The New Way Nations are Fighting (and why it matters)

00:29:32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqJnmaLWnqQ

Résumé

TLDRThe video explores the changing nature of warfare, with a particular focus on proxy wars as a new method for powerful nations to engage in conflicts without direct confrontation. It illustrates the increase in proxy wars since the Cold War, analyzing how such conflicts draw in external supporters while devastating the regions involved. The video discusses historical examples, the geopolitical implications of these wars, and highlights the importance of recognizing the involved patrons in modern conflicts.

A retenir

  • 🌍 The nature of war is evolving with the rise of proxy wars.
  • 📈 Proxy wars have seen a significant increase since the Cold War.
  • 💥 Proxy wars involve outside nations supporting local factions.
  • 🕰️ These conflicts tend to last longer and are more deadly.
  • 🌐 The modern world has more influential countries involved in conflicts.
  • 🔍 Understanding who the patrons are is crucial in analyzing conflicts.
  • 🛡️ Proxy wars allow great powers to fight without direct confrontation.
  • ⚖️ Countries can deny involvement due to the indirect nature of proxy wars.
  • ⚔️ The recent situation in Ukraine presents a unique version of proxy dynamics.
  • 💔 Proxy wars lead to humanitarian crises while external powers pursue their agendas.

Chronologie

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The nature of warfare has evolved, with proxy wars emerging as a prominent means through which nations engage in conflict, particularly since the late 20th century. Unlike traditional interstate wars, proxy wars occur when powerful nations support conflicting factions in a third country, thereby transforming local conflicts into broader geopolitical battlegrounds. A striking chart illustrates the increase in such wars, with more than 25 proxy wars noted at their peak in 2020, marking a significant shift in how global powers interact with one another.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Proxy wars are characterized as conflicts in which external parties utilize local wars to pursue their interests without engaging in direct combat. These wars are often more complex, with various nations backing different factions, complicating peace efforts and leading to extended, deadly conflicts. The discussion further unfolds as Jeremy Shapiro explains how countries engage in proxy wars mainly for deniability and to avoid the costs associated with direct engagement, instead allowing local factions to bear the brunt of the conflict.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Historically rooted in the Cold War, where the U.S. and Soviet Union employed proxy wars to exert influence, this strategy has not only persisted but has intensified in the modern era. Major conflicts emerged post World War II, with each superpower backing opposing sides in civil wars, such as in Korea, which turned into a battleground for their ideologies, demonstrating the devastating potential of proxy wars to prolong conflict and entrench divisions.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, the dynamics of proxy wars evolved, with an influx of players and regional powers joining the fray, making it harder to reach peaceful resolutions. The accessibility of support mechanisms—such as arms, funds, and training—has made it affordable for nations to engage in proxy wars, leading to seemingly endless cycles of violence as countries use local conflicts to further their geopolitical ambitions without committing directly to war.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:29:32

    The emergence of modern proxy wars, notably in Libya and Syria, showcases an increasingly deadly trend where multiple external supporters complicate conflicts. These situations culminate in crises marked by profound local suffering and long-term instability, further aggravated by the involvement of major players like the U.S., Russia, and beyond. As international tensions rise, understanding the roles of external patrons is essential in comprehending the dynamics of contemporary warfare.

Afficher plus

Carte mentale

Vidéo Q&R

  • What are proxy wars?

    Proxy wars occur when external powers support opposing factions in a conflict within a country, allowing them to fight indirectly.

  • Why have proxy wars increased in recent years?

    Proxy wars have increased due to the rise of multiple powerful nations involved in geopolitics and the decreasing costs associated with supporting armed groups.

  • How did the Cold War influence modern proxy wars?

    During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union used proxy wars to avoid direct confrontation, setting a precedent that continues today.

  • What are the dangers of proxy wars?

    Proxy wars tend to be deadlier, last longer, and are harder to resolve compared to traditional conflicts.

  • How does the situation in Ukraine differ from typical proxy wars?

    The Ukraine conflict involves direct fighting against Russian troops, making it a unique situation compared to other proxy wars where fighting is typically indirect.

