Forget Everything that you Think You Know About Ideas of National Character

There is no longer any such thing, especially if you think it will defend you from harm.

The Swiss are defenseless. Who cares, you ask? The Swiss do. They just aren’t in any position to do anything about it. René Zeller writing in Neue Zürcher Zeitung where he is the domestic affairs editor, discusses a 2010 official army report. The Swiss are not in a position to defend themselves on their own.

"Independently of party colours, it must be understood that left to its own defences Switzerland cannot defeat a single terrorist group, that autonomous defence is unrealistic against airborne attacks and that ethnic gangs couldn't care less about where borders lie. The Federal Council, the defense minister and the head of the army should be more stout-hearted. If they meekly limit themselves to focusing on the lowest security denominator Switzerland's defense will be nothing more than empty sabre-rattling."

Picture an integrated “pacifist” Europe, and a similarly passivated Switzerland. The societal response to a social disturbance to that calm has been feared by many an observer to look more like a pagrom than a judicious defense response: which may be the only thing these senile citizenries may be able to do quite soon. To wit, their ability to sell anyone their beautifully machined small-arms will do nothing for their own stability either.

What could emerge is a continent-sized plane of chaos, where all security and self-defense is local. Some county-like elements might do better than other, but setting aside the appurtenances of ‘Alternate history’ novel, the Swiss government report is uniquely aware of one thing that the bien pensant European zeitgeist might not: that gangs, tribe-like drug operations, and ideologically driven terror organizations aren’t going to respect borders for the sake of some concept of sovereign integrity. They just aren’t.

Just like with GWOT, the idiot’s arguments against it that dwell on the Geneva Convention and some nebulous misinterpretation of what International Law is, draw civil society into a greater and more insecure exposure to personal harm – to be “martyred” for a cause not of their choosing. They will not care about Switzerland’s neutrality, its’ self-interest, or ‘global persona’.