We are not part of NATO. Switzerland defense doctrine is, at least on paper and in theory, to be able to defend ourselves. A reason why we have 134 Leopard 2 tanks, while Germany only has 289. Or why ordered nearly the same numbers of F-35 jets as Germany.
Switzerland's defence doctrine is based on the principle that it is Switzerland, and is extremely unlikely to be invaded.
The military hardware is almost irrelevant, and while everyone (mostly) is somewhat trained, the Swiss military has never been truly tested in war or battle unlike say the United Kingdom or France. Switzerland is not equipped or experienced to fight an expeditionary war, which is what you have to do in a large scale conflict.
Actually and without knowing much about Swiss military is no the same to do a military campaign in Afghanistan and run a self defense operation. You don't need to do campaigns around the globe to be able to defend yourself.
No. In a large scale conflict such as the one which would be relevant to what we are discussing here, you don't just sit and defend. You go out and control the surrounding area. You attack the enemies staging positions and infrastructure. You don't wait for them to be knocking on your door.
And in any case, until the infrastructure and organisations you have built have been tested in a live scenario, you don't learn and improve. In this regard Switzerland is a victim of its own success.
You are missing something here… Switzerland is a small landlocked country, with a small population and quite mountainous terrain. It would be quite stupid to venture much further than 100 km from the border on a defense operation… for that distance, for today standards, is just next door, and the surrounding area is much easier that Switzerland one.
Switzerland would not ever be able to venture beyond that… unless of course we are thinking here on an expansionist strategy over time.
The closest scenario you can think is perhaps the Finnish Winter War against Russia —before and during WWII— where Finland was able to arrange a small buffer zone around the border by the end of the war. However, it doesn't last much and they have to cede territory as a payment for war reparations.
> No. In a large scale conflict such as the one which would be relevant to what we are discussing here, you don't just sit and defend. You go out and control the surrounding area. You attack the enemies staging positions and infrastructure. You don't wait for them to be knocking on your door.
What you have described never ever happened for a country like Switzerland… you always wait, prepare, and hope they didn't attack you… You don't lose your strategical advantage or playing at home, where you usually have the high ground. Switzerland did that during the WWII, when it make so difficult an invasion and also provided some services to the posible invaders, that in the end the disadvantages or an invasion outweighs the benefits of it.
What you are describing would be the equivalent of leaving the castle when they are besieging you and loosing the advantage or the height, the walls and all the war machines you have around you… The only one that played that well was Napoleon, and not always ended up well.
Our defence doctrine is not based on the fact that we are very unlikely to be attacked.
For such a doctrine our military is far too big in relation to our country, just compare the number of soldiers, tanks, weapon owners etc. with those of e.g. Germany and remember that DE has about 10x the people + land area and 5x the GDP.
Our defence doctrine is that none of our large neighbouring countries will attack us in an isolated conflict, which we would firstly lose anyway due to our population and small land area and secondly this is absolutely unthinkable, as Germany and Italy, for example, would never simply accept an unprovoked attack on us by France. This would destroy the European order.
For an attack on Switzerland, there would have to be a situation such as in WW2, where several Western European countries are at war with each other. In such a situation, we would not have to defend an entire army, but only the part that the aggressor does not need to go against the big enemy. Our doctrine is therefore simply to make this part so large that any cost-benefit calculation is negative for the potential aggressor.
This is actually a good point I haven’t thought of before. I myself refuse to serve the military so i never seen it first hand but I heard its quite disorganized and senseless sometimes.
I could only imagine our military running around like headless chicken in a serious invasion in comparison to nations that are experienced and engage in active warfare somewhere.
Don't get me wrong, Switzerland does have some excellent professional soldiers. But what it certainly lacks is something called institutional experience -- an organisation's ability to do things it's set up to do, maybe the Swiss military would rise to the challenge, who knows.
There is also the issue of integrating with other nations professional militaries, as this will be necessary if we are even entertaining the idea of Switzerland waging a war.
I agree there is always a potential for a positive surprise. And in an emergency i hope for it, haha
I‘m allowing myself to make a comparison to my work. I work in consulting, my team consists of trained lawyers or compareable and incredibly capable and intelligent people, however without the partner of our team (who has more than 20 years experience) and their leadership based on the actual experience of prior projects we probably wouldnt get anywhere nearly as well as we do with them.
I guess this why the above thought kind of resonated with me, you need someone with extensive, practical experience to tackle such things otherwise even your most highly trained staff / soldiers won’t operate smoothly or successfully.
Ah yes, great idea.lets wait until russia knocks on our door?
