Puppet State Definition for Dummies

Puppet State Definition for Dummies

“Puppet government”. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/puppet%20government. Retrieved 10 November 2022. A puppet state seems independent. It usually has things like its own flag, constitution, system of government, etc., but always cedes control to another power. In 1836, U.S. citizens allowed to live in the Mexican state of Texas revolted against the Mexican government to create a U.S.-backed Republic of Texas, a country that existed for less than 10 years (from May 14, 1836 to December 29, 1845) before being annexed by the United States of America. In August 1837, Memucan Hunt, Jr., the Texas minister to the United States, submitted the first formal annexation proposal to the Van Buren administration (the first U.S. attempts to take control of Mexican Texas by obstruction date back to 1819 and by separatist settlers since 1826). The US had many puppet states, including the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as well as the Iraqi interim government, both of which were militarily occupied by the US.

[25] [26] The United States also occupied parts of Latin America during the banana wars and installed puppet regimes in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico. [27] Examples of puppet states are countries that were under the Soviet bloc, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland and Mongolia. Some puppet governments were used with military force, such as the Vichy France during World War II. Many colonized countries in Africa and Asia would become puppet states controlled by their colonizers. Examples include Vietnam before the 1960s, India and Congo. Map of the Finnish Democratic Republic (1939-40), a short-lived puppet state of the Soviet Union. Green shows the territory that the Soviet Union wanted to cede to the Finnish Democratic Republic and red shows the territories that Democratic Finland ceded to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union established communist puppet governments in East Germany, Albania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. Yugoslavia was also a communist state closely linked to the Soviet Union, but Yugoslavia retained its autonomy in its own lines. After the split between Tito and Stalin in 1948, relations between the two countries deteriorated considerably. Yugoslavia was excluded from the international organizations of the Eastern bloc. After Stalin`s death and a period of de-Stalinization by Khrushchev, peace was restored, but relations between the two countries were never completely improved.

Yugoslavia pursued a policy of independence and became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. The Soviet Union continued its influence over China even before the Sino-Soviet split in 1961. Other countries that were once Soviet puppet governments include Mongolia, North Korea, the DRV (SRV), Cuba, all of which depended significantly on the Soviet economy, military, science and technology. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, most of its former satellites were reformed with a view to democratization. Only China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam remain one-party communist states. In 1992, all references to Marxism-Leninism in North Korea`s constitution were dropped by the Supreme People`s Assembly and replaced by Juche. [22] In 2009, the constitution was tacitly amended so that it removed not only all Marxist-Leninist references from the first version, but also all references to communism. [23] During World War II, the Axis powers created puppet states, such as: But in practice, Manchukuo was a puppet state and Puyi was the head of a puppet government under Japanese control. Much of the international community did not recognize Manchuria`s independence, seeing the reality that it was nothing more than a puppet state of Japan. During the period when Puyi`s puppet government was in power, the Japanese used Manchuria`s vast natural resources to fuel their war effort and make new conquests. Turkey also maintains a puppet government on the island of Cyprus.

Theoretically, this government controls a sovereign state called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. In practice, however, the government was installed by Turkey after its invasion of the northern part of Cyprus in 1974. For this reason, only Turkey recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, while the rest of the international community recognizes the Republic of Cyprus in the south of the island as the only legitimate state on the island. The term is a metaphor that compares a state or government to a puppet controlled by a puppeteer with strings. [6] The first recorded use of the term “puppet government” dates back to 1884 in reference to the Khedivate of Egypt. [7] Several European governments that were under the rule of Germany and Italy during World War II have been referred to as “puppet regimes.” The formal means of control in occupied Europe were very different. These states fall into several categories. During the Cold War (1945-1989), these Eastern European countries were puppet states of the Soviet Union: puppet governments are not just a phenomenon of the past.

Several puppet governments exist in the world today. Russia, for example, has been accused of having puppet governments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both territories are recognized by the majority of the international community as part of the Republic of Georgia. However, in 2008, Russia sent forces to occupy both territories. Soon after, they declared the two territories independent countries with their own governments. In reality, however, these governments were installed by the Russians to legitimize their control over Georgian territory. The Batavian Republic was founded in the Netherlands under French revolutionary protection. In Eastern Europe, France established a Polish client state of the Duchy of Warsaw. Currently, several puppet governments control parts of Europe and Asia. These include Russian-backed puppet governments in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia; the Armenian-backed government in Azerbaijan`s Nagorno-Karabakh region and the Houthi regime, which currently controls most of Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula and is backed by Iran. The main objective of these states was to remove the Xhosa, Tswana and Venda peoples from South African citizenship (and thus provide reasons for denying democratic rights).

The four Bantustans were arrested on 27 September. It was reintegrated into democratic South Africa in April 1994. [ref. needed] The third reason foreign powers install puppet governments is that they can advance their own agendas. Puppet governments help facilitate the agenda of the dominant foreign power by using the territory and resources of the puppet state. This may include transferring resources from the territory under the jurisdiction of the puppet government to the controlling foreign power, or even using territory controlled by the puppet government as a base for further conquests. The Republic of Kuwait was a short-lived pro-Iraq state in the Persian Gulf that existed only three weeks before its annexation by Iraq in 1990. Foreign powers establish puppet governments for three main reasons. The first reason is to use the puppet government as a tool to control, or at least pacify, the population of the territory for which it is responsible.

These are often repressive methods. In most cases, puppet governments are protected by the armed forces of the foreign power that uses them. Alternatively, puppet governments sometimes build their own security apparatus to shoulder the burden of keeping subjugated people out of the control of foreign power. Map of the British Indian Empire. Princely states are yellow. After Italy`s capitulation in World War II, the Italian Social Republic was a puppet state created by Germany. A puppet state is a country that is officially independent, but in practice it is not. Puppet governments are usually kept in power by the military force of an occupying country. A similar concept, mostly associated with political history before the 19th century, is suzerainty, the control of one state`s external affairs by another.

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