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. This video was sponsored by CuriosityStream.
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If you do want to learn about Mars, I would recommend Mars: The Journey all about the
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per year, plus a one-month free trial if you use the coupon code “khanubis” at checkout. Thanks for watching. If you liked this video
please give it a like and let me know if you want to see more videos like this about Earth‘s
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