Naive?

Submitted by ashmaro (United States), Nov 13, 2006 at 14:02

>> Threats never approach to Switzerland because it remains neutral in disputes and so it enjoys the accepted isolationist status granted it for hundreds of years.

While I am not very familiar with Switzerland history, I suspect that the reasons it was not involved in the conflicts have more to do with its banks and close ties to the industries and politicians of the surrounding countries than to its neutrality.

Switzerland is more an exception than the rule. Typically a neutral counrty falls prey to the winner in a case of war since the winner might be quiet upset that one of its neighbors did not help him to win.

This is not a case with US, but due to its military power and not the fact that neutrality brings peace. And isolationism might not work very well in the era of jumbo jets. Spain in the very end was trying to be neutral but it did not help them much. As a matter of fact prior to 9/11 US was also pretty neutral.

The policy of isolationism might make US look better in the eyes of Western Europe, but I doubt that terrorists take into the account country's policies. They try to achieve their goals by destabilizing the government and manipulating public opinion and it is utterly irrelevant what this government is doing.

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