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Défilement automatique:
  • 00:00:00
    - The nature of war is changing,
  • 00:00:02
    and I wanna show you how.
  • 00:00:03
    (bright classical music)
  • 00:00:04
    - [Reporter] Syria over the last decade.
  • 00:00:06
    - Countries are increasingly using a new way
  • 00:00:08
    to fight one another,
  • 00:00:09
    and it's remaking the entire globe in the process.
  • 00:00:12
    There's a really important chart
  • 00:00:13
    that shows this that I want to show you.
  • 00:00:15
    (bright classical music continues)
  • 00:00:20
    This chart shows all of the interstate conflicts over time,
  • 00:00:24
    at least since World War II.
  • 00:00:26
    Interstate just means wars fought between two countries.
  • 00:00:29
    You'll notice that it's a pretty flat line.
  • 00:00:31
    Some years, there's just one or two conflicts,
  • 00:00:34
    and some years, there's no conflicts at all
  • 00:00:36
    between countries.
  • 00:00:37
    But if you pay attention to the world,
  • 00:00:39
    that doesn't seem right.
  • 00:00:41
    (bomb explodes)
  • 00:00:42
    (bright classical music continues)
  • 00:00:43
    It certainly doesn't feel like the world is mostly at peace.
  • 00:00:48
    And that's because this graph doesn't represent
  • 00:00:50
    all the types of war that exist.
  • 00:00:53
    For that, you have to stack on
  • 00:00:54
    a different kind of war.
  • 00:00:55
    Like this. This is civil wars or intrastate wars.
  • 00:00:58
    You can see that there's a lot more of those,
  • 00:01:01
    but not as many as in the '90s.
  • 00:01:04
    But now, I wanna show you what this graph looks like
  • 00:01:06
    if we put on a different kind of war,
  • 00:01:08
    the kind of war that we're talking about today.
  • 00:01:11
    It looks like this.
  • 00:01:12
    (suspenseful piano music)
  • 00:01:16
    What we're looking at here is intrastate wars.
  • 00:01:18
    So civil wars, wars within a country,
  • 00:01:21
    but that are internationalized,
  • 00:01:23
    meaning they have external backing.
  • 00:01:25
    The more common name for this is proxy wars.
  • 00:01:28
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:01:29
    They used to be fairly rare,
  • 00:01:31
    but look what's happened starting 15 years ago.
  • 00:01:33
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:01:34
    There were over 25 proxy wars happening at one time in 2020.
  • 00:01:39
    Now, these usually get talked about as civil wars,
  • 00:01:42
    the Rwandan Civil War, the Syrian Civil War,
  • 00:01:45
    the Civil War in Sudan.
  • 00:01:46
    But these are not just civil wars,
  • 00:01:49
    and that's what you can't really see
  • 00:01:51
    by just looking at a graph.
  • 00:01:52
    You have to go deeper which is what I wanna do today.
  • 00:01:55
    I wanna show you how these things work
  • 00:01:56
    and why they're so dangerous.
  • 00:01:58
    Because this is the new way
  • 00:01:59
    that the most powerful countries
  • 00:02:01
    in the world fight each other, not fighting directly,
  • 00:02:04
    but by using other conflicts as their battlefield.
  • 00:02:06
    Proxy wars are deadlier, more resistant to peace,
  • 00:02:09
    and they're a driving force changing geopolitics today.
  • 00:02:13
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:02:15
    So I want to explain to you what proxy wars are,
  • 00:02:18
    how they work, why they're so deadly,
  • 00:02:20
    and why they're on the rise.
  • 00:02:22
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:02:29
    - [Jeremy] Hey, how are you?
  • 00:02:30
    - Doing well, how are you doing?
  • 00:02:31
    Thanks for taking the moment to chat.
  • 00:02:33
    - [John] I've been talking to Jeremy Shapiro
  • 00:02:35
    about proxy wars.
  • 00:02:37
    He's got a lot of perspective on this.
  • 00:02:38
    - Worked in the US government on that,
  • 00:02:40
    and so, there's some things that I can maybe allude to,
  • 00:02:42
    and I can't really talk about how I know them,
  • 00:02:44
    so don't ask for sources on that one, (laughs) I guess.
  • 00:02:47
    - Yeah, yeah.
  • 00:02:48
    Okay, so before we get into proxy wars in our world today,
  • 00:02:51
    I want to go into an imaginary world,
  • 00:02:54
    a fake map that we've made up.
  • 00:02:55
    (bright music)
  • 00:02:57
    How would you concisely define what a proxy war is?
  • 00:03:01
    - I think it is when a war is instrumentalized
  • 00:03:04
    by outside parties to use it as a proxy
  • 00:03:07
    for their external or larger dispute.
  • 00:03:11
    - In this made up world, there are two dominant powers.
  • 00:03:13
    Let's call them Johnny Land,
  • 00:03:15
    and over here, you've got is Izistan.
  • 00:03:19
    Yes, I'm doing this. Let's just go with it, please.
  • 00:03:21
    In the old days, if Johnnyland and Izistan went to war,
  • 00:03:24
    it would look like this.
  • 00:03:26
    They would send their armies smashing into one another.
  • 00:03:29
    It was really violent.
  • 00:03:30
    - It looked very much like World War I and World War II.
  • 00:03:33
    They ended up in massive wars with each other
  • 00:03:36
    that were quite destructive, often to their own countries,
  • 00:03:38
    particularly if they lost.
  • 00:03:40
    But frankly, even if they didn't lose.
  • 00:03:42
    - Well, and let's remember why big powers go to war.
  • 00:03:44
    And they do this to assert dominance over their region.
  • 00:03:48
    Maybe they're after the same resources.
  • 00:03:50
    Maybe they fear each other as rivals,
  • 00:03:52
