Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
I'm with Steve Blair on this. The United States has a tendency to assume that when we arm insurgents and build nuclear weapons it's legitimate, but it's not when other nations do it. After all, we have a stated policy of supporting groups which want to overthrow the Iranian regime. I'm not opposing this policy--that regime is evil and dangerous. But we need to stop whining when Tehran arms our enemies and just get down to making them pay a strategic price for it.
Agreed. I would also say that the use of proxies in warfare is not limited to the Cold War. We--the US--were French proxies when it was convenient for France and so it has gone throughout history. Proxy war is really an off shoot or 1st cousin of coalition warfare in that you are fighting together, you are letting someone else take on your enemies.

Best

Tom