia’s modernization has transformed the way Russian PMSC operate, recruit, and manage operations. At the same time, the arrival of the digital age undercuts Russia’s ability to maintain plausible deniability. Growing global capacity to de-anonymize digital data exposes risks for the covert networks that bind PMSCs to their client constituents, a fact that should prompt a strategic rethink in U.S. circles. Puncturing the narrative of plausible deniability and lifting the lid on Kremlin secrecy and disinformation will be a critical part of any winning strategy.