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Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the phenomenon of surrogate warfare historically, from antiquity to the postmodern era. As the chapter illustrates, the externalization of the burden of warfare has been a constant in warfare since pre-Westphalian times. The chapter commences by providing an overview of the various forms of surrogacy that have emerged through history, from simple auxiliaries in ancient times to mercenaries to rebel groups and unmanned aerial vehicles. Further, this chapter categorizes patron-surrogate relationships based on the proximity of the principal to the agent, ranging from direct to indirect to coincidental surrogacy.

In chapter 2, we outline the geostrategic context in which surrogate warfare needs to be understood. In a globalized, privatized, securitized, and mediatized world, modern concepts of state-centric security provision are being challenged. Therefore, this chapter lays the contextual foundation for understanding the future of security provision in what we define as an increasingly apolar world, where no state can exert unchallenged influence across all dimensions of power and where the perception of security might no longer be defined by tangible threats but subjective perceptions of risks. The changing character of war will be examined here against the backdrop of Clausewitz’s trinitarian concept of war. It will be argued that wars in the twenty-first century do not easily fit into the nineteenth-century trinitarian concept of war, which has to be perceived against the particular socio-cultural and historic backdrop of the Clausewitz era. The surrogate wars of the new era are becoming increasingly neotrinitarian, with alternative security assemblages arising that provide security as private or global goods with the state’s former monopolist role in war being reduced to one of a primus inter pares.

A conceptual framework for surrogate warfare is developed in chapter 3, providing a detailed examination of the model of warfare by surrogate. This chapter presents the externalization of the burden of warfare as a typical neotrinitarian war whereby the trinitarian relations between society, state, and security agent are being disrupted, allowing the patron to return to a premodern mode of war: the rational cabinet war removed from the passions of the people. Thereby, surrogate warfare provides the contemporary state with a solution to the dilemma of having to coercively manage risks but without relying on major combat operations. As this chapter shows, surrogate warfare allows the state to respond permanently and geographically dispersedly while widely avoiding international, domestic, or local scrutiny.

The fourth chapter focuses on the role of technology as a surrogate in contemporary and future warfare. It starts by providing an outlook of the role of technology in warfare from a mere force multiplier to a stand-alone autonomous platform. Drones are the first concrete and visible systematic manifestation of the use of technology as a surrogate. The cyber domain, however, represents a domain of warfare that is particularly appropriate for the use of surrogates, as this chapter will show in reference to Russian activities in this domain. The next generation of weapons relying on artificial intelligence will have a degree of autonomy unseen before. The implications of these technological developments on the trinitarian nature of warfare have been underresearched because of their infant nature. Yet it is essential to analyze this type of technological surrogacy in an effort to appreciate warfare in the twenty-first century as, after two centuries of state centrism, autonomous weapon systems might fundamentally alter the way states wage war in the future.

Chapter 5 focuses on the consequences of the trade-off between control and autonomy. This trade-off is key to understanding surrogate warfare as different push-and-pull factors make patrons seek maximum control over the surrogate by dissociating themselves as much as possible from the surrogate through high degrees of substitution. The surrogate, however, seeks to maintain autonomy from the patron while ensuring a constant level of external support. These push-and-pull factors determine the volatile nature of the relationship between patron and surrogate as principal and agent. Degrees of substitution and consequently surrogate autonomy or patron control are dynamic as relationships evolve from dependency to codependency. This chapter will therefore examine the whole range of surrogate relationships and provide a taxonomy ranging from indirect delegation over force multiplication to full-out substitution—looking not only at human surrogates but also technological surrogates. In so doing, this chapter evaluates the costs and risks of surrogate warfare linked to principal-agent theory—an angle that has been widely neglected by the literature thus far.

Chapter 6 sheds light on the phenomenon from an ethical point of view, applying principles of just war theory to the externalization of the burden of warfare. From a jus ad bellum point of view, this chapter discusses how the resort to warfare by surrogate conforms to both the normative and philosophical debates about just war. The delegation of authority to external surrogates has an impact on the patron’s reasonable chance of success, potentially its right motive and intent, the proportionality of effort, and the criterion of right authority, as well as the question of whether force is really being employed as an act of last resort. The second part of the chapter looks at surrogate warfare from a jus in bello angle to highlight the moral implications of the use of surrogates in complex operational environments. The key focus in the second part of the chapter is on the patron’s legal and moral responsibility for surrogate action. The loss of patron control over ever-more autonomous human and technological surrogates does not necessarily exempt the patron from the duty to ensure that surrogates operate ethically and in conformity with international law—a duty that become increasingly difficult for patrons to fulfill, as examples show.

Chapter 7 brings the various analytical debates together, applying them to the case study of Iranian surrogate warfare since 1979. As this chapter shows, unlike any other state, Iran has mastered surrogate warfare domestically and externally in counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and strategic defense. This chapter demonstrates how the regime in Tehran has come to embrace asymmetrical warfare by surrogate as its standard modus operandi of strategic defense. A particular focus will be directed toward the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force as the prime vehicle of Iranian surrogate warfare in the Middle East. In contrast to Western foreign intelligence services or SOF, Iran not only externalizes the burden of war in an effort to disguise its activities but has relied on surrogates as an effective tool to secure Iranian interests overseas. While the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United Kingdom’s Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6) might employ surrogates covertly on smaller projects of often more peripheral interest, surrogate warfare for Iran is an integral part of strategic deterrence and defense.