Parts I and II surveyed the origins of vicarious warfare in both history and the American experience up to the end of the Cold War. This has allowed us to better understand both the practical and conceptual foundations of this form of war. The discussion revealed that although to an extent vicarious warfare might be understood as the offspring of a unique strategic context defined principally by the long war against terror, in fact it represents something more fundamental and enduring. That analysis also provided us with partial clues regarding the factors that might have contributed to its emergence. The remaining chapters in Part III take these ideas forward into the contemporary post-Cold War context.

Vicarious warfare has come to dominate American strategic practice over the last decade, but in its contemporary form it emerged out of developments apparent since at least the early 1990s, and in certain areas well before that. Therefore, in order to properly understand and explain the phenomenon as it confronts us today, we need to account (in this chapter) for the multiple factors driving its modern adoption. Chapter 6 then charts its gradual emergence over recent decades, in terms of both military practice and as an increasingly coherent and influential tradition of war vying for influence in decision-making circles. Finally, Chapter 7 considers some of the prominent strategic consequences arising from the prosecution of vicarious warfare over recent times.

As should be apparent from the foregoing chapters, no single factor can explain the emergence of vicarious warfare as a prominent mode of US warmaking. Some accounts present these developments simply as a direct reaction to the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars or as narrowly associated with the ‘War on Terror’. We have already established the attractiveness of vicarious approaches during so-called inter-war periods. But, while certainly important, that perspective overlooks important trends predating the 2000s and the use of vicarious approaches in missions beyond countering terrorist threats. This suggests deeper factors and forces are at work. In fact, the story is one that can only be told by accounting for multiple converging threads including underlying structural continuities, progressively evolving social, organizational and normative conditions, changing political and strategic contexts, and the impact of more immediate events and circumstances.

Vicarious warfare is descriptive of an approach to waging war that seeks to distance its means from its ends. In simple terms, it refers to the prospect of war on the cheap, fought at a reduced price in blood, treasure or political capital relative to ambition. This can manifest itself in behaviour at all levels and in all spheres of war, from the tactical to the strategic, from individual soldier to the wider populace. It is willed to varying extents by all major societal actors, whether political and military leaders or ordinary citizens. It is not synonymous with attempts to banish war from the human experience, as pacifists might desire; rather, the defining characteristic of vicariousness is the attempt by societies, however consciously or unconsciously, to loosen or untether the cords that bound the practice of war to its manifold costs and requirements while still seeking to reap its potential rewards.

In early human history, the conduct of war tightly tethered group members to one another and to its inescapable consequences. The fighting was immediate and bloody, usually close to home, and implicated almost everyone in a community whether directly or indirectly. Sacrifice was an expected and necessary thing. Given that the outcome of battle might determine a group's chances of survival, it would not be entered into lightly, and decisions would typically be arrived at collectively. Accountability for leadership in war, entailing command in battle and sometimes lasting only for the duration of the immediate crisis, would be similarly direct, sometimes essentially decided by war itself. Of course, this is an idealized image. Ritual, stratagem or crude forms of distancing and protection might serve to shield individuals or groups from some of war's risks and costs, but in most important physical, social and political respects, there were few opportunities for vicarious distancing.

If it is possible to argue that human society has travelled a long road to reach the present American apotheosis of vicarious warfare, it has certainly not been a straight one leading to any form of teleologically predetermined destination. Instead, it has been meandering and circuitous, with much backtracking and many dead ends, quite literally in some cases.

The notion of the philosopher's stone concerned the attempt by alchemists to discover a substance that could turn base metals into gold or silver. The equivalent of this in war has been the endeavour to achieve victory at minimal cost relative to one's ambition, to realize strategic objectives but without the high political, human or financial price tag that typically accompanies violent contest, or, at a wider societal level, to use war to achieve national ends but in a manner that does not place significant demands on the people. Indeed, a recurring theme throughout the history of war – although not necessarily always the most prominent one – concerns the efforts of belligerents to somehow limit, minimize or evade the various liabilities associated with its conduct. Vicarious warfare is an extreme form of this strategic alchemy, and contemporary America is its most enthusiastic guild, presently engaged in its own military magnum opus toward this end.

Of course, in principle, the most important cost of war to avoid is defeat. The prospect of this eventuality is a major factor causing actors to commit fully to the fight, however arduous it may prove and however great the energies, resources and sacrifices it may demand. Where a community's survival is at stake there may be a tendency to ‘pay any price, bear any burden’. But in wars fought for more limited objectives – the majority in history – there is a greater tendency to engage in cost-benefit calculations. The rewards that might be had from war are set against the possible consequences of failure and the potential price of the whole endeavour, typically measured in blood and treasure, even if objective measures are almost impossible to determine or predict accurately in advance. The resistance that the adversary is able to mount and the costs that accrue will cause belligerents to reassess where the balance lies, but the basic logic behind this lethal ledger nevertheless retains its relevance. Accordingly, the more that costs can be reduced relative to the prospective gains, the better, especially if lowering the former does not entail any simultaneous scaling back of the latter. This is all perfectly understandable.

