Military Strategic Triangle: The Key to Proxy Wars

Proxy wars or also called subsidiary wars are a type of internal conflict between different sides or actors that is encompassed as part of another rivalry between powers or external actors. Knowing them is interesting because it is necessary for nature in the world we live in and the geopolitical situation of the region where they occur.

The recent example of proxy war terminology is the rivalry that is being experienced in the Middle East. To be more specific between Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Iran.

Palestine: Its conflict with Israel began when the United Nations created the state of Israel in 1947 because Britain was seeking a way out of the Middle East region. Exhausted its resources and energies by World War II, so that Britain had committed in 1917 to creating a “Jewish national home” in what became known as the Balfour Declaration, for which it used its internationally-endorsed mandate. But this created the conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalisms.

In 1947, Britain requested the help of the newly founded United Nations to get out of this part of the Middle East. However, today, Israelis and Palestinians cannot do the same. In a two-state solution, they would live together on a very narrow strip of territory: the two states would be barely 80 kilometres wide from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Now the struggle for territory has led to great human and economic losses. To be exact, a humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

Lebanon: Since Lebanon’s independence in 1943, Israel has conducted operations on Lebanese territory on six occasions. The first invasion took place in 1978 and was aimed at expelling Palestinian militants from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in southern Lebanon. While the second invasion of Israel into Lebanon to conquer territory occurred in 1982 amid a bloody civil war unleashed after an attack by the Lebanese Phalanges, a right-wing Christian militia allied with Israel, against a bus full of Palestinian refugees. Since then it has been a war between the two.

Iran: It has been an enemy of Israel since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought to power a regime that has used opposition to Israel as a key part of its ideology. Its last attacks were on October 1, 2024, when Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles against Israel, which hit the center and south of the country.

Now this bloody rivalry between the nations of the Middle East has been growing and as a main cause geopolitical power.

Allies around the Middle East conflict

It is important to mention that these rivalries have unleashed a network of allies and proxy forces. We have on one side the countries of Syria, Russia and Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran even Qatar; joining forces and on the other side Israel and the US, in the same side to attack those who consider themselves their enemies, that is to say have created a “axis of resistance” That it challenges their interests.

Within this triangle, all of the above-mentioned countries have not only Israel as their common enemy but also the US and that for the US, attacks on targets in Syria and Iraq are a retaliation for an attack perpetrated at a base in Jordan, Killing three American soldiers and wounding more than 40 people.

Washington blamed the attack on Iran-backed Iraqi Islamic Resistance and thus Iran itself. This country and the United States have been enemies for decades, and they have not had official diplomatic relations since 1980.

The latest news about this proxy war is that the Pentagon has reported through a statement that it will send a High Altitude Terminal Area Defense (THAAD) battery as well as troops to support Israel and attack Iran.

It is a fact that this year, the conflict in the Middle East has intensified and the number of deaths is at its highest level in almost two decades. This war of rivalries does not seem to diminish and more and more the attacks are sharpened and it only remains to ask, How long will it end?

Autor

Share this article
Shareable URL
Prev Post

The Palestinian Kufiya: A Symbol of Identity and Resistance

Next Post

Palestine: A journey of resistance and hope

Read next

Eduardo Galeano: GAZA

Since 1948 Palestinians have lived in perpetual humiliation. They can't breathe without permission. They have…