proxy war
5
7.6
- noun
- /ˈprɒksi wɔr/
- Literature
:
guerra por poder
- Thus, the Vietnam War, in Nixon's (and Kissinger's) view, was being fought as a proxy war with the Soviet Union.
- fight a proxy war
- engaged in a proxy war
- proxy wars in Afghanistan
I will oppose the proxy war in Ukraine.
- I will oppose the proxy war in Ukraine.
- What's sad about this is now you're continuing the proxy war of China supporting Russia more and the United States supporting Ukraine more.
- Mexico has basically been a, a, a staging proxy war area for the United States and its enemies for decades, starting off with the Soviets, I guess.
- We're making new rules now about aiding a third party or proxy war and we don't.
- And what you tend to find now is there's always proxy wars going on, you know, so you don't, what do you mean by that?
Examples
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Although Afghanistan's conflicts are rooted in the internal social structure and history, the conflict is in part a proxy war among Afghanistan's neighbors.
Academic text (1997) -
The conflict in Yemen is often seen as a proxy war involving regional powers seeking influence.
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I will oppose the proxy war in Ukraine.
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Now it has mutated again into a proxy war between the Great Powers.
Blog text (15) -
And yet that is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
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Would this course lead to a proxy war in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan, or destabilize the region more generally?
Academic text (2011) -
Regional tensions are cooling, which means that their proxy war in Yemen is also cooling.
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John Pilger argues that US elites are waging a proxy war on Syria.
Blog text (17) -
The Arab Spring in the Middle East led to the end of the 33-year-long rule of Ali Saleh but pushed the country into a civil war and an arena for proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Academic text (2018) -
Many analysts view the situation in Ukraine as part of a larger proxy war between the West and Russia.
How Violent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a war instigated or fought on behalf of another power' follows directly from combining 'proxy' (someone authorized to act for another) with 'war' (armed conflict). This compositional logic is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun proxy war comes from the word proxy, which means a person who stands in for someone else. Imagine two big countries that do not fight each other directly but help smaller groups to fight for them, so a proxy war is a conflict fought by others 'for' the major powers.