In the previous chapter, we saw how states that had begun to amass significant power often took advantage of opportunities to adopt forms of vicarious warfare and to evade, minimize or limit the costs and requirements of war (typically with harmful strategic effects in the long run). Vicariousness was apparent primarily in financial, organizational and political spheres as well as the growing disinclination among leaders and elites to expose themselves to immediate danger. Meanwhile, public accountability was negligible given absolute rule, except where monarchs seriously overstepped traditional restraints on their authority. Even rudimentary forms of proxy war are apparent in the early modern period, such as the French bank-rolling of Gustavus Adolphus’ armies during the Thirty Years War or the later extensive support Louis XVI provided to American Patriots during the Revolutionary War. Similar was Elizabeth I's support to Dutch rebels in their resistance against attempted Habsburg subjugation and the way some in her court, especially the naval leaders, sought to make war pay for war by conducting plundering ‘descents’ on enemy ports and authorizing privateers to loot Spanish treasure fleets.

As rulers gradually became more powerful in their domains (at different times in different places), the money resulting from an enhanced capacity for resource extraction meant that they were able to afford rudimentary standing forces or the services of mercenaries. Even feudal knightly armies employed light mercenary troops on their margins, such as at Hastings in 1066 and Crécy in 1346. Some states opted to essentially hire armies outright, such as when early modern French kings hired Swiss infantry to serve as the main body of their army. During the Renaissance period, these floating warriors were largely unemployed knights from the crusades or the Hundred Years War. States like France or the wealthy trading republics of Italy were able to purchase military power from the condotierri Free Companies where they lacked citizen-militia capability.

Yet the widespread use of mercenaries by rising centralizing states, such as the Habsburg hiring of Landsknechte infantry pikemen in the late 1400s, should perhaps not be confused with true vicarious outsourcing. Aside from shielding elites from unwelcome political developments, this was an unavoidable expedient, either to rectify some pressing emergency or to more generally plug manpower gaps as states transitioned from feudal military organization but lacked the administrative or fiscal capacity to stand up large home-grown infantry armies.