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Microsoft Shows Its Hand, Reveals 'Puppet Strategy'

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Image from Wikipedia (in the public domain). Also see puppet state.

A puppet state is a country that is nominally independent, but in reality, under the control of another power.

The term has two distinct but related meanings. First, it refers to a state whose government depends on a foreign power for its existence and which closely follows the will of that foreign power in key policy issues; sometimes economic, sometimes strategic.

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