    and they see an opportunity to weaken the other.
  • 00:03:55
    Or maybe, Johnnyland forgot to sign the kids up
  • 00:03:57
    for little league and Izistan is angry.
  • 00:04:01
    And they're fighting directly.
  • 00:04:02
    This is how war has worked for thousands of years.
  • 00:04:05
    That is until the greatest war of them all.
  • 00:04:08
    (suspenseful piano music)
  • 00:04:09
    (bomb exploding) (machine gun rattling)
  • 00:04:11
    World War II was a war that showed the world
  • 00:04:15
    that we had become too dangerous, too advanced,
  • 00:04:19
    too destructive, especially with the invention
  • 00:04:22
    of atomic weapons.
  • 00:04:23
    (nuclear bomb exploding)
  • 00:04:25
    - Nuclear weapons really focus the mind.
  • 00:04:28
    They are so destructive
  • 00:04:30
    and so easy to deploy once you have them that the idea
  • 00:04:34
    that you could ever defend yourself against that is not one
  • 00:04:38
    that really any country has ever entertained.
  • 00:04:40
    In a nuclear age, it would be insanity for them
  • 00:04:43
    to fight each other directly.
  • 00:04:45
    - So direct war
  • 00:04:46
    between these two great powers became unthinkable
  • 00:04:49
    and thus, it basically stopped.
  • 00:04:52
    This is a crazy thing, like sometimes we forget
  • 00:04:54
    that like we live in a world
  • 00:04:55
    where great powers don't fight each other directly,
  • 00:04:59
    something that they've always done,
  • 00:05:00
    but that doesn't mean they don't fight each other.
  • 00:05:03
    Before we continue about countries
  • 00:05:04
    and how they fight each other in the modern age,
  • 00:05:06
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  • 00:06:28
    Now, let's get back to our story
  • 00:06:30
    on how countries fight each other in the modern age,
  • 00:06:32
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:06:33
    - In the nature of countries,
  • 00:06:35
    they're still extremely competitive
  • 00:06:38
    and still looking for ways to harm each other,
  • 00:06:41
    to get leverage on each other,
  • 00:06:42
    to sort of win in geopolitical competition.
  • 00:06:45
    - Great powers still see each other as a threat.
  • 00:06:48
    They still crave dominance
  • 00:06:49
    over their region and over the world.
  • 00:06:51
    - Indirect ways of attacking each other,
  • 00:06:53
    such as supporting proxies
  • 00:06:55
    and civil wars has become much more popular
  • 00:06:58
    since nuclear weapons were invented.
  • 00:07:00
    (nuclear bomb explodes)
  • 00:07:05
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:07:06
    - So back to our fake map,
  • 00:07:07
    what this looks like is it would probably start
  • 00:07:09
    as a conflict popping up within a nearby country,
  • 00:07:12
    could be a civil war or power struggle,
  • 00:07:15
    or just some political unrest.
  • 00:07:16
    Now, these two big countries see an opportunity
  • 00:07:19
    to fight each other indirectly
  • 00:07:21
    by supporting one side of this war.
  • 00:07:24
    They send guns, money, military trainers,
  • 00:07:27
    and this is a proxy war.
  • 00:07:28
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:07:29
    The two sides fighting within the smaller country
  • 00:07:31
    are the proxies or sometimes referred to as clients,
  • 00:07:34
    and the outside supporters are called patrons.
  • 00:07:38
    Now, remember in this case, they're just sending support
  • 00:07:41
    to their side of an internal struggle,
  • 00:07:43
    a civil war in another country.
  • 00:07:45
    - [Jeremy] A war is instrumentalized
  • 00:07:47
    by outside parties to use it as a proxy
  • 00:07:50
    for their external or larger dispute.
  • 00:07:54
    - From the great power perspective,
  • 00:07:55
    what is the advantage or benefit
  • 00:07:58
    of choosing this tool of engagement,
  • 00:08:00
    rather than more direct versions?
  • 00:08:03
    - Depending on the situation, a great power can hope
  • 00:08:06
    that they can really sap the strength
  • 00:08:08
    of their rival through support to a proxy war.
  • 00:08:12
    - Unfortunately, this is a really rational thing
  • 00:08:14
    for big countries to do.
  • 00:08:15
    They get deniability.
  • 00:08:17
    They can say, hey, we're not really involved in this war,
  • 00:08:19
    and they don't have to sacrifice any of their citizens,
  • 00:08:22
    and they're able to contain the violence
  • 00:08:24
    in someone else's country.
  • 00:08:25
    They get to fight their rival
  • 00:08:27
    and have someone else pay the price.
  • 00:08:29
    - That's proven to be inefficient
  • 00:08:31
    and somewhat from a great power perspective,
  • 00:08:33
    less dangerous way of geopolitical competition
  • 00:08:36
    than direct wars.
  • 00:08:37
    - Now, technically, proxy wars can take
  • 00:08:39
    slightly different forms, like if the two big countries
  • 00:08:41
    support two smaller countries that are fighting each other,
  • 00:08:45
    or if one big country invades another country
  • 00:08:47
    and then the rival supports the resistance of that invasion.
  • 00:08:50
    There's lots of different forms,
  • 00:08:52
    but the whole idea is that these two great powers
  • 00:08:54
    are fighting each other via a different country
  • 00:08:56
    or different groups.
  • 00:09:00
    (suspenseful piano music ends)
  • 00:09:01
    Let's be done looking at the fake map
  • 00:09:02
    and look at the real map, the real history
  • 00:09:05
    of what proxy wars look like in real life.
  • 00:09:08
