Why nobody invades Switzerland
12 Jan 2010 10: 42 am | Filed under: Government, Video, austrian economics, war-
Shooting is a deep tradition in Switzerland, going back to the legend of William Tell and his defiance and assassination of a Habsburg governor. In many ways, Switzerland remains what America could have been: an armed, neutral federation, as Jeffersonians intended. Unlike in post-Lincoln America, the Swiss federal system is intact, with significant power in the cantons, although the French-speaking minority and some EU-minded urban leftists have been trying to delegate more power to Bern. The nation is also a democracy, as the people themselves still have the right to call national referenda.
During the second world war, Hitler said he wouldn’t mind going down in history as “the butcher of the Swiss,” and the people prepared to fight the most intelligent and organized guerrilla defense in history. Elaborate plans were drawn up; tunnels, bridges and highways were mined, households dug bomb shelters, and women were trained in anti-aircraft weaponry. The citizens had orders to consider all reports of surrender enemy propaganda, regardless of the source, even if reportedly from the president (a rotating functionary whom many would not know by name anyway).
- Tags: 2nd amendment, armed neutrality, citizen military, individual rights, self-defense, switzerland, totalitarianism
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craig
January 12th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
when i was vacationing in switzerland, our tour guide spoke extensively about the tremendous national pride of marksmanship and the annual accuracy and shooting results of the citizens (results were made public). The tour guide also lamented the decrease in pride of being an expert marksman….slowly but surely, the tradition wanes. That said, there are still a lot of excellent shots in the country.
Pej
January 12th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Thanks Mike, this confirms a conversation I had a week ago with one of my friends who moved to Geneva. I couldn’t believe the Swiss where spending so much money on military when he first told me!
Charles
January 15th, 2010 at 9:32 am
As many wars have proved, from Cesar’s Gauls conquest (1/3 of the population massacred !) to Indian wars in the US, guerilla warfare is useless when the invading force is determined to enforce genocide if resistance is too strong. The Swiss strategy was essentially giving up the flatlands, and leaving civilians to their fate. Once more than 50% of the population is hostage, what can one do ? This may be OK for temporarily holding gold bars that are in Bank vaults in the mountains, but on a long term basis, it is a strategical dead-end. The Scandinavians were no lesser fighters than the Swiss, but they were trampled fairly easily. The only people that stood up to the challenge were the Russians, because the leadership didn’t care about hostages that could be killed, and because they had strategical depth allowing deployment of supply lines (via Mourmansk and Siberia). Both lacked for Switzerland IMO.
The only hope of small states is to be strategic enough to grab the interest of the big countries that are at war, so that the latter keep supply lines open.On top of that, small countries have to choose wisely who is going to be the winning side (The finns chose wrongly in WW2 and paid for it… Try to imagine the dilemma of say, Singaporeans, in a China/US conflict !).
The “Asterix the Gaul” strategy is a very poor one, unless one has significant WMD threat available a la Israel. This is another element that lacks in the Swiss toolbox.
Mike
January 15th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Sure, Germany could have crushed the Swiss if it needed, but the cost/benefit analysis didn’t warrant an invasion.
Crafty, armed neutrality certainly seems to be a winning strategy, since the Swiss have stood like a rock as empire after empire (the latest being the EU) has has lapped at their shores. Every other country in Europe experienced devastation in the Napoleonic and world wars (Germany, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia fared the worst).
Yuri
January 20th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
While Hitler never attacked Switzerland in WW2 because it was more valuable for him as an independent country, the the time needed for occupation was expected to be “one week until the last resistance was destroyed”. There wasn’t one bunker that the Wehrmacht wasn’t aware of.
The Swiss army today is the same joke it was 60 years ago.