Puppet government

Protest against the Vietnam War. The man standing, with a sign that identifies him as the U.S. imperialism, handles a puppet identified as the Saigon puppetin reference to South Vietnam.

Puppet government and puppet regime are terms used derogatorily to refer to a government that owes its existence (or other important issue) to the establishment, support or control of from a more powerful entity, typically a foreign power.

The term is partisan and prone to semantic conflict, and is used almost exclusively by critics of such governments, regardless of whether the majority of affected citizens recognize the classification or oppose that type of government. Frequently, a government is called a puppet by a rival government that uses the term to question the legitimacy of that government. In addition, it usually implies the lack of legitimacy of that government, from the point of view of the user of the term.

For example, the governments of North Korea and South Korea have frequently throughout their history used the rhetoric that they are really the sole rulers of the peninsula and that the other government is merely a puppet of the Soviet Union or the United States, respectively.

Features

A puppet state retains the external trappings of independence (such as a name, national flag, anthem, constitution, law codes, motto, and government), but is actually an organ of another state that creates, sponsors or controls the puppet state government (the "puppet government"). International law does not recognize occupied puppet states as legitimate.

Puppet states can stop being puppets through:

• the military defeat of the "master" state (as in Europe and Asia in 1945),
• absorption in the master state (as in the former Soviet Union),
• revolution, especially after the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces (such as Afghanistan in 1992) or
• attainment of independence through state-building methods (especially through decolonization).

Examples

19th century

Map of the Napoleonic Empire, which was characterized by the creation of multiple puppet monarchies by Napoleon Bonaparte, placing his brothers as kings of them (José Bonaparte in Spain, Luis Bonaparte in the Netherlands, Jerome Bonaparte in Westfalia, Carolina Bonaparte in Naples and Elisa Bonaparte in Tuscany).

• The Bátava Republic was established in the former United Provinces of the Netherlands when they were occupied in 1795 by French troops in the context of the French revolutionary wars.

• The Rhine Confederation created by Napoleon I in 1806 as a replacement for the Holy Roman German Empire.
• The Grand Duchy of Warsaw created by Napoleon I in 1807 to form a coupon between Napoleonic Europe and Zarist Russia.
• The Queen of Joseph I in Spain in 1808 for the interests of France.
• The Empire of Brazil thought of 1822 as a puppet from Portugal.
• The Republic of Texas, which existed for just ten years before being annexed by the United States of America.
• The Second Mexican Empire created in 1863 by Napoleon III of France as a dam to curb American expansionism and as an anchor for France in America.

Established during World War I and the Russian Revolution

• The Regency of Poland, established in 1916 by the German Empire.
• The Kingdom of Lithuania (1918), created in 1918 by Germany
• The Republic of the Far East, built by the Bolsheviks (1920-1923) in the extreme east Russian.
• The II Hetmanato, established in 1918 by Germany
• The Kingdom of Finland, established in 1917 by Germany
• The Belarusian People's Republic, referred by the Germans as "white Ruthenian"
• The Duchy of Curland and Semigalia, established in 1918 by Germany
• The United Baltic Duchy, a state proposed in current Estonia and Latvia
• The Democratic Republic of Georgia, established in 1918 and dissolved in 1921

Established by the Japanese Empire

• Manchukuo, imposed in Manchuria by Japan in the 1930s.
• Mengjiang, similar to Manchukuo but in Mongolia.
• The Reformed Government of the Republic of China
• The Interim Government of the Republic of China
• The nationalist government of Wang Jingwei.
• Provisional Government for a Free India

Established by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

• occupied Belgium (1939-1945): the rexist violent movement had achieved some electoral success in the 1930s and many of its members supported the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.
• The Slovak State ruled by Jozef Tiso
• The Vichy France of Philippe Pétain.
• The Hellenic State.
• Hungarian State (1944-1945) of Ferenc Szálasi
• The Italian Social Republic, a puppet state in Germany after the Kingdom of Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943. Directed by Benito Mussolini
• The Independent State of Montenegro
• The Independent State of Croatia led by the Ustacha terrorist movement of Ante Pavelić.
• The Serbian National Salvation Government of Milan Nedić

Established during the Cold War

• Most of the socialist republics formed in Eastern Europe were considered puppet governments or satellite states of the Soviet Union by Western governments. In turn, several dictatorships that emerged in Latin America, Asia and Africa were considered puppet governments of the Western powers by their detractors.
• North Korea and South Korea, depending on both the Soviet Union and the United States respectively.
• The governments of Diem and Nguyên Van Thieu in South Vietnam, supported by the United States
• The regime of Joaquín Balaguer in the Dominican Republic, established by the United States
• Northern Cyprus, dependent on Turkey.

Post the end of the Cold War

• The Republic of Abkhazia, supported by Russia.
• The Republic of South Ossetia, supported by Russia.
• The Republic of Kosovo following NATO intervention in Yugoslavia.
• The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan after the Taliban regime.
• The People ' s Republic of Donetsk and the People ' s Republic of Lugansk, supported by Russia.