The resurgence of fighting in Israel and Gaza and intensified clashes in Ukraine's Kharkiv region this October 2025 dramatically underscore a mounting global trend: proxy wars have become the dominant method for great powers to wage influence amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Concurrently, cyber-attacks linked to state proxies are debilitating infrastructures across continents from North American airports to Europe's energy grids revealing how indirect conflict now manifests across multiple domains.
The recent United Nations Security Council meeting highlighted the diplomatic paralysis toward these shadow battles, with multiple members warning that the era of direct warfare is giving way to a convoluted world of "delegated engagements" where accountability is elusive. As flashpoints multiply, this editorial situates itself within an urgent framework, demanding strategic clarity on the proxy warfare doctrine whose shadows darken international peace and governance.
Evolving Proxy Battlefield: 2025's Data and Dynamics
The global security architecture faces an unprecedented challenge from the intensification of proxy warfare. Armed Conflict Survey 2024 data reveal a 37% rise in fatalities attributed to violent events year-on-year, driven predominantly by protracted proxy conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza. SIPRI notes a parallel 15% increase in arms transfers to African theatres, illustrating growing militarisation by external powers through local proxies.
According to RAND Corporation analysis, over 60% of cross-border attacks documented in 2025 involve non-state actors with state sponsorship integrating advanced weapon systems, cyber tools, and intelligence support that blur traditional battlefield distinctions.
Dr. Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, encapsulates the strategic pivot: "Great powers now employ proxies as instruments to achieve influence. This approach allows maximisation of strategic effects while minimising political exposure and direct costs."
The United Service Institution of India emphasizes that global defense budgets increasingly prioritise technological enablers of proxy warfare, with over $280 billion allocated by G7 members in 2025 for advanced support systems ranging from cyber defense to drone deployments through proxies. General Mark Milley notes, "Strategic ambiguity is adopted not as a policy failure but as doctrine today's conflicts are fought where direct military footprints are politically unacceptable."
The New Logic: Benefits and Blowback
Proxy warfare appeals through plausible deniability and cost reduction, but the strategic risks are profound. CESCUBE's August 2025 report points to systemic blowback: proxies frequently evolve into autonomous power centres, undermining sponsoring states' influence and destabilising regions.
Michael Kofman of Carnegie Endowment warns, "Once empowered, proxies rarely remain loyal; their trajectories often diverge, exacerbating regional turbulence." Civilian casualties linked to proxy conflicts rose by 30% according to the 2024 Global Risks Report, underscoring the human costs embedded in this indirect warfare.
Chatham House analysis stresses that proxy engagements weaken international legal norms and erode moral clarity: "When aggression is perpetuated through third parties, accountability becomes diffuse, and international law a selective tool." Dr. Sanam Vakil highlights that proxy warfare incentivizes perpetual low-intensity conflicts rather than decisive resolution, which benefits no one but entrenched interests on all sides.
Sovereignty Under Stress: Indo-Pacific and Emerging Frontiers
The Indo-Pacific region exemplifies the strategic complexity proxy warfare introduces. China's covert backing of ethnic militias in Myanmar and sophisticated grey-zone tactics against Taiwan from cyber sabotage to maritime coercion illustrate the multi-dimensional proxy conflict underway. ASEAN data reveal a 25% increase in unacknowledged military "advisory" deployments supporting proxies, primarily funded by external powers. The Philippines' emerging maritime proxy deterrence, bolstered by U.S., Japanese, and Australian intelligence and training, highlights the regional balancing act.
India's counter-proxy strategy integrating intelligence, cyber defense, and diplomatic engagement has been instrumental in limiting cross-border proxy infiltrations and hostile disinformation campaigns. USI analyses commend India's pursuit of strategic autonomy as critical for mid-tier powers facing multi-vector pressure from great-power competition.
Pakistan's Strategic Duality: An Ongoing Proxy Experiment
Pakistan's proxy model remains unique, simultaneously patron and proxy under the aegis of both the U.S. and China. Research from Stratfor and USI finds this dual dependence a double-edged sword: while it boosts Islamabad's geopolitical leverage, it threatens sovereignty and economic stability amid mounting internal and external pressures.
Dr. Moeed Yusuf notes, "Pakistan's ability to play patrons off each other sustains its geopolitical relevance but risks profound structural vulnerability."
IMF and World Bank 2025 assessments warn the dual-dependency is fiscally and politically unsustainable, exacerbating regional insecurities.
Towards a Hexa-Polar Manipulation Regime: The Future of Proxy Conflict
Global security analyses from RAND, Stratfor, and CESCUBE converge on a consensus: the unipolar and bipolar orders have yielded to a hexa-polar strategic environment where alliances are transactional, loyalties ephemeral, and conflicts outsourced. The World Geopolitics Forum quotes General David Petraeus: "Open power projection is obsolete. Instead, strategic influence is exercised through layers of proxies, cutting across multiple domains- military, cyber, economic, and information." RAND's 2025 report reveals that over 70% of regional conflicts now entail proxy dynamics, complicating resolutions and legal accountability.
Policy-Orientation : Global Responsibility and Adaptive Governance
The shadow century of proxy warfare demands urgent global policy recalibration grounded in responsibility and adaptive governance. International institutions, currently hamstrung by paralysis, must evolve to regulate proxy use akin to arms control regimes. Multilateral frameworks are imperative for transparency in proxy sponsorship, regulation of private military contractors, and sanctions against destabilising mercenary activities as recommended by Chatham House and CESCUBE.
Mid-tier powers like India, ASEAN nations, and Japan should invest decisively in intelligence integration, cyber resilience, and strategic autonomy to withstand proxy coercion. Equally, global powers must accept responsibility for proxy consequences embracing conflict prevention, shared accountability, and sustainable peace-building, rather than exploiting plausible deniability for short-term gain. The alternative is a world where conflict is endless, accountability diffused, and sovereignty eroded.
As Dr. Fiona Hill concludes, "In delegating wars, states risk delegating control and losing moral authority." The ultimate test of leadership in this complex epoch will be the capacity for governance that is both agile and principled anchoring peace in a fragmented, proxy-fuelled world.
[Major General Dr. Dilawar Singh (Retd) is a globally recognized strategic affairs expert, former defense leader, and thought leader on emerging technologies, geopolitics, and governance transformation.]
