The Proxy Paradox: Explaining (Lack of) Control Over State-Sponsored Proxy Armed Groups

Abstract

This dissertation uncovers and answers three puzzles about how states that sponsor non-state armed groups abroad (proxies) control them. The central puzzle of state-proxy relations asks: why would a proxy defy the directives of its state sponsor and risk losing support? The second puzzle is that state sponsors do not always use all the tools of control at their disposal to influence their proxies. In assessing the effectiveness of these tools, this dissertation revealed its third puzzle: some tools of control that state sponsors employ—namely promises and threats—sometimes do not work as intended. The theory developed in this dissertation makes sense of these puzzles. It argues that the goal a state sponsor pursues through a proxy against their shared enemy determines how dependent the state is on bolstering or limiting its proxy’s capability, affecting both which tools of control it will use and how effective those tools are at motivating and restraining proxies. Challenging the view of an unavoidable tradeoff between control and effectiveness, this dissertation shows that some tools of control bolster and others hamper proxy capability, and that not all states are interested in maximizing the proxy’s effectiveness—because sometimes states sponsor proxies for limited aims that require limiting that effectiveness. Ultimately, the dissertation finds that state sponsors have an easier time motivating proxies than restraining them. State sponsors can use carrots and sticks to motivate proxies to conduct costly actions, but state sponsors struggle to make the sticks necessary to restrain proxies credible and severe enough to deter them from tempting misbehavior. These findings are based on multi-method case studies of relationships between the United States and armed groups in the Syrian civil war from 2013 to 2020, combining descriptive statistics of original datasets of these groups’ compliance records and process-tracing of interviews with direct actors and thousands of pages of news and statements from the US and group representatives. Alongside shedding light on oft-secretive state-proxy relations, this dissertation informs scholarly and policy debates about military intervention into civil wars, international wartime cooperation, and conflict escalation and resolution.

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