Buffer state explained

A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers.[1] 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 demilitarised in the sense of not hosting the armed forces 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.

Research shows that buffer states are significantly more likely to be conquered and occupied than are nonbuffer states.[2] This is because "states that great powers have an interest in preserving—buffer states—are in fact in a high-risk group for death. Regional or great powers surrounding buffer states face a strategic imperative to take over buffer states: if these powers fail to act against the buffer, they fear that their opponent will take it over instead. By contrast, these concerns do not apply to nonbuffer states, where powers face no competition for influence or control."

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 a theory of the balance of power that entered European strategic and diplomatic thinking in the 18th century. After the First World War, notable examples of buffer states were Poland and Czechoslovakia, situated between major powers such as Germany and the Soviet Union. Lebanon is another significant example, positioned between Syria and Israel, thereby experiencing challenges as a result.[3]

Examples

Americas

Asia

Africa

Europe

Oceania

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: buffer state . 11 September 2021 . Merriam Webster.
  2. Fazal . Tanisha M. . 2004-04-01 . State Death in the International System . International Organization . 58 . 2 . 311–344 . 10.1017/S0020818304582048 . 2024-08-06 . 1531-5088 . 154693906.
  3. News: The A to Z of international relations . 2023-11-27 . The Economist . en.
  4. Web site: Bolivia . 1826 . Colección oficial de leyes, decretos, ordenes, resoluciones &c. Que se han expedido para el regimen de la Republica Boliviana .
  5. Web site: Uruguay – From Insurrection to State Organization, 1820–30 . 3 March 2017 . countrystudies.us.
  6. Web site: Phelps . Nicole . 1 January 2014 . Review of Knarr, James C., Uruguay and the United States, 1903–1929: Diplomacy in the Progressive Era . 3 March 2017 . www.h-net.org . en.
  7. News: Paraguay: Regional Geopolitics and a New President . 3 March 2017 . Stratfor . en.
  8. Web site: The Colonies Georgia . 20 November 2015 . www.smplanet.com.
  9. Book: Zepeda, Beatriz . Ecuador: Relaciones exteriores a la luz del bicentenario . 2009 . Flacso-Sede Ecuador . 9789978672242.
  10. Web site: Dan’el Kahn. The History Leading Up to the Destruction of Judah. TheTorah.com. 2024-08-06.
  11. Web site: Laurie Pearce. Babylonian Accounts of the Invasion of Judah. Bible Odyssey. 2024-08-06.
  12. Web site: Dennis Bratcher. Old Testament History The Rise of Babylon and Exile (640 BC-538 BC). THE VOICE. 2024-08-06.
  13. Web site: Getting China to Become Tough with North Korea . 2016-02-10 . Cato Institute.
  14. Book: Pholsena, Vatthana . LAOS, From Buffer State to Crossroads . Silkworm Books . 2007 . 978-9749480502.
  15. Book: Macgregor, John . Through the Buffer State : Travels in Borneo, Siam, Cambodia, Malaya and Burma . White Lotus Co Ltd; 2 edition . 1994 . 978-9748496252.
  16. Alan Wood, "The Revolution and Civil War in Siberia," in Edward Acton, Vladimir Iu. Cherniaev, and William G. Rosenberg (eds.), Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997; pp. 716–717.
  17. George Jackson and Robert Devlin (eds.), Dictionary of the Russian Revolution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989; pp. 223–225.
  18. Book: Debarbieux . Bernard . The Mountain: A Political History from the Enlightenment to the Present . Rudaz . Gilles . Todd . Jane Marie . Price . Martin F. . 2015-09-10 . University of Chicago Press . 9780226031118 . 150 . en.
  19. Web site: Nepal: Dictated by Geography World Policy Institute . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170831045939/http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/winter2013/nepal-dictated-by-geography . 2017-08-31 . 2016-02-10 . www.worldpolicy.org.
  20. Book: The World Today; Bhutan and Sikkim: Two Buffer States Vol. 15, No. 12 . Royal Institute of International Affairs . 1959 . 492–500.
  21. Web site: Mongolia, the uncontested buffer state . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20190204190410/https://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/mongolia-uncontested-buffer-state . 4 February 2019 . 3 March 2017 . Russia Direct . en.
  22. Web site: Kader . Ariz . July 2019 . Iraq: Battleground or Buffer State? . CIDOB.
  23. Bahrain as the area of Saudi‑Iranian rivalry in the second decade of the 21st century . Studia Politicae Universitatis Silesiensis.
  24. Book: Cory, Stephen . Reviving the Islamic Caliphate in Early Modern Morocco . 2016 . Routledge . 9781317063438 . 36–37.
  25. Web site: Ram . J.R. . 16 March 2019 . Botswana: The best kept African secret . The Telegraph.
  26. Ingrao, C. (2022). The Habsburg Empire under siege: Ottoman expansion and Hungarian revolt in the age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76): by Georg B. Michels, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021, x + 603 pp., $85.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-228-00575-9. Canadian Slavonic Papers, 64(2–3), 386–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/00085006.2022.2105507
  27. 27 August 1923 . THE RUHR: Rhineland Republic? . 12 March 2017 . Time.
  28. Book: Andrew Wilson . Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship . 2011 . 978-0-300-13435-3 . 96–97. Yale University Press .
  29. Book: Witzenrath, Christoph . Eurasian Slavery, Ransom and Abolition in World History, 1200–1860 . 2016 . Routledge . 9781317140023 . 198.
  30. Book: Suvorov, Viktor . The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II . 2013 . . 9781612512686 . 142 . Chapter 25: Destruction of the Buffer States between Germany and the Soviet Union. . 1 January 2015.
  31. Web site: Stent, Angela E. . Angela Stent . 1998 . Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20141018171556/http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6426.html . 18 October 2014 . 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..
  32. Web site: Papua Nugini Diharapkan Jadi Bufferzone Indonesia . Indonesia Hopes Papua New Guinea to be Indonesia's Buffer Zone . 18 October 2017 . id.