    This dynamic has existed for a really long time,
  • 00:09:10
    but the modern version of it starts
  • 00:09:11
    to really crop up in the Cold War.
  • 00:09:14
    (suspenseful piano music continues)
  • 00:09:15
    (rocket whooshing)
  • 00:09:17
    (plane engine roaring)
  • 00:09:18
    - [Air Traffic Controller] 116.
  • 00:09:19
    - We've got these two great powers,
  • 00:09:21
    the two big patrons, Soviet Union and the United States,
  • 00:09:24
    using proxy war as a way to fight each other,
  • 00:09:27
    turning the entire globe into a battlefield.
  • 00:09:31
    This is why it was a Cold War.
  • 00:09:32
    They never fought each other directly.
  • 00:09:34
    They just chose local conflicts to support
  • 00:09:38
    and fuel in an effort to win more influence over the map.
  • 00:09:42
    Right after World War II, the superpowers focused
  • 00:09:44
    on China's civil war supplying opposite sides
  • 00:09:47
    with military hardware, money, training.
  • 00:09:50
    This paid off for Moscow when the communist side won.
  • 00:09:54
    It was a major blow to the United States,
  • 00:09:56
    but the support in this proxy war was nothing compared
  • 00:09:59
    to what happened right after in Korea.
  • 00:10:02
    - [Reporter] Korea had become a place of 24-hour terror,
  • 00:10:05
    nothing and no one was left untouched
  • 00:10:07
    by the harsh bitter reality of war.
  • 00:10:09
    - Moscow authorized its proxies in the north
  • 00:10:12
    to try to take over the US-backed south,
  • 00:10:14
    something they wanted to do.
  • 00:10:16
    And we made a whole video about that relationship
  • 00:10:18
    between Kim Il Sung and Joseph Stalin.
  • 00:10:21
    The Soviets supported them with guns, money, fighter jets,
  • 00:10:24
    and the US, which already had troops there sent more,
  • 00:10:28
    way, way, way more like almost 2 million.
  • 00:10:31
    The Soviets fought back
  • 00:10:32
    by fueling the North Korean invasion.
  • 00:10:35
    And then China, who remember, was supported
  • 00:10:38
    by the Soviet Union, sent its army to join the fight too,
  • 00:10:41
    turning the Korean peninsula into a battleground,
  • 00:10:43
    not just between Koreans,
  • 00:10:45
    but between these massive powers who were both trying
  • 00:10:48
    to spread their ideology across the map.
  • 00:10:51
    All of this outside weaponry
  • 00:10:52
    and manpower prolongs the fighting
  • 00:10:54
    beyond what the two sides could sustain on their own.
  • 00:10:57
    Compared to little North and South Korea,
  • 00:11:00
    American, Chinese, and Soviet supplies
  • 00:11:02
    were practically limitless,
  • 00:11:03
    and this escalated the conflict for years.
  • 00:11:06
    (suspenseful piano music)
  • 00:11:07
    And then you see something crazy here,
  • 00:11:09
    which is something we're gonna see
  • 00:11:10
    a lot in these proxy wars.
  • 00:11:11
    Even when North Korea wanted to stop the fighting,
  • 00:11:14
    Moscow wouldn't let them.
  • 00:11:17
    They told them to keep fighting.
  • 00:11:18
    They had so much leverage over them
  • 00:11:20
    that they continued to fight.
  • 00:11:21
    Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader,
  • 00:11:23
    even knew his side couldn't win,
  • 00:11:25
    but he directed them to keep fighting
  • 00:11:27
    because he wanted to quote,
  • 00:11:29
    "Draw out the war to shake up the Truman regime
  • 00:11:32
    in America and harm the military prestige
  • 00:11:35
    of the Anglo-American troops."
  • 00:11:37
    Sometimes that's the logic of a proxy war.
  • 00:11:39
    Let an entire country burn just to embarrass your opponent.
  • 00:11:44
    We actually saw a version of this way back in the Civil War
  • 00:11:46
    when Great Britain sent guns to the confederate rebels.
  • 00:11:51
    But what happened in Korea was on whole new level.
  • 00:11:54
    It was so much more deadly.
  • 00:11:56
    It turned this entire peninsula into scorched earth,
  • 00:12:00
    all so that these great powers could play out
  • 00:12:03
    their rivalry using Korea as their battleground.
  • 00:12:05
    (suspenseful music)
  • 00:12:07
    Okay, so you would think that after the Korea situation,
  • 00:12:10
    both sides would be like,
  • 00:12:11
    whoa, whoa, whoa, that got really bad.
  • 00:12:12
    Let's like rethink this.
  • 00:12:13
    But instead, both sides enshrined proxy war
  • 00:12:16
    in their wartime doctrine.
  • 00:12:18
    (suspenseful music continues)
  • 00:12:20
    The policy was to give military support to any nation
  • 00:12:23
    that was resisting Soviet political aggression,
  • 00:12:26
    pledging military support.
  • 00:12:28
    Now, of course, to the public,
  • 00:12:29
    this was framed very differently than proxy war.
  • 00:12:32
    - The free peoples of the world look to us
  • 00:12:34
    for support in maintaining their freedom.
  • 00:12:37
    If we falter in our leadership,
  • 00:12:39
    we may endanger the peace of the world.
  • 00:12:42
    - A tremendous number of examples of this, where in essence,
  • 00:12:45
    the intervention of the great powers ended up creating
  • 00:12:49
    or defining the sides and internationalizing the conflict
  • 00:12:53
    or even creating the conflict.
  • 00:12:54
    So some of these wars were of indigenous origin,
  • 00:12:58
    probably most of them,
  • 00:12:59
    but some of them were actually started from the outside
  • 00:13:01
    as weapons against each other.
  • 00:13:03
    And others were sort of combination of the two.
  • 00:13:06
    - And this gets kind of crazy
  • 00:13:07
