# Proxy War

> Proxy War is mapped as the broken bargain: it moves political conflict into organized force, deterrence, negotiation, or settlement.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:war-peace:proxy-war` |
| Family | War, Peace & Settlement |
| Domain | Conflict |
| Kind | process |
| Archetypal function | The Broken Bargain |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Proxy War belongs to the **War, Peace & Settlement** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Proxy War moves political conflict into organized force, deterrence, negotiation, or settlement, changing who can act, what becomes visible, and which costs are distributed to others.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Proxy War, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Broken Bargain.** Proxy War is mapped as the broken bargain: it moves political conflict into organized force, deterrence, negotiation, or settlement.

## Gift

can resist aggression and protect communities when other means fail; through Proxy War, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

destroys lives, institutions, truth, and the future while empowering coercive organizations; Proxy War can then reproduce the very arrangement it claims to change.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Proxy War to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Broken Bargain enters through Proxy War. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Proxy War becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**constraint.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Proxy War; another player names a countermove. Initiative 2.

## Relationships

- **depends on — Interstate War:** Interstate War depends on Proxy War by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **institutionalizes — Occupation:** Proxy War institutionalizes Occupation by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **amplifies — Hamas:** Proxy War amplifies Hamas by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **translates into — Algorithmic Governance:** Algorithmic Governance translates into Proxy War by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Proxy War from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Proxy War is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Proxy War: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [Charter of the United Nations](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text) — United Nations, 1945. International institutional order, sovereignty, security, and cooperation.
- [Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court](https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/Publications/Rome-Statute.pdf) — International Criminal Court, 1998. International criminal jurisdiction and definitions.
- [United Nations Peacekeeping](https://peacekeeping.un.org/en) — United Nations, ongoing. Mission, mandates, operations, and limitations from the institution's perspective.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
