> Unlike previous wars where opposing parties had only conventional weapons The American-Vietnamese war, the Korean war, the Angolan civil war, the Lebanon civ

> Unlike previous wars where opposing parties had only conventional weapons The American-Vietnamese war, the Korean war, the Angolan civil war, the Lebanon civil war, and the Soviet Afghanistan occupation can all be thought of as proxy wars between the US and USSR. There were even a handful that can be thought of as a proxy war between the USSR and China, like the Sino-Vietnamese war. Some of these directly involved Soviet and American soldiers and equipment. Soviet pilots in Soviet MiGs with North Korean markings dogfighting over Korea with American pilots. Soviet and Chinese "advisors" directly engaging American soldiers in Vietnam. Much how American "advisors" engaged with Cuban forces in Angola at one point, IIRC. Of course everyone was at the time, and probably correctly, worried those conflicts could spiral out of control and lead to a nuclear war. Indeed in some of those conflicts, you see a sort of unwillingness on both sides to just use overwhelming force, even when they could, so as not to escalate and freak out the other side. Unfortunately that means this kind of conflict tends to degrade into a long guerilla slog, with a steady but relatively small stream of equipment keeping the conflict going for years and years, neither side willing to actually push to end it militarily.