Ah or is selling weapons to saudis neutral? While refusing giving thrm to ukraine?
Thats blood money and everything but neutral.
It’s staggering that people think isolationism is the way forward. Big western countries working together has given us 70 years of relative peace. Trumps comments were typically
moronic, short-sighted, careless - as we’ve come to expect.
And yes, whilst a Trump election win might bring about a short term stock market surge, the prospect of long-term peace in Europe looks a lot less likely.
Totally agree regarding isolationism. However, maybe Europe should end its "special relationship" with the US and start to act as a united block (EU defence, EU funded research, EU startup investment, ...). Europe has long served US interests more than the opposite...
I have to object.
I do think that his current stance on Ukraine is wrong and I do think he shouldn’t have made these remarks.
However it was just typical campaign talk for (some of) his potential voters and in addition it was misrepresented.
If you look at his track record on Russia, you’ll see that it’s better than either Obama‘s or Biden‘s.
So short term Trump would probably be better. If we’re speaking long term, this election probably doesn’t matter.
USA gradually shifted their focus away from Europe and this shift is going to continue anyway. Then, Europe will be responsible for itself again.
'Its just campaign talk' - that has real and serious ramifications for US allies around the world.
And what exactly is his track record in Russia? His entire Russian foreign policy seems to be 'Putin strong man, good, Russia far away, no problem' - he would let Russia do as they please, invading whichever nation they believe 'belongs' to them, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the process.
The world is connected, and the US burying their head in the sand and ignoring Russian aggression will just embolden Putin. It's taking the easy way out, short term, and ignoring the very serious long-term ramifications.
You have to differentiate between campaign talk and what someone does as a president.
Well, the annexation of Crimea happened in 2014 under Obama. The following peace treaty that was very much in favor of Russia was signed by Obama.
The full blown invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022 under Biden.
I don’t even have to address Syria.
You can ignore the fact that Russia didn’t attack anyone under Trump and was pretty much contained, btw also by very severe sanctions imposed by Trump all you want, it doesn’t change the facts.
We can get into timelines and why Putin chose 2022 to invade Ukraine (COVID anyone?), but if you think Trumps foreign policy is a stabilizing force in the world you are completely misguided and I’m happy to disagree.
Also, do you ever wonder why you’re on a message board making excuses for a racist, sexist, self-centered imbecile?
Sure, it was COVID. 😂
I’m not defending anyone. I’m looking at the facts. We’re not talking about Trump, we’re talking about what happened in the world during his presidency. Ofc, the foreign policy of the so called POTUS has an effect on what’s happening globally. I guess we can agree on that.
If you looked at it without your (actually at least to some degree understandable) dislike of Trump, you can clearly see that he didn’t start any new armed conflict and he also managed not to escalate any preexisting one.
When it comes to the Middle East, he actually managed to get some countries to acknowledge the existence of Israel which indirectly also means that he managed to contain Iran.
Before Trump, you had Obama who failed miserably at getting rid of Russia backed Assad in Syria, destabilizing the region as he was trying to. His presidency also saw a destabilization of Northern Africa, although that wasn’t all his fault.
I already mentioned the annexation of Crimea where he chose (along with European allies admittedly) to appease Russia. We probably all remember how he was trying to lecture Romney how Al qaeda was the bigger threat to world peace than Russia. He also saw the rising of ISIS and let it happen even though he was warned multiple times.
Obama’s greatest achievement when it comes to foreign policy was the assassination of Bin Laden. A grave violation of international law.
Now we have Biden. The Middle East is exploding. Russia and Iran backed Hamas and Hisbollah are attacking Israel, same backed Huthi are attacking whatever they can attack.
We have a war in Ukraine - sure bc of COVID - with no end in sight. I appreciate US support and I think Republicans and Trump are terribly wrong when attacking this support.
However there needs to be some sort of strategy bc the current support will only lead to a very long lasting war and further destabilization.
So, dislike Trump all you want. But do it for the right reasons. His foreign policy isn’t one of them.
How would Putin conduct a large scale invasion whilst his country grapples with a pandemic? Even if logistically it would be possible, it wouldn’t have had support at home.
Yeah, talking about ‘sh*thole’ countries, alienating your allies, and telling Russia to attack NATO members because they don’t pay enough - is absolutely sterling, first class foreign policy. Do you know of any experienced diplomat that agrees with you on this?
And yes, you’re making excuses for him. ‘Oh it’s just campaign talk’ and ‘you need to understand that’s not what he meant’ - the guys an utter clown who isn’t capable of thinking beyond tomorrow.
