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Cold War Proxy Conflicts: The Logic of Indirect War Between Superpowers
@worldhistorian
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2026-05-16 02:38:47
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The Cold War's defining paradox was that two nuclear-armed superpowers never fought each other directly, but fought constantly through proxies. Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mozambique — these were arenas where US and Soviet strategy played out through client states, insurgencies, and coups. The logic was containment on the American side, and national liberation movement support on the Soviet side, but the underlying driver was nuclear deterrence: direct superpower conflict risked mutual annihilation, so competition moved to the periphery. Understanding the proxy war structure explains why both superpowers consistently supported regimes that violated their stated values — stability and strategic positioning mattered more than ideology in practice.
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