When two adversaries confront one another militarily, they are rarely the only participants. Either side might delegate portions of its war efforts to proxies, for example—a subject that has been covered extensively on the Irregular Warfare Podcast. But there are a wide range of other roles that intermediaries also play. This episode explores those roles.
To do so, hosts Laura Jones and Louis Tobergte are joined by Dr. Michael G. Vickers and Dr. Vladimir Rauta. Dr. Vickers served in the special operations community, as a CIA operations officer, and later as a national security and intelligence community leader. His most recent public service role was as the under secretary of defense for intelligence and he is the author of By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy. Dr. Rauta is an associate professor at the University of Reading whose research explores the delegation of war to rebels. The episode discusses his recent article in International Security, “Dealers and Brokers in Civil Wars: Why States Delegate Rebel Support to Conduit Countries.”
You can listen to the full episode below, or find it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
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Might discussing the "nature" of the political objective — and the political objective itself — of the major countries engaged in proxy wars, might this — more than anything else that we can think of — help us to understand the various positive and negative aspects of working "by, with and through" — not just proxies — but also intermediaries — to achieve these such political objectives? Here are two examples, which might help us with this question:
Example Number One: The Old Cold War of Yesterday:
In the Old Cold War of yesterday, the political objective of the Soviets/the communists, this was "revolutionary" in nature; that is, designed to — working "by, with and through" the more liberal/the more pro-change elements of states and societies throughout the world — (a) overthrow their status quo political, economic, social and value arrangements and (b) replace these with Soviet/communist models. Whereas:
In the Old Cold War of yesterday, the political objective of the opponents of the Soviets/the communists (to include the U.S./the West but both state and non-state), these were "resistant" in nature; that is, designed to — working "by, with and through" the more conservative/the more anti-change elements of the states and societies of the world — (a) prevent these such unwanted transformations to Soviet/communist models from taking place and/or (b) reversing these such unwanted/threatening transformations if they had already occurred.
(Thus, during the Old Cold War of yesterday, and in Afghanistan in this case, Michael Vickers, working for the U.S./the West and as per our "prevent" and "reverse" political objectives noted immediately above — he would work "by, with and through" the more conservative/the more anti-change/the more-traditional elements of Afghan society, to wit: the Islamists, to achieve U.S./Western — anti-Soviet/anti-communist change — political objectives?)
Example Number Two: The New/Reverse Cold War of Today:
In the New/Reverse Cold War of today, it has been the political objective of the U.S./the West that has been of a "revolutionary" nature; that is, designed to — working "by, with and through" the more liberal/the more pro-change elements of states and societies throughout the world — (a) overthrow their status quo political, economic, social and value arrangements and (b) replace these with U.S./Western models. Whereas:
In the New/Reverse Cold War of today, the political objective of the opponents of the U.S./the West (such as Russia and China but also both state and non-state), these are "resistant" in nature; that is, designed to — working "by, with and through" the more conservative/the more anti-change/the more traditional elements of the states and societies of the world — (a) prevent these such transformations to U.S./Western models from taking place and/or (b) reversing these such transformations if they have already occurred.
(Thus, in the New/Reverse Cold War of today, and again in Afghanistan in this case, Michael Vickers, again working for the U.S./the West but now as per our "revolutionary" political objective post-the Old Cold War — he would now need to help hunt down, capture and/or kill the anti-change Islamists that he worked — "by, with and through" — back in Old Cold War days?)
Question — Based on the Above:
If we take care to address — not only the political objective of the major countries engaged in proxy wars — but also the "nature" of these such political objectives; by way of that such effort — might this help us to better understand the various positive and negative aspects of working "by, with and through" — not only proxies — but also intermediaries — to achieve such political objectives?