Forum: Conflict Delegation in Civil Wars

Alex Stark contributed to a forum on conflict delegation in civil wars published in International Studies Review.

As the contributions to the forum already identify, the proxy war literature models delegation relationships as an ideal–typical connection between an external state sponsor and a local non-state group proxy, where the external sponsor provides indirect support to local actors (such as financing, weapons, training, intelligence, and diplomatic support) in exchange for a degree of command over the proxy group (Hughes 2012; Mumford 2013; Rauta 2018; Groh 2019). However, Karlén and Rauta's discussion on complex delegation patterns invites a broader theoretical reconsideration of this simple sponsor–proxy model. While the standard model can be a useful heuristic, it fails to capture the much broader array of proxy relationships and types of interventions that we see in civil wars today. Specifically, there are two advances that the proxy wars literature must make to capture these dynamics: conceptualizing the role of regional actors in relation to both great powers and local actors, and understanding intervention as a menu of options rather than a two-dimensional spectrum.

The proxy war literature has not conceptualized the role of regional state actors in relation to both great powers and local actors, and it has not fully reckoned with the types of support that external actors can provide. While regional actors do act in the traditional proxy role by providing indirect support to local actors, they increasingly also act as both proxies and sponsors, receiving support from great powers while sponsoring local actors themselves. Regional states’ interventions in some conflicts may be better thought of as one node in a chain of proxy relationships, where a regional state may both receive support from a great power sponsor and provide support to local proxies.

Regional actors also intervene in civil wars in ways that blend forms of indirect and direct support, providing funding, weapons, and/or intelligence support to local actors, for example, while at the same time deploying Special Forces on the ground to train and sometimes fight alongside local actors or conducting drone strikes or other types of airstrikes. Additionally, aspects of this kind of intervention are often covert or defy straight-forward attribution, making these relationships even more analytically complex than the straightforward sponsor–proxy heuristic. While intervention is sometimes conceptualized along a ladder or spectrum, ranging from indirect to direct forms of intervention, regional intervention in today's proxy wars may be better thought of as a menu of options from which policymakers may select.

The Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen beginning in 2015 is a useful theory-building case that illustrates these dynamics in action. The coalition of nine Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), intervened militarily in Yemen's civil war beginning on March 26, 2015, at the invitation of the internationally recognized government, after it had been driven out of the capital Sana'a by the Houthi insurgent group. A de facto division of labor had the UAE lead efforts to fight the ground offensive in the south and train an array of local militant groups there, while Saudi Arabia led an air campaign in the north. The coalition also blockaded air and sea routes into Yemen.