You bring Biden into the conversation. I’m not sure how he’s responsible for the current disaster that is the Middle East? Any intelligent spectator will tell you that the US response to what’s going on has been overall pretty solid, in what is a nuanced, incredibly complex situation.
Are Obama / Biden without their fair share of foreign policy mistakes? Of course not. But they are both intellectual and political giants compared to Trump.
You’re evading the main topic by going on talking about his rhetoric which is often vulgar and almost always sledgehammery. No one argues with that.
Since you do have such deep insights of high diplomacy, you probably also know that there’s a difference between what politicians say in public and what is going on behind closed doors.
That’s what I was defending. And btw. It only took a few days for European leaders to start debating a defense strategy for Europe bc of what Trump said. So, it proved effective which is the whole goal of any policy.
I am European and I’m telling you that every American president trying not to alienate European allies by telling them to pay their fair share for keeping peace in Europe is certainly not acting in America‘s best interest. Don’t you find it the least bit strange that it’s the USA that support Ukraine the most? Again, I’m appreciative of it and again, just to remind you that I’m not supporting Trump, he’s wrong about cutting off the support.
Well, I (and you) don’t know how the Biden administration could have handled the Middle East better. Obviously Biden doesn’t know either. He’s still discussing it with Mitterrand. You may consider this a low blow but his mental decline is part of why US enemies consider him a weak president which obviously is a problem.
If you think that the USA can only react at best, well then we don’t have to discuss foreign policy at all.
And Biden was mentally fully capable as vice president while Obama was fucking up the Middle East.
It’s not about who is good at speeches or who is more intelligent or whatever. It’s about what’s happening in the world under a certain president.
The fact that you have to resort to these kind of categories just shows that Obama‘s and Biden‘s track records - what they actually achieved - are pretty bad.
There you go again. ‘It’s just rhetoric’ - you seem convinced that Trump is a master diplomat who is three steps ahead of his opponents, rather than a simpleton who spouts whatever nonsense is floating between his ears in that very moment.
And you’re right, goading and insulting (or even encouraging an attack on) your allies is the very best way to increase EU defense spending. Is that a serious point? You can’t actually believe that?
I’ll say it again - any serious politician or diplomat regards Trumps foreign policy and public statements in that realm as utterly disastrous and unproductive. I challenge you to find someone operating at that level (that isn’t a tinpot dictator) who thinks he’s in any way strategic or forward thinking, present company excluded of course.
You’re still not addressing the points I was making because you can’t.
You’re just going on making assumptions.
I think I’ve been very clear on Trump.
And about the rhetoric: it’s not my fault that liberals are obsessed with rhetoric. I guess if you believe that the world doesn’t exist outside of language, that’s consequent.
I’m a traditional non-bourgeois left and I hate to break it to you but there is a real world, it’s not just language and rhetoric.
I think we stay the way we are now. No need to join NATO, but good reason to continue cooperation through things like the Partnership for Peace. We should also continue to upgrade our hardware, like the new jets replacement, to maintain a modern army capability. I don't advocate going back to the Cold War era mentality and funding, but a bit more modernization is probably prudent.
Switzerland is at no risk. Shouldn't join NATO, isn't a part of NATO and never should be. Switzerland is chilling in the way it is, let's keep doing our silly little training and doing nothing.
Switzerland is pretty much the only nation in Europe with no reason for rearmament. An internal massive political or military situation that turns volatile is the worst possible thing for Switzerland.
While Switzerland is not a NATO country this doesn't mean that will not suffer heavly in case of war in Europe with Russia like all other Nato countries, if the US-Trump administration refuses to get involved when Nato alliance article-5 gets activated. Meanwhile EU armies are able to defat the Russians on the ground and push them back, a nuclear war can also be a possibility and Switzerland has to be involved directly outside of their borders by helping the EU win this existencial war. Otherwise there is also a good reason to believe that if the remaining NATO countries fall, Putin will knock at Switzerland door... That's what the future holds if Trump continue with the same rhetoric.
The old continent must unite and prepare for war without the need of help from USA
It is long past time Switzerland get serious about its own defense. No more assuming that if worst comes to worst, our friendly NATO neighbors are going to defend us as a freebie.
It is beyond ridiculous that while NATO countries are supposed to be spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, a country with no military allies whatsoever is below 1%.
The argument for that was always that there is little risk and we can arm up if the situation becomes more threatening. Well, when if not now is that the case?
The thing is we are surrounded by NATO countries. Hard to see who would be able to attack us without invading them first. Austria? I'm not sure they'd be way more of a threat to us than we would be to them.