Contemporary American vicarious warfare has no simple or clear-cut origins. As we have seen, taking a wide global historical perspective it is even possible to trace elements of vicariousness in war to much earlier times, well before America's emergence on the global scene. This tradition seemingly stands in stark contrast to the presumed ‘American way of war’ centred around large-scale conventional battles, and suffers from an awkward fit with dominant American professional military cultures, especially that of the US Army. It nevertheless feeds off long-standing forms of foreign intervention, ongoing developments in the technical dimensions of warfare, and decades of experimentation in more esoteric areas of American strategic behaviour such as frontier campaigns, gunboat diplomacy, special warfare, covert paramilitary action, discrete operations and various forms of military outsourcing and delegation to proxies.

The genealogy of American vicarious warfare is arguably only properly capable of being perceived retrospectively, with the benefit of hindsight and in the light of contemporary practice. That said, we need to be careful not to arbitrarily or anachronistically apply the model in a decontextualized Whiggish manner, forcing earlier periods to conform with how it appears to us today. That is not the intention here. Rather, the purpose of this chapter and the next is to explain how vicarious warfare has iteratively emerged and evolved in an American context. In doing so, the analysis brings into view episodes and events that traditional narratives or popular accounts often leave out. So, contemplating this diverse ‘alternative’ history of American warfare, Echevarria, for instance, has pushed back against the notion that the application of overwhelming force has always been the default option for decision-makers in confronting adversaries. He notes that ‘from the Truman administration onward … the typical model involved imposing economic or financial sanctions, followed by covert or clandestine operations carried out by the CIA, usually augmented by special forces and airpower; conventional forces were normally introduced only as a last resort.’ But, as this chapter will show, we can go even further back than this to trace the roots of such practices. Within the orthodox telling of the story of American force, vicarious warfare is conspicuous in its absence. But the precedents are, in fact, more apparent than dominant interpretations sometimes suggest – the clues were always hiding in plain sight.

There has always been a core tension underlying the experience and understanding of war in human society. On the one hand, it has been deemed by many as necessary and even welcome – a thing to be accepted, pursued and embraced for both coldly instrumental and more complex existential reasons. On the other hand, and often simultaneously, it has been seen as hugely wasteful, disruptive and costly – a thing to be avoided or constrained where possible. War, for most involved, is a realm of loss, pain, privation, anguish, uncertainty and horror. And aside from the injury and ignominy of defeat, it is typically accompanied by many other costs and consequences, for victors as much as for vanquished.

While war may be necessary and even desirable in some respects, holding out the prospect of personal and group gain through victory or the realization of life-affirming ends, the stakes are usually high and the potential costs extreme. Even in such highly militaristic societies as classical Greece and Rome (on which more later), this duality was not absent. The horrors of war were understood for what they were, as philosophers, dramatists and political thinkers routinely reminded their audiences, and only relatively recently has this tragic view of war come to be seriously challenged.

These contradictions pervade the long human experience of war, accounting simultaneously for its perpetuation but also the myriad attempts to limit its effects and costs.

Before moving on to examine the emergence of vicarious warfare in the contemporary American experience, it is first necessary to explore the concept itself in terms of its deeper historical background in sociopolitical forms, material-technological developments and opportunities, as well as its basis in the evolution of military and strategic thought. Some of the elements apparent in the contemporary American practice of vicarious warfare are not entirely novel in historical terms – earlier periods have displayed, tentatively, and in related but differing ways, some of the broad features we are witnessing today. The purpose of Part I is not to present all those historical instances where vicarious military approaches appear to have been adopted, but rather to identify broader patterns and conditions that might assist our appreciation of the phenomenon and provide a rough framework for our analysis of contemporary American strategic practice.

The preceding chapters have considered some of the prominent explanations for the emergence and persistence of vicarious warfare. Building on this foundation and drawing from a wide range of recent studies, this chapter will expose its principal operational manifestations to further scrutiny with the aim of uncovering its central dynamics and shedding greater light on the often counterproductive strategic consequences of this form of war, at least as it has been conducted by the United States over recent times.

The first section provides a foundation for the discussion by presenting core Clausewitzian insights that can aid appreciation of the political dynamics underlying the use of force, and specifically as they apply to vicarious warfare. This helps explain how apparent tactical gains can shroud serious deficiencies in strategic terms. The second section outlines how these dynamics play out in relation to three ‘Ds’ of delegation, dangerproofing and darkness, which are employed as short-hand descriptors for some of the central practices that have characterized contemporary American vicarious warfare.