    because what it does is it hijacks local conflicts,
  • 00:13:10
    turning them into an existential conflict
  • 00:13:13
    between the Soviet Union and the United States
  • 00:13:16
    when the local conflict maybe had nothing to do with that.
  • 00:13:19
    Now, that incidentally almost led to World War III
  • 00:13:22
    and taught us that proxy wars not only exacerbate conflicts
  • 00:13:26
    and turn them into these highly ideological things,
  • 00:13:29
    but also if one side escalates,
  • 00:13:31
    it can spiral to become really dangerous.
  • 00:13:35
    (suspenseful music ends)
  • 00:13:36
    Okay, let's speed things up here.
  • 00:13:37
    'cause we now have the basis for what a proxy war is
  • 00:13:39
    and sort of how it worked during the Cold War.
  • 00:13:42
    I'm gonna do a speed round now
  • 00:13:43
    where I give you a few more examples.
  • 00:13:44
    So you can pick up on the patterns
  • 00:13:46
    of how cold war/proxy wars actually worked.
  • 00:13:48
    (suspenseful violin music)
  • 00:13:50
    In the 1960s,
  • 00:13:51
    you had the newly independent and resource-rich Congo.
  • 00:13:54
    The US supports the rebel groups that are seeking
  • 00:13:56
    to overthrow this Soviet-backed president.
  • 00:13:59
    The country plunges into a civil war.
  • 00:14:00
    And the great powers each support their own side,
  • 00:14:03
    which ultimately leads to the installation
  • 00:14:06
    of an American-friendly dictator.
  • 00:14:08
    Vietnam, like the Vietnam War that a lot of us
  • 00:14:11
    are familiar with was a proxy war.
  • 00:14:13
    The Soviet Union had armed and funded one side,
  • 00:14:15
    and the US eventually sent millions of troops
  • 00:14:18
    to prop up the other side,
  • 00:14:19
    showing us the madness of proxy wars.
  • 00:14:22
    The US would sacrifice so many of its citizens
  • 00:14:25
    to prevent this one spot on the map from turning red.
  • 00:14:28
    And in the end, the US-backed side lost anyway.
  • 00:14:30
    Now, this wasn't the only proxy war
  • 00:14:32
    that turned out to be fairly pointless.
  • 00:14:34
    Look at Afghanistan in the late '70s.
  • 00:14:37
    The Soviet Union was supporting
  • 00:14:38
    their puppet government there and a rebellion broke out.
  • 00:14:41
    The Soviets invaded to prop up their ally
  • 00:14:44
    and then here comes the US
  • 00:14:46
    because they both opposed the Soviet Union.
  • 00:14:49
    The Mujahideen took all of those weapons and money,
  • 00:14:51
    and training and funding from the United States.
  • 00:14:54
    They were their temporary ally.
  • 00:14:56
    (suspenseful violin music continues)
  • 00:14:58
    - What the US recognized quite early on in the war is
  • 00:15:00
    that the Soviets had exposed themselves.
  • 00:15:03
    They'd created a situation in which they needed
  • 00:15:05
    to occupy a very difficult country
  • 00:15:07
    and in which relatively inexpensive
  • 00:15:10
    and easy provisions of arms
  • 00:15:12
    and training to Afghan rebels, the so-called, Mujahideen,
  • 00:15:16
    could sap the strength in a very disproportionate way
  • 00:15:20
    of the Soviet army.
  • 00:15:21
    And that was incredibly successful.
  • 00:15:24
    - This totally worked and the Soviets were driven out,
  • 00:15:28
    the Soviet Union, collapsing a few months later.
  • 00:15:30
    (calm piano music)
  • 00:15:32
    Okay, we're done with the Cold War
  • 00:15:33
    'cause I wanna get to modern day.
  • 00:15:34
    I wanna explain this graph why it's going up.
  • 00:15:36
    If you wanna learn more
  • 00:15:37
    about the Cold War proxy dynamics, et cetera,
  • 00:15:40
    we made a video about all the coups that the US sponsored
  • 00:15:44
    during the Cold War and into modern day
  • 00:15:45
    that goes deeper into some of these cases.
  • 00:15:48
    But remember, the Cold War ended.
  • 00:15:49
    This global competition
  • 00:15:51
    between the two superpowers was over.
  • 00:15:53
    So you would think that proxy wars,
  • 00:15:55
    which is conflict fueled by two big patrons,
  • 00:15:58
    would go down like they would be over.
  • 00:16:01
    But the opposite is true.
  • 00:16:03
    Proxy wars after the Cold War skyrocket,
  • 00:16:07
    and Jeremy helped me understand why.
  • 00:16:12
    (gun bangs)
  • 00:16:15
    I notice a shift in the kind of flavor of proxy wars
  • 00:16:18
    and how they look after the Cold War.
  • 00:16:21
    How would you characterize a proxy war in the '70s
  • 00:16:24
    between with the Soviet Union and the US feels
  • 00:16:26
    and looks different than one happening in the Middle East
  • 00:16:29
    or you know, all around the world today?
  • 00:16:31
    - There are many more players, I guess, is the issue.
  • 00:16:35
    - So instead of just these two big patron powers,
  • 00:16:38
    we now have so many more powerful
  • 00:16:41
    and semi-powerful countries that are sponsoring proxy wars,
  • 00:16:44
    using them as a tool to gain influence
  • 00:16:47
    and to damage their rivals.
  • 00:16:49
    This means that more and more conflicts looked like
  • 00:16:51
    what Lebanon looked like in the '70s and '80s.
  • 00:16:54
    A civil war that had so many different factions
  • 00:16:57
    and that had so many outside patrons sponsoring
  • 00:16:59
    the different factions.
  • 00:17:01
    And again, we made a whole video
  • 00:17:03
    about the Lebanese civil war and the rise of Hezbollah.
  • 00:17:06
    You can check that out.
  • 00:17:06
    Now, remember back in the Korean War
  • 00:17:08
    when Kim Il Sung wanted to negotiate a peace deal,
