The seminal use ofcordon sanitaire (French:[kɔʁdɔ̃sanitɛʁ];lit. 'sanitary cordon') as ametaphor for ideologicalcontainment referred to "the system of alliances instituted byFrance ininterwarEurope that stretched fromFinland to theBalkans" and which "completely ringedGermany and sealed offRussia fromWestern Europe, thereby isolating the two politically 'diseased' nations of Europe."[1]
French Prime MinisterGeorges Clemenceau is credited withcoining the usage, when, in March 1919, he urged the newly independentborder states (also calledlimitrophe states) that had formed in Eastern Europeafter World War I to form a defensive union. Such a system would both isolate theSoviet Union from Western Europe, and thus quarantine the spread ofcommunism, while simultaneously threatening Germany's eastern border in the event of war, guaranteeing French security. He called such an alliance acordon sanitaire. France subsequently put this policy into practice by creating analliance with Poland in 1921, followed by alliances with each member of the French-backedLittle Entente alliance (Czechoslovakia,Yugoslavia, andRomania) starting in 1924. The alliance was further reinforced by bilateral treaties among Eastern European states such as thePolish–Romanian alliance. This is still probably the most famous use of the phrase, though it is sometimes used more generally to describe a set ofbuffer states that form a barrier against a larger, ideologically hostile state.[2]
