Buffer state
A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially hostile greater powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between two greater powers, which is demilitarized in the sense of not hosting the military of either power (though it will usually have its own military forces). The invasion of a buffer state by one of the powers surrounding it will often result in war between the powers.
Buffer states, when authentically independent, typically pursue a neutralist foreign policy, which distinguishes them from satellite states.
The concept of buffer states is part of the theory of balance of power that entered European strategic and diplomatic thinking in the 17th century.
Distinction from militarized Marches
A March (territory) is a fortified non-homeland territory for defense against a rival power. A March is controlled by a greater power, whereas a true buffer state is deliberately left alone by rival powers situated either side of it.
Historical buffer states
Other examples of buffer states include:
Americas
- Uruguay served as a demilitarized buffer-zone between Argentina and the Empire of Brazil during the early independence period in South America.
- Paraguay was maintained after the end of the Paraguayan War in 1870 as a territory separating Argentina and Brazil.
- The colony of Georgia in the 18th century, as a buffer state between Spanish-controlled Florida and the American colonies that comprised the Atlantic Seaboard.
Asia
- North Korea during and after the Cold War, seen by some analysts as a buffer state between the military forces of the People's Republic of China and American forces in South Korea.
- The Sultanate of Aceh, located on the north part of Sumatra, as a buffer state between Kingdom of the Netherlands, ruler of Dutch East Indies and British Empire, ruler of Malaya.
- Siam — The king of Siam (now Thailand) had to surrender his country's hegemony over Laos and Cambodia and to grant commercial concessions to France, but managed to retain independence as a buffer state between British Raj, British Malaya and the French Indochina.
- The Far Eastern Republic was a formally independent state created to act as a buffer between Bolshevik Russia and Imperial Japan.
- Afghanistan was a buffer state between the British Empire (which ruled much of South Asia) and Russian Empire (which ruled much of Central Asia) during the Anglo–Russian conflicts in Asia during the 19th century.
- The Himalayan nations of Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim were buffer-states between the British Empire and China, later between China and India, which in 1962 fought the Sino-Indian War in places where the two regional powers bordered each other.
Europe
- Kingdom of Hungary, and later Transylvania between the Austrian Empire and Ottoman Empire; see also Banat.
- The Republic of Central Lithuania, existing from 1918 to 1922, was a buffer state between the Second Polish Republic and the Republic of Lithuania.
- Belgium before World War I, serving as a buffer between France, Prussia (after 1871 the German Empire), the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- The Rhineland served as a demilitarized buffer-zone between France and Germany during the inter-war years of the 1920s and early 1930s. There were early French attempts at creating a Rhineland Republic.
- Qasim Khanate, between Muscovy and Kazan Khanate.
- Poland and other states between Germany and the Soviet Union have sometimes been described as buffer states, with reference both to when they were non-communist states before World War II,[1] and to when they were communist states after World War II.[2]
- Ukraine has been described by experts such as John Mearsheimer[3] and Stephen Walt[4] as a buffer state between Russia and the NATO bloc,[3][4] at least up to the ousting of former President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ Suvorov, Viktor (2013). The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Naval Institute Press. p. 142. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
Chapter 25: Destruction of the Buffer States between Germany and the Soviet Union.
- ↑ Stent, Angela E. (1998). "Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe". Princeton University Press. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
Moscow's German Problem before Detente - The Federal Republic - In 1945, the major Soviet preoccupation was to prevent any future German attack; hence the imposition of Soviet-controlled governments in a ring of buffer states between Germany and the USSR.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Mearsheimer, John J. (13 March 2014). "Getting Ukraine Wrong". New York Times.
Washington has a deep-seated interest in ending this conflict and maintaining Ukraine as a sovereign buffer state between Russia and NATO.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Walt, Stephen M. (2 September 2014). "History Shows Caution Is the Best Approach for Foreign Action". New York Times. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
Instead of rushing to back the demonstrators who ousted the former president, Viktor Yanukovich, the United States and its European allies should have worked cooperatively with Moscow to craft a deal that would have preserved Ukraine’s status as an independent but neutral buffer state.