  • 00:17:12
    but his patron wouldn't let him?
  • 00:17:14
    In conflicts like this, like Lebanon,
  • 00:17:17
    we have so many different patrons.
  • 00:17:18
    You don't just have two big powers that can veto peace.
  • 00:17:22
    You have like four or five.
  • 00:17:24
    - It makes it last a lot longer.
  • 00:17:25
    It makes it very, very difficult to end them.
  • 00:17:28
    This is in the one instance
  • 00:17:29
    because it dramatically complicates the negotiation,
  • 00:17:32
    but maybe even more fundamentally,
  • 00:17:35
    it is because wars tend to end when one side
  • 00:17:38
    or both can't fight them anymore.
  • 00:17:41
    And the existence of these multiple external supporters
  • 00:17:45
    means that if one side gets sort of pushed to the very edge,
  • 00:17:49
    there's an incentive for one or more external supporters
  • 00:17:52
    to come in and sort of resurrect them,
  • 00:17:54
    resurrect them at least enough
  • 00:17:56
    to be able to continue the war.
  • 00:17:58
    And this is the great tragedy of proxy wars,
  • 00:18:01
    is that they have a sort of dynamic equilibrium
  • 00:18:04
    to them where they can be fought for decades
  • 00:18:08
    because the external supporters
  • 00:18:10
    can always do enough to continue the war,
  • 00:18:12
    but rarely do enough to actually end the war.
  • 00:18:15
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:18:17
    - Okay, so that's our first major reason why
  • 00:18:19
    this graph is going up.
  • 00:18:20
    We live in a multipolar world.
  • 00:18:22
    There's a lot more of these powers willing to be patrons.
  • 00:18:24
    The other big reason is
  • 00:18:26
    that proxy wars are becoming increasingly cheap.
  • 00:18:29
    (machine gun bangs) (calm suspenseful music)
  • 00:18:31
    Back to the Congo.
  • 00:18:33
    Now, we're in the late '90s,
  • 00:18:34
    and you have a lot of rebel groups that are fighting
  • 00:18:37
    for influence, fighting for resources.
  • 00:18:40
    This civil war became the battleground
  • 00:18:43
    for neighboring nations to fight with each other,
  • 00:18:46
    but indirectly using the Congo as their battlefield.
  • 00:18:49
    Uganda and Rwanda sent money
  • 00:18:52
    and weapons to rebel groups on one side
  • 00:18:55
    and even invading to help them fight.
  • 00:18:57
    Namibia, Angola, and Zimbabwe armed
  • 00:19:00
    and funded the other side,
  • 00:19:02
    each hoping to install a friendly government.
  • 00:19:05
    And when you're talking about small rebel militias
  • 00:19:07
    in the Congo, you don't have to do a lot to support them.
  • 00:19:10
    Sending small arms, a little bit of training,
  • 00:19:13
    some logistics support,
  • 00:19:15
    that goes a long way in giving them influence
  • 00:19:18
    or in using them to support your troops
  • 00:19:20
    that are there as well.
  • 00:19:21
    And in this case, in particular,
  • 00:19:23
    to add more complexity to it,
  • 00:19:25
    supporting a certain group could mean getting access
  • 00:19:28
    to a resource-rich piece of land, which you can then exploit
  • 00:19:33
    and kind of pay yourself back
  • 00:19:34
    for the support you gave to those militias.
  • 00:19:37
    All of this leading to one
  • 00:19:38
    of the deadliest conflicts in modern history
  • 00:19:41
    and showing us how these new kinds of proxy wars burn slowly
  • 00:19:46
    and for a very long time and can be very destructive.
  • 00:19:49
    They're really hard to stop once they start.
  • 00:19:52
    (APC engine revving)
  • 00:19:53
    (calm suspenseful music continues)
  • 00:19:54
    Now, let's see how this plays out in Libya
  • 00:19:57
    in more recent years.
  • 00:19:58
    (calm mysterious music)
  • 00:19:59
    2011, the people rose up.
  • 00:20:01
    They threw out their longtime dictator only to fracture
  • 00:20:04
    and find themselves in a power vacuum and a civil war.
  • 00:20:08
    And here come the patrons
  • 00:20:09
    to choose which side they want to win.
  • 00:20:11
    - [Jeremy] The Russians, the Turks,
  • 00:20:13
    a couple of European countries, the French,
  • 00:20:15
    and the United States, and Egypt,
  • 00:20:17
    all have various external roles.
  • 00:20:19
    - [John] These patrons have poured money, weapons,
  • 00:20:22
    and even sending in airstrikes to support their side.
  • 00:20:26
    - [Jeremy] And they're all quite important
  • 00:20:27
    in sustaining that Civil War.
  • 00:20:30
    - Libya is still divided
  • 00:20:32
    between these foreign-backed groups.
  • 00:20:34
    We often think of a revolution that overthrows
  • 00:20:36
    a dictator as like a really good thing
  • 00:20:38
    because sometimes it leads to democracy,
  • 00:20:41
    but because of these modern proxy war dynamics,
  • 00:20:44
    sometimes it can go the other way.
  • 00:20:45
    What is dislodging a strong man, maybe create fertile soil
  • 00:20:49
    for this sort of internationalized civil war?
  • 00:20:52
    - Well, typically, what happens when you dislodge
  • 00:20:54
    a strong man is that you don't
  • 00:20:56
    have another one to replace him.
  • 00:20:58
    Different groups are vying for power
  • 00:21:01
    and vying to reestablish governance
  • 00:21:04
    or even reestablish total control.
  • 00:21:07
    One of their instincts is to go out
  • 00:21:08
    and find external supporters who can add
  • 00:21:11
    a tremendous amount of capacity to their ability
  • 00:21:14
    to fight those domestic struggles.
  • 00:21:16
    You think about it for yourself, you're there,
