What Does Arming an Insurgency in Ukraine Mean?By Vladimir Rauta, Alexandra Stark Sunday, April 3, 2022, 10:01 AM
Editor’s Note: As the United States and its European allies funnel military aid to Ukraine, the conflict has taken on at least some dimensions of a proxy war—a subject Lawfare has addressed repeatedly. Vladimir Rauta of the University of Reading and Alexandra Stark of New America dissect this perspective, examining which aspects of the existing analysis on proxy war apply to Ukraine and, perhaps more importantly, which do not.
Daniel Byman
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Proxy wars proved a popular tool for U.S. and Soviet policymakers throughout the Cold War to compete for global influence while avoiding a direct confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers—to the detriment of the millions of people who were killed in or otherwise harmed by these wars. Yet the strategic appeal of arming proxies did not fade with memories of the Cold War, and the problems they pose remain acute. From debates within the Clinton administration on whether or not to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army, to successive administrations working in tandem with proxies disguised as partners in Afghanistan and Iraq, to President Obama’s hesitation to support Syrian rebels against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his later embrace of Kurdish militias fighting the Islamic State, arming proxies remains a popular policy tool in response to armed conflict.
As events have unfolded in Ukraine, several prominent voices have advanced the idea of arming an insurgency in Ukraine. Few of these proposals, though, examine the question of what it would mean to support a Ukrainian insurgency. The asymmetry of power between Russia and Ukraine, the fact that Ukrainians are already practicing irregular warfare, reporting that indicates the CIA has been overseeing a training program for elite Ukrainian special operations forces, and a history of successful anti-Soviet resistance shape the prospects of a potential insurgency.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-does-arming-insurgency-ukraine-mean
