proxy war

noun

proxy war

noun

1

A war where two powers use third parties as a supplement to, or a substitute for, fighting each other directly.

With the enhanced insurgent firepower and with Russia steadily raising the number of airstrikes against the government’s opponents, the Syrian conflict is edging closer to an all-out proxy war between the United States and Russia.2015 October 12, Anne Barnard, Karam Shoumali, “U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2022:

Hypernyms: war

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.