  • 00:21:17
    you're the Johnny Harris Liberation Front,
  • 00:21:20
    and you are fighting the guy across town who has,
  • 00:21:24
    you know, an up-and-coming video podcast.
  • 00:21:26
    You're kind of evenly matched.
  • 00:21:28
    If you can go and get some big money
  • 00:21:30
    from HBO, you can crush him.
  • 00:21:32
    But at that point, HBO owns you.
  • 00:21:35
    If he then goes out
  • 00:21:36
    and gets some money from Netflix,
  • 00:21:38
    you guys can be fighting these podcast wars
  • 00:21:40
    for many decades.
  • 00:21:42
    I hope that into language you can understand.
  • 00:21:44
    - Love the analogy. (Jeremy laughs)
  • 00:21:48
    Which is how we got a horrific war.
  • 00:21:51
    like the Syrian Civil War.
  • 00:21:52
    (calm piano music)
  • 00:21:54
    It started as an uprising to overthrow the dictator.
  • 00:21:57
    It descended into a civil war
  • 00:22:00
    eventually attracting powerful patrons
  • 00:22:02
    that fueled a decade and a half of horrific bloodshed.
  • 00:22:07
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:22:08
    This is one of the deadliest proxy wars of our time.
  • 00:22:11
    Not just because over a half a million people died.
  • 00:22:13
    Because of what outside support did to fuel that,
  • 00:22:17
    it escalated it year after year,
  • 00:22:19
    leading the dictator to gas his own people
  • 00:22:21
    and giving rise to violent extremists all while being fueled
  • 00:22:25
    by patrons that seemingly had endless supplies
  • 00:22:29
    to keep fueling the fighting.
  • 00:22:30
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:22:32
    A similarly horrific thing is happening in Sudan right now,
  • 00:22:35
    a civil war that has been internationalized,
  • 00:22:38
    which is making it way worse than it would've been
  • 00:22:41
    had these patrons not gotten involved.
  • 00:22:43
    (calm music)
  • 00:22:45
    This is what modern proxy war looks like.
  • 00:22:47
    It is longer, it is deadlier,
  • 00:22:49
    and it is more resistant to peace,
  • 00:22:51
    but there's one proxy war that doesn't really fit
  • 00:22:54
    with the model we've talked about here.
  • 00:22:56
    (foreboding music)
  • 00:22:58
    (Putin speaking in Russian)
  • 00:22:59
    Let's talk about Ukraine. Ukraine's kind of a weird one.
  • 00:23:01
    How do you see Ukraine and the proxy dynamics there?
  • 00:23:05
    How do you think about what's going on there?
  • 00:23:06
    - [Jeremy] It is hard.
  • 00:23:07
    I mean, it's interesting the US-Ukraine relationship
  • 00:23:10
    is a sort of classic proxy war relationship.
  • 00:23:13
    But on the other side of the equation is Russia,
  • 00:23:15
    which at the same time is the main combatant
  • 00:23:18
    and feels like it's almost fighting a proxy war.
  • 00:23:21
    - So you have Ukraine who was invaded
  • 00:23:23
    and is being supported by the west to fight,
  • 00:23:26
    but they're fighting against Russian troops,
  • 00:23:29
    but also Russian-backed militias that are fighting
  • 00:23:32
    to control territory in eastern Ukraine.
  • 00:23:35
    - The Russians are very convinced
  • 00:23:36
    that they're fighting the United States
  • 00:23:38
    and the West and Ukraine.
  • 00:23:39
    And so, I've come to think of Ukraine as a sort
  • 00:23:41
    of half proxy war, which is why it's so dangerous
  • 00:23:45
    because, you know, one nuclear power
  • 00:23:47
    is already deeply engaged
  • 00:23:49
    and already deeply believes that the outcome
  • 00:23:52
    of the war is of an existential importance to them.
  • 00:23:55
    But I think the Russian attitude that they have
  • 00:23:59
    to win this war, that they're deeply involved in this war,
  • 00:24:01
    that they have sacrificed enormous amounts
  • 00:24:03
    and that the very existence of their state
  • 00:24:06
    and regime depends on it, means that the possibilities
  • 00:24:09
    for escalation outside
  • 00:24:10
    of a proxy war context are very severe.
  • 00:24:13
    This is an important distinction.
  • 00:24:16
    (foreboding music continues)
  • 00:24:18
    - And Ukraine highlights something
  • 00:24:19
    that we haven't really talked about yet
  • 00:24:22
    and is very important here, which is the perspective
  • 00:24:24
    of the people on the ground experiencing the conflict.
  • 00:24:28
    Why would they accept support from an outsider knowing
  • 00:24:31
    that it will just make this conflict more deadly?
  • 00:24:33
    And you can see the answer on our little map here.
  • 00:24:36
    (calm piano music)
  • 00:24:38
    People on this side of the battle line
  • 00:24:40
    have been under Russian occupation
  • 00:24:43
    that's massacred civilians.
  • 00:24:44
    It's erased Ukrainian culture.
  • 00:24:46
    It's kidnapped tens of thousands
  • 00:24:48
    of Ukrainian children into Russia.
  • 00:24:49
    So if you live on this side of the line,
  • 00:24:51
    of course, you would take foreign help
  • 00:24:54
    to reclaim your country, to push the invaders back.
  • 00:24:57
    To you, this isn't a proxy war
  • 00:25:00
    in all of its sterile language.
  • 00:25:01
    This is a struggle for your survival,
  • 00:25:03
    for your very existence.
  • 00:25:05
    And that is often why local groups will take support
  • 00:25:09
    from the outsiders because they know
  • 00:25:11
    their enemy's gonna do it, too,
  • 00:25:12
    and they know that it's the only way that they can survive.
  • 00:25:15
    And this is the deadly psychology of a proxy war.
  • 00:25:19
    (calm piano music ends)
