A Perfect Proxy? The United States-Syrian Democratic Forces Partnership

The US blueprint for operations in Syria included a “by, with, and through” approach to working with local proxies to fight ISIS insurgents. The approach also formed the framework for the United States–Syrian Democratic Forces partnership. However, the US–SDF relationship was never stable and ultimately broke down. In this paper Dylan Maguire examines the inherent challenges in the US–SDF relationship, as well as potential improvements that could be made to the US proxy selection framework to ensure more effective and sustainable proxy relationships in the future.