Confused about Clausewitz

A number of studies advocating versions of vicarious approaches have deemed it necessary to set up their views against what they see as a dominating ‘Clausewitzian’ mentality in American strategic thinking. This, they argue, has compelled America to harmfully apply overwhelming force in pursuit of decisive victories, and has even promoted ‘foolish beliefs about the necessity of slaughter’. Instead, they suggest that America should play to its ‘asymmetric’ strengths in air and naval power, special forces and intelligence assets to target enemy vulnerabilities while simultaneously limiting America's exposure to risks, costs and casualties. From a slightly different direction, in a popular recent book McFate bluntly describes Clausewitz as the ‘high priest of conventional war’ who thought ‘brute force and battlefield victory is everything’. McFate's proposed solutions are more nuanced than a simple embrace of drones or proxy militias, which he largely rejects. Nevertheless, he proposes that America should adopt more indirect approaches, model the entire military along the lines of SOF, expand the use of mercenaries and establish an American foreign legion more suited to conducting extended foreign deployments.

Scholars of American grand strategy assess the broad contours of US foreign policy and offer prescriptions regarding the best way forward. Their focus is on the overarching purpose or ‘vision’ of US global engagement, identifying vital interests and suggesting how they can best be secured by employing the resources available to the nation in ways that accord with foundational values. Some analyses closely parallel the argument here, but at the level of the nation's overarching foreign policy behaviour. For instance, Dueck has described the way America's ‘limited liability’ grand strategy – whereby it pursues ideologically inspired ambitious ends with limited means to avoid costs – has resulted in suboptimal outcomes in terms of influence, prosperity and security. The perspective here has been narrower than this, focused on the application of one specific element of US power: military force. Nevertheless, this book informs those debates insofar as the chief conclusions add weight to realist perspectives that counsel a measure of restraint in US foreign policy, and they raise serious questions for those who would seek to wield force in a habitual fashion, as if it was an unexceptional tool on a par with diplomacy or economic measures.

The application of military force is often seen as unproblematic in some sweeping grand strategic articulations, especially those associated with the pursuit of continued US primacy and liberal interventionism. War, however small-scale or remotely conducted, is a distinctly unpredictable and unwieldy instrument that can easily escape the control of its users and lead them down unintended and perilous paths. Circumspection is vital in this respect. Any decision to employ force is a serious matter, deserving of careful consideration, democratic deliberation and measured strategic assessment. As Clausewitz reminded us, ‘war is no place for irresponsible enthusiasts. It is a serious means to a serious end.’

Given the harmful consequences associated with the practices of delegation, danger-proofing and darkness surveyed in Chapter 7, in some extreme situations, where it is judged that vital American interests are engaged, more robust direct responses may be preferable to the kind of minimalist or outsourced approaches we have discussed. Some analysts lean toward the apparent logical solution of consistently employing overwhelming force, as in essence the earlier Weinberger doctrine recommended.

In the previous chapter, we saw how states that had begun to amass significant power often took advantage of opportunities to adopt forms of vicarious warfare and to evade, minimize or limit the costs and requirements of war (typically with harmful strategic effects in the long run). Vicariousness was apparent primarily in financial, organizational and political spheres as well as the growing disinclination among leaders and elites to expose themselves to immediate danger. Meanwhile, public accountability was negligible given absolute rule, except where monarchs seriously overstepped traditional restraints on their authority. Even rudimentary forms of proxy war are apparent in the early modern period, such as the French bank-rolling of Gustavus Adolphus’ armies during the Thirty Years War or the later extensive support Louis XVI provided to American Patriots during the Revolutionary War. Similar was Elizabeth I's support to Dutch rebels in their resistance against attempted Habsburg subjugation and the way some in her court, especially the naval leaders, sought to make war pay for war by conducting plundering ‘descents’ on enemy ports and authorizing privateers to loot Spanish treasure fleets.

As rulers gradually became more powerful in their domains (at different times in different places), the money resulting from an enhanced capacity for resource extraction meant that they were able to afford rudimentary standing forces or the services of mercenaries. Even feudal knightly armies employed light mercenary troops on their margins, such as at Hastings in 1066 and Crécy in 1346. Some states opted to essentially hire armies outright, such as when early modern French kings hired Swiss infantry to serve as the main body of their army. During the Renaissance period, these floating warriors were largely unemployed knights from the crusades or the Hundred Years War. States like France or the wealthy trading republics of Italy were able to purchase military power from the condotierri Free Companies where they lacked citizen-militia capability.

Yet the widespread use of mercenaries by rising centralizing states, such as the Habsburg hiring of Landsknechte infantry pikemen in the late 1400s, should perhaps not be confused with true vicarious outsourcing. Aside from shielding elites from unwelcome political developments, this was an unavoidable expedient, either to rectify some pressing emergency or to more generally plug manpower gaps as states transitioned from feudal military organization but lacked the administrative or fiscal capacity to stand up large home-grown infantry armies.