Small Wars Journal

Kurds

Being a Proxy: The History of Cooptation Offers Lessons to Learn - Are the Kurds Learning Them?

Wed, 11/13/2019 - 3:27pm
They know the drill. Emerging threats, foreign intervention, local alliances, and historic letdowns. Abandonment should not come as a surprise. Great powers have instrumentalized Kurdish nationalism for grand strategy, but cooptation implies agency from the proxy—a willingness to offer its strategic advantages for support or protection. U.S. withdrawal in face of the Turkish incursion in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria shines a light on the challenges of proxy warfare.

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