puppet army
Someone else's soldiers
A puppet army is a military force nominally belonging to one nation but actually controlled by a foreign power.
The term implies the army serves its foreign masters rather than its own people, like a puppet on strings.
It often describes forces installed or maintained by occupying powers to give local legitimacy to foreign control: The Japanese established puppet armies across occupied China.
- marionetteString-controlled theatrical figure
- pulling stringsExercising covert influence
- catspawOne used by another
- minionServile subordinate
- proxyAuthorized substitute
march · battalion · subordinate · quisling · fifth column · string · regiment · henchman · brigade · Vichy France · figurehead · front man · straw man · vassal state · uniform · client state · underling · tool
puppet armyindigenous resistance
First peoples opposing colonization
liberation army · self-defense forces · guerrilla resistance · freedom fighters · national guard
puppet armypeople's army
Military of the masses
citizen army · volunteer army · revolutionary army · true believers · conscript army
puppet, army, puppets, puppetry, puppeteer, puppeteers, armies, arm, arms