  • 00:25:23
    (mysterious music)
  • 00:25:25
    Okay, now, we haven't talked about China.
  • 00:25:27
    Like we've talked about the United States and Russia,
  • 00:25:29
    and all these other patrons.
  • 00:25:30
    Where's China in all of this?
  • 00:25:32
    It turns out China doesn't play the proxy game.
  • 00:25:35
    Very surprisingly,
  • 00:25:36
    this is not their style of geopolitics.
  • 00:25:39
    As best we know,
  • 00:25:40
    they haven't directly supported Russia in their fight
  • 00:25:42
    with Ukraine, though, of course, they do continue
  • 00:25:45
    to support in shipping them technology and all these things,
  • 00:25:48
    but not in the traditional proxy war way.
  • 00:25:51
    Now, there's a few likely reasons for this.
  • 00:25:52
    Number one, Beijing likes stability
  • 00:25:55
    and proxy wars are like the opposite of stability.
  • 00:25:57
    They're also very interested in not bringing
  • 00:26:01
    any kind of conflict into their borders.
  • 00:26:03
    They want peace and stability in their borders.
  • 00:26:06
    And then, and this is a really interesting one,
  • 00:26:08
    China has this foreign policy tenet,
  • 00:26:10
    they call one of their golden rules,
  • 00:26:12
    which is that they do not get involved
  • 00:26:15
    or interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
  • 00:26:18
    This is like a pretty big value in Chinese foreign policy.
  • 00:26:21
    It's one of the big critiques of the United States
  • 00:26:23
    is that the US is always sort of meddling
  • 00:26:25
    other people's countries trying
  • 00:26:26
    to influence them this way or that.
  • 00:26:28
    China's pretty strong about the idea
  • 00:26:31
    that they will make trade deals,
  • 00:26:33
    and they'll try to influence people
  • 00:26:34
    with like sending them stuff and giving them debt.
  • 00:26:37
    But this kind of like meddling in a civil war on a matter
  • 00:26:41
    of principle, China stays out of it, at least for now.
  • 00:26:44
    And this is kind of being tested right now
  • 00:26:46
    on Chinese southern border.
  • 00:26:48
    There's a civil war happening in Myanmar.
  • 00:26:50
    A rational great power would pick a side and support them,
  • 00:26:54
    but China hasn't done this.
  • 00:26:55
    Now, they have sent a war plane
  • 00:26:57
    and are considering giving drones
  • 00:26:59
    to one side of this conflict.
  • 00:27:01
    So this may turn into a full-blown proxy situation.
  • 00:27:04
    But for now, it looks like China's actually sticking mostly
  • 00:27:07
    to its principle of trying to stay out of interfering
  • 00:27:11
    with the affairs of another country in a very direct way,
  • 00:27:15
    trying to prolong a conflict to weaken the other side.
  • 00:27:18
    And honestly, it's hard not to wonder
  • 00:27:20
    what could happen if China starts
  • 00:27:22
    to play the proxy war game like other big powers.
  • 00:27:24
    This is a country with advanced weaponry
  • 00:27:27
    and cyber capabilities and a global network
  • 00:27:29
    of allies and connections.
  • 00:27:31
    And with a world that already has
  • 00:27:33
    so many patrons creating all
  • 00:27:35
    of these cross-cutting geometries between different forces,
  • 00:27:39
    I'm not sure we can handle China
  • 00:27:41
    being another one of these patrons.
  • 00:27:43
    Like what does that do to the system?
  • 00:27:48
    So that is why this graph exists,
  • 00:27:51
    why proxy wars are spreading.
  • 00:27:53
    It is a fairly disastrous trend,
  • 00:27:54
    especially for the people caught
  • 00:27:56
    in the middle of wars that are fueled
  • 00:27:58
    by outsiders paying the price for a conflict
  • 00:28:01
    that has nothing to do with them.
  • 00:28:02
    So we need to pay attention to this.
  • 00:28:04
    Proxy wars are the way the world works now.
  • 00:28:07
    It's the way great powers fight each other.
  • 00:28:09
    And as international tensions heat up,
  • 00:28:11
    we need to understand how to look for proxy wars,
  • 00:28:15
    how to look at a conflict, not just as a civil war,
  • 00:28:17
    but look at who is supporting,
  • 00:28:20
    who are the sponsors, who are the patrons?
  • 00:28:21
    That's gonna become increasingly important.
  • 00:28:23
    We will certainly be covering these different conflicts
  • 00:28:26
    in different ways as they heat up.
  • 00:28:29
    Thank you all for being here,
  • 00:28:30
    and I will see you in the next one.
  • 00:28:33
    Hey, and before you go, don't forget
  • 00:28:34
    to check out our new channel, "Tunnel Vision,"
  • 00:28:36
    with my friend Christophe, which if you like Google Earth,
  • 00:28:39
    you're gonna like that channel.
  • 00:28:40
    "Search Party" is our other new channel
  • 00:28:42
    about geopolitics and sports.
  • 00:28:44
    If you like maps and geopolitics,
  • 00:28:46
    you'll like that channel too.
  • 00:28:47
    We also have a T-shirt that has all the countries on it,
  • 00:28:50
    in case you want one of those.
  • 00:28:51
    Link in the description. Thanks for being here everyone.
  • 00:28:54
    I'll see you in the next one.
  • 00:28:55
    (calm piano music)
  • 00:28:57
    Cool.
  • 00:28:58
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:29:10
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:29:21
    (calm piano music continues)
  • 00:29:29
    (calm piano music fades)
Tags
  • war
  • proxy wars
  • geopolitics
  • international conflicts
  • Cold War
  • Syria
  • Ukraine
  • civil wars
  • power dynamics
  • modern warfare