Proxy War

Oxford Language says a proxy war is "a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved." Or, maybe three major powers. Say, Russia, China and the US.

Korea. Vietnam. Afghanistan. The Gulf. Ukraine. Those are the most front-page of our proxy wars but there are others. Right now. Today. See Syria and the South Philippines.

Korea was the least humiliating. We had a signing ceremony and all, after losing forty-one thousand American military. But the enemy learned from it and it was only a truce, anyway. 

Note the similarities between the next two conflicts. We lost them. In Vietnam and Afghanistan, we were filmed running away. Turning our backs has become our national policy.

As for the Gulf, we traded our treasures for meaningless symbols and pretended we won. We didn't.

In Afghanistan, we simply gave up, screw the sacrifices. And here, these weapons are for you, now. Yeah, free.

Running away is our national policy. Don't let anyone tell you differently. And leaving billions of dollars of latest-issue weapons for the next generation to kill us with? Yeah, that too.

I wouldn't want to be a NATO ally. An attack on one is an attack on you guys. Not us. We're busy.

I fought in a proxy war in Vietnam. Well, only to the extent that helicopter pilots fight, which is to say, not very much. 

But I felt like I was fighting. There were guns and all, and people were dying. I guess it's up to others to decide if I was fighting or not. I don't care. I had hot meals.

But still, I was there. No doubt about that. 

Ukraine is another proxy folly. We don't mean to defeat Russia. Yeah, OK, it would be nice, but no, that's not what we're trying to do.

If it was, American troops would be there en masse, fighting and dying under the American flag with the most modern American weapons, inflicting massive consequences on the real enemy. The American press would be there, too. But today, our proxy won't let them in. "Just trust us, guys."

Our proxy enemy is there with their most modern weapons, killing tens of thousands of mostly unarmed Ukrainian civilians and some soldiers.

We're staying home. Go ahead and fight, you guys. Here's some money.