Achieving an ‘Arab Spring’ by Proxy: Indirect Intervention and Conflict in the Middle East

The Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies is now an institutional columnist for the Global Policy Journal. The first in this series of posts comes from Dr Andrew Mumford who has written about the increasing amount of indirect assistance the West is giving to rebel movements in the ‘Arab Spring’. Stemming from research done for his forthcoming book Proxy Warfare (to be published by Polity in 2013), Andrew defines a proxy war as the indirect involvement in an existing conflict by a third party wishing to influence the strategic outcome. As such, he argues that we can see how the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions, particularly in Syria, have been significantly shaped by such ‘arms-length’ intervention by Western nations, who have provided material and logistical help to the rebels. Such developments, Andrew explains, have a wider significance on the direction of diplomacy and conflict in the Middle East and reveal broader trends in the shifting nature of warfare.

You can read Andrew’s full article online: ‘Achieving an ‘Arab Spring’ by Proxy: Indirect Intervention and Conflict in the Middle East’.

The Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (IAPS) is the major centre of the University of Nottingham for research and postgraduate teaching on the Asia-Pacific. The Institute is a University-level research centre and currently affiliated with the School of Politics and International Relations. It brings together more than thirty full-time staff members, visiting scholars and students to foster Asian scholarship across disciplinary boundaries. The mission of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies is to promote advanced research in the humanities and social sciences, support and co-ordinate postgraduate teaching and enhance understanding of Asia-Pacific across the University of Nottingham and in the broader community. The Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies enjoys a generous bequest from the late Sir Stanley and Lady Nancy Tomlinson.