Proxy wars are like Vietnam and Korea where we fought the local communists, but the Russians were supplying them and pulling the strings.
Look up the word proxy, would you?
One of my earliest memories, sitting in a VFW hall, so my father could visit an Army buddy, on leave, an unarmed advisor in Vietnam.. I can still see him waving nonexistent flies, describing how he escaped a blood letting that took place in his hut.