Under both 127e and 1202, the use of proxy forces must support “authorized” U.S. military operations. The Defense Department has cited two sources of authority for engaging in combat through and with 127e proxies: the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF—the authority for the United States’s endless “war on terror”—and the president’s constitutional prerogative to engage in “self-defense,” defined expansively by executive branch lawyers.

The Defense Department could cite similar authorities for the use of 1202 proxies. Although no AUMF was designed to counter Iran, North Korea, Russia, or China, the executive branch believes it has the authority to engage these countries militarily.