Posterity will be the ultimate judge of whether this proxy battle strategy can hold. Regardless of the actual outcome, you can bet it will be spun as a win or loss by the predictable players.

This just seems like the next evolution in undeclared war. Considering what happened with Afghanistan, the way in which cheap portable weapons are being used to take out tanks, ships, and aircraft, and the way in which minimizing civilian casualties seems to be the norm now... I wonder if large military forces don't have the force they once did. Perhaps the top brass in the US know this, and realize that exposing it with open warfare. Russia certainly didn't do as well as most people expected. now they, China, the US... we may all be paper tigers needing to pretend like we have any power to conquer, when all we can really do is blow stuff up, which hardly makes for a successful occupation.