Indirect Interventions in Civil Wars: The Use of States as Proxies in Military Interventions

Indirect Interventions in Civil Wars: The Use of States as Proxies in Military Interventions

Proxy interventions

arms trade

civil wars

military intervention

principal-agent theory

great powers

Current research on motivational sources of military interventions in civilwars frequently assumes that states intervene due to direct interests in thecivil war country. However, this study argues that there exists a subset ofinterventions in which weaker powers intervene on behalf of interestswhich great powers hold vis-à-vis the civil war country. Using the logic ofprincipal-agent theory in combination with arms trade data allows one toidentify 14 civil wars which experienced the phenomenon of indirectmilitary interventions. This type of intervention features a weaker powerproviding troops for combat missions, whereas its major arms supplier isonly involved with indirect military support. The analysis is complementedwith two brief case studies on the Moroccan intervention in Zaire (1977) andthe Ugandan intervention in the Central African Republic (2009). Both casestudies corroborate expectations as deduced from the proxy interventionframework.

Klosek, Kamil

Czech Journal of International Relations; Vol. 54 No. 4 (2019); 5-26

2788-2993

2788-2985

10.32422/mv.54.4

Institute of International Relations Prague

2019-12-01

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

application/pdf

eng

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Research Articles