In an informative assessment of the state of U.S. and world security, James D. Zirin argues in the Washington Monthly this week that even amid rising threats such as a reinvigorated China-Russia axis against the West, “America’s adversaries are weaker as the Biden era ends.” I think he’s right. But his analysis also points to an underappreciated truth: we are and have been, for some years, in an undeclared proxy war with Russia and Iran. And under Joe Biden, the United States is winning that war handily.
The very idea that the United States is, or should be, engaged in proxy wars is distasteful to a lot of Americans for understandable reasons. It sounds both exploitative and cowardly and reeks of the kind of amoral, strategically dubious statecraft we engaged in during the Cold War (did supporting the Contras in Nicaragua really advance our interests?).
But Americans are even less inclined—for excellent reasons—to risk the lives of U.S. troops to check the bloody and destabilizing actions of Russia and Iran when those actions pose no immediate and direct threat to U.S. territory. Short of sending in our forces or not countering those moves at all, proxy wars are the only real option we have. So, we engage in them, even if we don’t quite admit we are.
Of course, we fully understand that Iran has long deployed a proxy war strategy. Its support for Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis even has a name, “the Axis of Resistance.” Similarly, everyone knows Russia has backed proxies in the Middle East (Syria and, to some extent, Hezbollah) and its “Near Abroad” (including Belarus, Crimea, and the Donbas).
America’s proxies are Ukraine and Israel. We don’t call them that for the reasons stated above; because they are genuine allies with whom we share democratic values and geostrategic interests; and because, in the case of Israel, the intensely emotional politics of the Israel-Palestinian conflict complicated public acknowledgement. But functionally, Ukraine and Israel are also our proxies in that they do the direct fighting against U.S. adversaries Russia and Iran. The latter sure see them as our proxies, as does much of the world.
Biden has provided our two proxies with massive (if not quite complete and unqualified) military and diplomatic support. In turn, each proxy has inflicted enormous losses on our adversaries.
Iran’s “axis of resistance” is in tatters thanks to Israel’s crushing military blows to Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran itself is now vulnerable after its widespread missile attacks on Israel failed (with U.S. and allied assistance) to hit their intended targets, while Israel’s surgical strikes on Iranian military assets succeeded.
Meanwhile, Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine has wiped out nearly 90 percent of the active-duty troops and two-thirds of the tanks it had before the war. While Russia has seized the initiative and taken some Ukrainian territory in recent months (at a horrendous cost in Russian lives), Ukraine still holds a roughly equivalent amount of Russian land in Kursk. It continues to hit targets in Crimea and deep in Russian territory, including this week’s assassination of a Russian general.
Because it is pinned down and bleeding in Ukraine, Russia largely stood by as its last Middle East proxy, Syria’s Assad, was overthrown by rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The future of Russia’s air and naval bases in Syria—and hence its ability to project power in the entire Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean–is now in doubt.
Biden has been widely criticized for not providing Ukraine with enough advanced weaponry to fully defend itself, much less turn the tide of battle. But by the cold logic of proxy warfare, giving Ukraine just enough firepower to bleed Russia without risking a direct confrontation with the West is a win.
There’s also a debate in Washington about how much credit Biden deserves for our adversaries’ rippling losses. After all, Ukraine didn’t give the Pentagon a heads-up before its Kursk offensive and Israel ignored Washington’s requests for restraint when it struck Hezbollah this fall. But it’s the nature of proxy wars that proxies don’t always do their sponsor’s bidding. Hamas seems to have attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, without Iran’s permission. Before the HTS offensive, Assad rebuffed Russia’s advice that it negotiate peace with Turkey.
The difference is that our proxies’ freelancing worked out to our advantage, while the opposite is true of Russia’s and Iran’s proxies. Why events went that way is for future national security historians to decide. But the answer is probably some combination of luck, better proxies, support from NATO, and skillful statecraft by the Biden administration.
The bottom line is that Biden bequeaths Donald Trump a winning hand in the proxy wars against Russia and Iran. If Trump misplays it, that’s on him.