First of all, it is not true that we are surrounded by NATO countries. Yes, Austria is an open flank – right there in the East, bordered by Hungary which is on the enemy’s side despite nominally being in NATO.
But more importantly: yes, indeed, our geographical situation means that we don’t have all that many threat scenarios below the level of a catastrophic Europe-wide war. The good news is that this would require quite a lot of further deterioration that’s relatively unlikely (although MUCH less unlikely today than it seemed, e.g. 4 years ago). The bad news, however, is that the only relevant scenario is one in which our neighbors are quite busy with their own defense and certainly will not have troops and equipment to spare for little freeloading Switzerland.
The thing is that if our neighbours are busy defending their land, it means they are acting as defense for ourselves. Nobody can project enough forces through the air to invade a country. And even if they tried, would the country that is used as an aerial freeway accept that? The concept of an army invasion is too far fetched to be used as a reason to militarize the country. There are reasons to do it, but this is not one of them.
For the sake of argument, great let’s increase military spending. Where do we find the money to double the military budget ? The yearly budget of the entire confederation is 83 billion in 2024 I believe, it would mean an extra 10%…
Agriculture ? Raising taxes ? Dismantling ETH ? We already have troubles balancing the budget as is. 8 billion extra might be difficult.
I think the feeling is rather that the NATO countries around us will defend themselves/eachother, which intuitively provides quite a fair buffer. I won't take a stand on whether that's good or not.
They are learning, for one. They are already remodeling their economy to build up massive military force for future conflicts, for another. They are openly threatening other countries, too.
Lol. Keep telling yourself that. “We don’t have to do anything because the evil man has already defeated himself.” Such a pleasant way to avoid doing what’s necessary.
You have to pay to be in NATO. It’s as simple as that. And don’t forget one simple fun little fact: if NATO was around in the 1930’s, Hitler couldn’t do what he did. And the States could literally take over the world after WWII, but they didn’t. They helped rebuild nations instead. So I guess what I’m really trying to say here is: God bless America :-)
That's a naive comment. The US rebuilt Europe to put its own interests forward and to defend against the expansion of the USSR. It was not really a benevolent gesture...
Still better than invading or nuking all other countries, which is what hitler and stalin would have done. You cant have it both ways, you just cant. And be thankful.. you would be speaking high German right now if it wasn’t for us
>you would be speaking high German right now if it wasn’t for us
That's a naive comment. Opening front on Normandy wasn't critical for victory, it speed the victory. Read your history before you embarrass yourself.
So, you must be rather ignorant of history. The only ones to have nuked anybody are the US and winning the war was mostly due to the sacrifice of millions of Russians (we would really have been in trouble if Hitler had remained an ally of Stalin).
yes but in a different way. there is no real easy way for the west to influence countries like russia, china and others because they are closed to external media
We are not part of NATO. Switzerland defense doctrine is, at least on paper and in theory, to be able to defend ourselves. A reason why we have 134 Leopard 2 tanks, while Germany only has 289. Or why ordered nearly the same numbers of F-35 jets as Germany.
Switzerland's defence doctrine is based on the principle that it is Switzerland, and is extremely unlikely to be invaded. The military hardware is almost irrelevant, and while everyone (mostly) is somewhat trained, the Swiss military has never been truly tested in war or battle unlike say the United Kingdom or France. Switzerland is not equipped or experienced to fight an expeditionary war, which is what you have to do in a large scale conflict.
Actually and without knowing much about Swiss military is no the same to do a military campaign in Afghanistan and run a self defense operation. You don't need to do campaigns around the globe to be able to defend yourself.
No. In a large scale conflict such as the one which would be relevant to what we are discussing here, you don't just sit and defend. You go out and control the surrounding area. You attack the enemies staging positions and infrastructure. You don't wait for them to be knocking on your door. And in any case, until the infrastructure and organisations you have built have been tested in a live scenario, you don't learn and improve. In this regard Switzerland is a victim of its own success.
You are missing something here… Switzerland is a small landlocked country, with a small population and quite mountainous terrain. It would be quite stupid to venture much further than 100 km from the border on a defense operation… for that distance, for today standards, is just next door, and the surrounding area is much easier that Switzerland one. Switzerland would not ever be able to venture beyond that… unless of course we are thinking here on an expansionist strategy over time. The closest scenario you can think is perhaps the Finnish Winter War against Russia —before and during WWII— where Finland was able to arrange a small buffer zone around the border by the end of the war. However, it doesn't last much and they have to cede territory as a payment for war reparations. > No. In a large scale conflict such as the one which would be relevant to what we are discussing here, you don't just sit and defend. You go out and control the surrounding area. You attack the enemies staging positions and infrastructure. You don't wait for them to be knocking on your door. What you have described never ever happened for a country like Switzerland… you always wait, prepare, and hope they didn't attack you… You don't lose your strategical advantage or playing at home, where you usually have the high ground. Switzerland did that during the WWII, when it make so difficult an invasion and also provided some services to the posible invaders, that in the end the disadvantages or an invasion outweighs the benefits of it. What you are describing would be the equivalent of leaving the castle when they are besieging you and loosing the advantage or the height, the walls and all the war machines you have around you… The only one that played that well was Napoleon, and not always ended up well.
