Neutrality at stake

Will Switzerland abandon its 200-year-old principles in favour of NATO?

A working group under the Swiss Defence Ministry has presented a high-profile report it has been working on since July last year. The global press has immediately dubbed it as ‘bombshell’, and for good reason — the authors have proposed nothing less than to reconsider the concept of neutrality towards deepening military co-operation with NATO and the EU. The reason for this is allegedly the ‘sharp deterioration of the situation in Europe’. The document is advisory in nature; however, the Swiss government has already announced that it will take the experts’ conclusions into account in the new national security strategy, which is set to be adopted next year.

Born to fight does not reap, nor does it plough

In the minds of most people today, neutrality is Switzerland’s calling card. However, it has not always been this way. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the country’s name was inextricably linked with mercenary activities and external expansion. Thousands of residents of Swiss cantons left their homeland to fight both under their own banners and to join the ranks of condottieri. The emergence of disciplined Swiss pikemen on the battlefield hastened the swan song of European chivalry and opened a new chapter in the blood-written treatise on the art of war.
For a long time, mercenary service was a significant source of revenue for land-locked Switzerland. 
The defeat of the Swiss army under the Duke of Milan, Massimiliano Sforza, in the Battle of Marignano in 1515 prompted reflections on the neutral status of the cantons. However, more than a century was required for the concept to take the form we know today, and in 1815, the Congress of Vienna recognised Swiss neutrality at the international level. In 1848, the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation enshrined the country’s transition to political neutrality. In 1874, an amendment prohibiting the recruitment of Swiss citizens by foreign states definitively put an end to mercenary service. 

Neutrality with nuances

Switzerland’s neutrality during the Second World War sparks intense debate. Officially, Bern did not join any of the coalitions, did not supply arms, and did not allow its citizens to enlist in the armies of warring nations. After France’s capitulation, Switzerland found itself under the threat of a German invasion. The leadership of the Third Reich even approved Operation Tannenbaum — a plan in which a powerful Wehrmacht group was to seize the mountainous country, focusing on the rapid occupation of industrial zones. This raises one of the main controversies of the Second World War: why didn’t Hitler give the order to advance? Swiss historians are convinced that Germans were halted by the National Redoubt plan. This plan aimed not to contain the enemy at the borders but to create conditions under which the occupation of the country would be unprofitable. It was envisaged that bridges and roads throughout Switzerland would be rendered unusable, and units defending in the mountains would fight to the last.
However, it is likely that Hitler was guided solely by rational considerations. Firstly, of the four Alpine mountain passes between Germany and Italy, only Austria’s Brenner Pass was controlled by the Third Reich, while the others were located in Switzerland, and in the event of war, German-Italian logistics would inevitably have suffered a serious blow. Secondly, given the increasingly severe economic constraints, the Führer required an enhancement of the financial base, and Switzerland could facilitate the exchange of reichsmarks for gold and precious metals. 

By August 1940, the parties reached an agreement — Bern granted Berlin most-favoured-nation treatment for the transit of German goods, including military supplies, and committed to assist in the conversion of reichsmarks in response to Germans’ withdrawal of troops from the Swiss borders. Formally, Switzerland’s neutrality was maintained, but, as they say, there is a nuance.

Banks on blood 

It is worth mentioning the situation with deposits in Swiss banks during the pre-war and wartime years. As early as 1934, the country saw the introduction of anonymous numbered accounts, which German Jews began to use striving to safeguard their savings from the Nazis’ grabby hands. However, it was not only the victims who stored their savings there — investigations conducted after the Second World War revealed that many accounts in Swiss banks could belong to Nazi criminals. The heirs of the unfortunate Jews and the few survivors who attempted to trace their deposits faced the firm stance of the bankers: no documents — no money. 
Considering what was happening in Europe during the Holocaust, it is not hard to guess that the applicants had no documents, based on which their requests were denied.

Devil of changes  

The current debate around Switzerland’s neutrality is the most serious one in the last 200 years and can potentially lead to historic changes in Bern’s policy. There is no talk of its immediate NATO membership, although — as demonstrated by the examples of Finland and Sweden — the alliance can use any pretext to absorb a new country.  
Until 2022, the idea of violating the two-hundred-year-old principles, hard-won through the blood of many generations of Swiss, found no support from either the authorities or the public. Bern had no need to enter into military political alliances: the country has a strong army, and the peculiarities of its legislation allow for the rapid mobilisation of one and a half million reservists. Moreover, Switzerland has built an extensive network of bomb shelters capable of accommodating nine million people, while the population of the Swiss Confederation is 8.7 million.  
The current President of the Swiss Confederation, Viola Amherd, has become one of the main proponents of the idea of abandoning neutrality.  
While serving as the head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sports, she announced in May 2022 in Washington her intention to strengthen co-operation with NATO. Less than a year later, she became the first of Switzerland’s federal ministers to participate in a NATO summit in Brussels. At that time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that Switzerland had requested permission to take part in military exercises under NATO’s auspices. Finally, the first person invited to meet with Amherd upon her assuming the presidency was Zelensky, who was promised full support in organising a ‘peace’ conference.

In expectation of a storm

The actions of the authorities indicate that the plan to abandon neutrality has already been launched. Switzerland has joined EU sanctions against Russia and even keeps expanding and aligning itself with European sanctions lists. As of the end of last year, 5.8 billion Swiss francs on the accounts of Russian businessmen and enterprises, as well as an additional 7.24 billion belonging to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, were frozen in the country. In Russia, this has led to the reasonable assertion that Switzerland can no longer be considered a neutral country.  
The influence of the Swiss military industrial sector on the country’s politics is increasing. The thing is that the principles enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution prohibit the sale of weapons to warring nations and their supply from third countries. As a result, Swiss defence corporations have started to lose profit: in 2023, arms exports from the Confederation plummeted by 27 percent compared to 2022.   

The traces of the arms lobby are evident in the aforementioned report from defence ministry experts, who recommend urgently increasing military spending to one percent of GDP from the current 0.76 percent.  

Switzerland’s involvement in NATO is a logical move by the West in preparation for a major war. The United States and its allies in Europe are interested in securing stable access to transalpine logistics — much like Hitler did 80 years ago — as well as in gaining the support of the local arms industry, and incorporating the Swiss army into the ranks of potential participants in a campaign to the East.  

NUMBER 

Thirty-three percent of Swiss citizens support the country’s full membership in NATO.  

To the point  

At the end of last summer, Bern joined two of the EU’s military projects: a military Schengen to simplify the transfer of military equipment and troops across the European territory, and Cyber Ranges Federation to enable the Swiss army to train in cyber defence alongside NATO and EU specialists. Recently, a delegation from Bern has worked closely with the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). Switzerland has also joined the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) — a continental integrated air defence system.

By Anton Popov