[GB9]

How did the arms race cause the development of proxy wars in areas such as Vietnam?

Thanks in advance.

[MrJohnDClare]

What a daft question!

Found this when I was browsing:

Quote

Annual Review of Political Science
Vol. 3: 251-276 (Volume publication date June 2000)

THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF ARMS RACES by Charles L. Glaser
Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637; e-mail: c-glaser@uchicago.edu

▪ Abstract This chapter reviews the literature on causes of arms races, their consequences, and when a state should build up arms and engage in an arms race if necessary. The literature tends to equate external causes with threats; the chapter argues for a broader understanding that includes all causes of rational arming behavior. Internal causes of arms races are then understood to be factors within the state that lead it to adopt suboptimal policies. Although the causes and consequences of arms races are usually dealt with separately, in fact they are closely connected. When a state engages in an arms race because this is its best option, the state is acting rationally, the causes of the arms race are external, and the arms race has no consequences of its own. In contrast, when a state arms because domestic interests have distorted its policy, the arms race produces negative consequences. Research on the consequences of arms races has been hindered by the lack of a fully developed theory of when a state shouldrace; progress on defensive realism is helping to fill this gap.

My argument would be not at all.
The question assumes that if a state builds up arms it will eventually use them -- but the Cold War proves that this just isn't necessarily the case. If it was true, there would have been a thermonuclear war by now.
The USA entered wars like Korea and Vietnam in order to resist and 'roll back' Communism, not just because it had a big arms cache; strategic and political considerations were by far more important.
There is a conspiracy theory that the military-industrial complex in America dominated and directed US foreign policy in order to further its own ends, but do you believe it? And even if it is true, it hardly the 'arms race' itself causing the policy decisions, but rather the industrialists who stood to gain from the arms race.

I would find it really hard to do this question seriously.