It's basic vocabulary in poli-sci or international relations studies or circles. Less obscure (in the context of those fields) than much of the engineering, math, and computer nerd jargon that gets thrown around on here regularly. Likely to be encountered in adjacent fields, notably history. It's about one small notch more obscure than the term "hegemony".

I've never heard it before and I watch Rick and Morty.

This is the funniest comment I've ever seen on HN, I snorted

I debated deleting it as it's more of a reddit sort of comment, but I like adding a bit of lightness to HN here and there.

I appreciated the check on the unnecessary condescension

Just play Civ

Or better yet just play Suzerain.

Sue is a what?

It could also be more common for non-native English speakers, for example native speakers of Romance languages.

I'm reasonably sure we were taught about suzerainty ("suzeranitate" in Romanian) during high school history lessons.

It's definitely more a "college level" term in the US, but very much undergrad, if that makes sense. Good chance someone who even minored in certain social science fields will know it (decent odds they'll have employed it on a written exam a time or three), plus most people who just have a hobby-level but long-running interest in those kinds of things. A good high school course might expose students to the term, but I doubt it's common, at least outside elite prep schools.

I definitely only know this word from ancient Chinese history in undergrad. The lesser kindgoms were always having to send tribute to the Emperors.

It's an exquisite word. I too was ignorant of its existence until I played Civilization VI, where you can become the suzerain of a city-state.

I also only know the word suzerain from Civ VI haha. Certainly learnt a lot more history and gained a lot more interest in historical texts after playing Civ, far more so than school ever did....

I learned “revanchist” from Europa Universalis IV and it has been a pretty useful word in the past week.

I might not have an IR degree, but for the first time I feel like playing Crusader Kings and Civilization has finally paid off.

In foreign relations, the word is ambiguous.

For example, in early 20th (late 19th?) century, the UK recognized the suzerainty of China over Tibet.

It basically meant “British India’s borders end at the Tibetan border, and we won’t do business with anyone in the Tibetan side of the border without running it by the Chinese first.”

Then in the early 21st Century the UK recognized the sovereignty of China over Tibet in exchange for Chinese money to some international orgs.

But all that happened was the British position became more precise.

It’s a compromise word to recognize the reality in the ground, while kicking diplomatic issues down the road.

Parts of the modern day Indian/China border are referred to as the “line of actual control.”

Empires, puppet states, colonies, and territories are mostly pre 20th century relics today, and we've lost the vocabulary for talking about them. Pundits still throw those words around, but mostly as exaggerations.

This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons. It's from the bad old days when various European states built empires - the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, Imperial Russia, and the Imperial State of Germany. For most of the 18th and 19th century, and up to WWI, there were wars around the fringes of those empires. Not hugely destructive ones, because nobody had enough firepower.

Putin seems to want to go back to that era. Not, as some people think, to the USSR era. Read that accidentally posted Russian victory press release.[1]

It's a good time to look at 19th century European history and the runup to WWI. What's happening is all too similar.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20...

> This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons.

And we hope that it doesn’t turn into a 20th century war with 21st century weapons.

> This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons.

Very little of the weapons involved are actually 21st century. Most are 20th century.

Depends on if MANPADS, TOW, and Drones become the dominant forces of the battlefield.

All of those are definitely 20th century weapons.

I learned the word decades ago from WTTW in Chicago late one Sunday night when the Doctor and Romana were seeking out the forth segment to the key of time.

Dr Who - The Androids of Tara

Princess Strella (Mary Tamm), nor Romana(also Mary Tamm), would ever willingly pledge their suzerainty to Count Grendel of Gracht(Peter Jeffrey), which is why he tried to set up a shotgun wedding.

  DOCTOR: Romana?
  ZADEK: That's the Princess Strella.
  (Grendel moves behind her.)
  STRELLA: (deadpan) I, Princess Strella, descendant of the Royal Kings of Tara, Mistress of the domains of Thorvald, Mortgarde and Freya, do humbly offer my loyalty to the King and do hereby recognise his SUZERAINTY over me and all whom I command.
  (Strella kneels. The Doctor grabs the sceptre and runs down the steps.)
  DOCTOR: No!
  (Everyone gasps as he hits Strella over the head with the sceptre!)

The word seemed to define itself fairly well in that context. Putin is Count Grendel in 2022

I bet OP plays Civilization.

suzerain (n.)

"sovereign, ruler," 1807, from French suzerain (14c., Old French suserain), noun use of adjective meaning "sovereign but not supreme,"

Sovereign but not supreme is a good way to remember it, it’s like a baby name of ‘supreme’ :)

Using Anglo-Saxon etymons it would be "overlord", I guess.

Ah, but that also implies we're missing "underlord" to go with it then.

I tried to reduce that definition for readability: "suzerain noun: internally autonomous vassal state w/ externally dominated foreign affairs."

What dictionary is your source of truth? I've been using Webster [1] but I feel like there's probably a better option.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/

I assumed it was a word I didn't know, right-click Googled it, and then TIL. It feels like a good choice of word.

I hardly ever saw this word used in English, but in Russian it is fairly common in historical texts.

I first learned the word suzerainty from the game Trails from zero, where Crossbell is a vassal state that is held suzerain by the two dominant states surrounding it, Erebonia and Calvard. I first thought it was a typo too.

Are the States of the US suzerains of the Federal government?

>> Are the States of the US suzerains of the Federal government?

This word was new to me, but looking it up I wanted to say "Yes" but have since changed to "no". Definition:

Suzerainty (American accent: soo-zer-en-tee) happens when a country X has its own government but cannot act independently because of a more powerful country Y. This more powerful country Y is called the suzerain and can usually control the foreign relations of X (how X interacts with other countries).

When it comes to foreign policy in the US, it is mostly handled at the federal level. States are more likely to strike deals with foreign companies than foreign governments. OTOH the federal government is not equivalent to a distinct country and is made up of representatives from the states.

One thing I don't like about the US system is that all our representatives spend a huge amount of time in Washington D.C., away from the people they "represent". And then the lobbyists have a single destination to convince a lot of people to support their stuff. It might be better if they all stayed in their home states and handled congressing electronically on zoom or something.

> It might be better if they all stayed in their home states and handled congressing electronically on zoom or something.

Lobbyists can easily create big zoom meetings that still get everyone virtually in one spot.

So Canada and Mexico?

The other way around. In feudal terms (where "suzerain" belongs), the US States would be vassals to the US governement.

Ok, so. Yes? The Feds are suzerains of the States?

Yep. And the States are suzerains of their Counties (thus being vavasours of the Federal governement !).

In Portuguese there is the word "suzerano". It instantly sounded similar to me.

Given inflation, it's probably a thousand dollar word now.

Play more Civ 6! ;)

I would have done the same had I not played Civ 6.

It comes from Civilization V, where you could become the suzerain of city states.

;)

Let's not lose sight of the points being made.

Another word is “stratocracy” which defines Russia, as Putin is ex-KGB.