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Example with a context:
The Senate bill—dubbed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act—must still be approved by the White House, which has so far been reluctant to provide direct military assistance to Ukraine for fear of being drawn into a proxy war with Russia.
Do you think it is possible to have the article the placed in front of fear of or it should always be the way it's written above in the example, i.e. for fear of without the article?
Putting "the" in front of the phrase is not an impossibility, but "for fear of being " + past participle is a collocation. Google Books Ngram Viewer:
for fear of being thought
for fear of being taken
for fear of being devoured
for fear of being seen
for fear of being surprised
for fear of being called
for fear of being laughed
for fear of being accused
for fear of being killed
