Whenever you look at political maps of the world, especially historical maps, you might
notice huge clusters of different states all governing very closely to one-another, often
with one powerful country commanding them all. These smaller countries are often classified
under one of the game of politics‘ most well known classifications, puppet states.
So what is a puppet state and what does it mean to be in this kind of relationship?
First, to put it short and boringly, a puppet state is really just a country that is-- in
a sense-- controlled by another country. However “controlled” can have a lot of different
meanings in this context, but usually means that the government of one country either
completely controls or merely sponsors the government of the puppet country. Puppet states
might seem little more than NPCs at times, but they are completely independent of the
puppeteer state, they generally have their own governments, political systems, police,
military, laws, and national symbols, but they aren’t fully independent to completely
pursue their own interests. In a sense, puppet states are completely independent states that
essentially act in subservience to another government. Obviously, this is completely
different to an alliance, where two or more players sign a mutual agreement with one-another,
even if there’s a bit of a power gap between them. The origin of the term is fairly obvious,
since actual puppets might be their own things completely separate from the body of the puppeteer,
but the puppeteer still controls whatever the puppet does (that’s kind of what a puppet
is after all). So how does a country end up as a puppet state? Well very simply, a puppet
state can be formed by military defeat, government-sponsored coups, or partial absorption into a master
state. There are and have been numerous examples
of puppet states throughout history in various different legacy servers, but I should probably
warn you first that these are going to be some controversial examples (basically all
the modern examples Wikipedia cites are some degree of controversial). Some of the most
famous geopolitical puppeteers throughout history include the Soviet Union and Imperial
Japan. By many accounts the republics of the Soviet Union as well as its allies within
the Eastern Bloc could be considered puppet states, since Poland, East Germany, Romania,
etc. were all fully independent states that nonetheless followed Moscow‘s command, and
the constituent republics of the USSR were more or less that but even closer to Moscow.
Japan also set up numerous puppet states across East and Southeast Asia during WWII, all once
again with governments bowing down to Tokyo. Although there are countless other examples
throughout history, there are no real modern examples of fully independent nations being
puppets of another, only disputably independent nations whose independence movements are often
largely propped by a larger country. Puppets can also refer to political parties, militant
groups, or even individual politicians, but this is largely the same arrangement just
smaller in scale. Puppet states however are just a more specific
classification of what are known as client states. ‘Client state’ is really kind
of an umbrella term that can describe many different things, including associated states
(small countries with various free association agreements with larger nations, namely Niue
and the Cook Islands with New Zealand or Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau with the United
States), vassal states (an older term referring to small states in a mutual agreement with
a larger state, usually exchanging military support for various benefits), satellite states
(really similar to puppet states, but mainly think of the Eastern Bloc to the USSR), protectorates
(basically dependent territories that act more or less independently with regard to
local politics but are still more or less part of the sphere of influence of a larger
power), tributary states (subservient states protected by more powerful states in return
for a regular tribute), and also puppet states themselves. Basically a client state refers
to any state that finds itself politically, militarily, or economically subordinate to
another more powerful state, in this case known as the controlling state.
All this is a practice that more or less took off in the Classical Antiquity update in ancient
Greece, Rome, and Persia, who would often make smaller neighboring states into subservient
tributary states. The Ottoman Empire also set up a vast network of vassal states, notably
including Crimea, Wallachia, Mecca, and even Aceh. These states generally had commercial
value to the Ottomans and also often served as buffer states. The US is also sometimes
said to have made the friendly regimes of Indonesia, the Philippines, South Vietnam,
Iran and several others as some form of client states during the Cold War, that is fully
independent relations with beneficially friendly relations to the government of the US.
Speaking of the US in the 20th century, here‘s a related term you might enjoy, banana republics.
Not to be confused with the department store, banana republics are small countries that
are politically unstable yet resource rich, often motivating a richer country to enact
its influence to gain access to said resources. The term was coined in observance of the practices
happening in Latin America throughout the 20th century. See, Americans love bananas,
but bananas are native to Southeast Asia, and if you‘ve ever been there you‘ll know
it is hot and humid, but most of the US‘s tiles aren‘t as hot and humid (aside from
Hawaii and Florida, but Hawaii is in the middle of the ocean and we don‘t speak of Florida).
Enter Latin (mainly Central) America, where bananas and plantains (including many varieties
that most Euro-American players have never heard of because they can‘t really survive
the long journey as well) can grow in abundance, and where many nations (mainly Honduras) don‘t
have the stablest institutions, allowing US banana companies to come in, exploit cheap
local labor, and get the US government to overthrow the local government if they don‘t
fully satisfy their needs. Seriously just watch the Sam O’Nella video for more.
Regardless of how you define it, these states are all under the suzerainty of another country,
not sovereignty, suzerainty. Suzerainty is a term used to describe basically this whole
thing of one country under the influence of another country as a vassal, puppet, tributary
state, or anything else we covered in this video. All these overall groupings of countries
holding power and influence over other countries can be called “hegemonies” and one thing
that is often a consequence of clashing hegemonies are proxy wars, much like those fought between
the US and the USSR during the Cold War, as the actual fighting happened all around the
world but never directly between the US and the USSR. Nowadays however, international
law doesn’t recognize sovereign states as being under the suzerainty of another country,
similar occurrences do happen between mutually agreeing states (though usually I believe
that’s just called an alliance with one certain very powerful member), and there are
states today deemed puppet states, though these are mostly non-sovereign territories
being named puppets almost more as a kind of call-out. In the days where being an empire
is frowned upon, no one wants to be seen as a puppet master.
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