Wars By Proxy

In a sense all wars are fought by proxy. Heads of state have tantrums and the next thing we know Joe the Plumber is fighting Charlie Lunchbucket. Those leaders who belong in an anger management class never met a war they weren't happy to send others to die for. 

In a sense, war is a failure of diplomacy.

Our own Revolutionary War could be seen as another chapter in the European battle for domination, an extension of the never-ending conflict between France and England. Without  Lafayette and Louis XVI's financial aid the outcome would have been dubious. Ironically, our success seeded the monarchy's downfall. 

The war was fought on American soil which was, of course, still Brit soil when it began. But soil is famously fickle having been stolen from the indigenous people, then labored over by imported Africans and finally declared our own. And now to be trespassed by those neighbors to the south whose ancestors once lived here.

The Spanish Civil War was a dress rehearsal for WWII. The relatively small band of Allied fighters, known as the Lincoln Brigade, alongside the defenders of the republic were no match for Hitler's and Mussolini's advanced arsenal. Democracy lost to fascism even though, as Tom Lehrer put it, we had the best songs.

It was widely believed in the U.S.S.R. that Churchill delayed the second front landing at Normandy in the expectation that Germany would eradicate Soviet communism. Another instance of a possible proxy war to the benefit of the Western world. 

After the Second World War the Cold War began when the U.S. fought the U.S.S.R. over who gets the best German scientists. They plucked their share from the East  but the Allies snatched the greater number. Wernher Heisenberg, of Uncertainty fame, was certain about casting his lot first with Great Britain and later with West Germany where he continued work in advanced physics. Another prize was Wernher von Braun along with his team of rocket scientists. He lived happily ever after in the U.S. in spite of the great Tom Lehrer song….

Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun

A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi" says Wernher von Braun.

Don't say that he's hypocritical

Say rather that he's apolitical

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department" say Wernher von Braun

Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pension to Wernher von Braun

Fast forward to 2016 when Russian intelligence worked through the night with their nefarious deeds and now yearn for Trump's reelection. One can imagine Chinese hackers also busy at work…and there are more of them. Our hotly contested presidential election may get decided in the basement of a boiler room in Beijing or Moscow.

The current war in which Putin's mercenaries and military have been unleashed against Ukraine is another proxy war. In a larger contest it is NATO versus Russia. Once again, the two great oceans remove us from the dire suffering on the Eurasian landmass. Americans cheer on the good guys from a safe distance. Yet the threat of all-out East-West conflict has never been so close nor the consequences so unthinkable. May saner heads prevail.