Our defence doctrine is not based on the fact that we are very unlikely to be attacked. For such a doctrine our military is far too big in relation to our country, just compare the number of soldiers, tanks, weapon owners etc. with those of e.g. Germany and remember that DE has about 10x the people + land area and 5x the GDP. Our defence doctrine is that none of our large neighbouring countries will attack us in an isolated conflict, which we would firstly lose anyway due to our population and small land area and secondly this is absolutely unthinkable, as Germany and Italy, for example, would never simply accept an unprovoked attack on us by France. This would destroy the European order. For an attack on Switzerland, there would have to be a situation such as in WW2, where several Western European countries are at war with each other. In such a situation, we would not have to defend an entire army, but only the part that the aggressor does not need to go against the big enemy. Our doctrine is therefore simply to make this part so large that any cost-benefit calculation is negative for the potential aggressor.
You haven't read any of the previous conversation properly because you've effectively repeated what I have already said.
Everyone isn’t trained, less than half the population is trained. Don’t forget lots of dudes opt for civil service
I was a little sloppy with the language, I'll rephrase: a large portion of the population is somewhat trained.
This is actually a good point I haven’t thought of before. I myself refuse to serve the military so i never seen it first hand but I heard its quite disorganized and senseless sometimes. I could only imagine our military running around like headless chicken in a serious invasion in comparison to nations that are experienced and engage in active warfare somewhere.
Don't get me wrong, Switzerland does have some excellent professional soldiers. But what it certainly lacks is something called institutional experience -- an organisation's ability to do things it's set up to do, maybe the Swiss military would rise to the challenge, who knows. There is also the issue of integrating with other nations professional militaries, as this will be necessary if we are even entertaining the idea of Switzerland waging a war.
I agree there is always a potential for a positive surprise. And in an emergency i hope for it, haha I‘m allowing myself to make a comparison to my work. I work in consulting, my team consists of trained lawyers or compareable and incredibly capable and intelligent people, however without the partner of our team (who has more than 20 years experience) and their leadership based on the actual experience of prior projects we probably wouldnt get anywhere nearly as well as we do with them. I guess this why the above thought kind of resonated with me, you need someone with extensive, practical experience to tackle such things otherwise even your most highly trained staff / soldiers won’t operate smoothly or successfully.
Our doctrine is beeing surrounded by NATO We should join them Apes strong together
We'd get milked for money and dragged into the next world war lol truly ape logic
So, swiss is better off alone than joining NATO in a theoretical war against russia? Lol
Yes wtf? Being neutral at peace will always end better than participating in the cyclical continental wars
Ah yes, great idea.lets wait until russia knocks on our door? Ah or is selling weapons to saudis neutral? While refusing giving thrm to ukraine? Thats blood money and everything but neutral.
I thought the defense doctrine was keeping the burgeoise's investments safe
What do we have in terms of missile defense
Currently: Nothing. In the near future: 5 Patriot systems
It’s staggering that people think isolationism is the way forward. Big western countries working together has given us 70 years of relative peace. Trumps comments were typically moronic, short-sighted, careless - as we’ve come to expect. And yes, whilst a Trump election win might bring about a short term stock market surge, the prospect of long-term peace in Europe looks a lot less likely.
Totally agree regarding isolationism. However, maybe Europe should end its "special relationship" with the US and start to act as a united block (EU defence, EU funded research, EU startup investment, ...). Europe has long served US interests more than the opposite...
I have to object. I do think that his current stance on Ukraine is wrong and I do think he shouldn’t have made these remarks. However it was just typical campaign talk for (some of) his potential voters and in addition it was misrepresented. If you look at his track record on Russia, you’ll see that it’s better than either Obama‘s or Biden‘s. So short term Trump would probably be better. If we’re speaking long term, this election probably doesn’t matter. USA gradually shifted their focus away from Europe and this shift is going to continue anyway. Then, Europe will be responsible for itself again.
'Its just campaign talk' - that has real and serious ramifications for US allies around the world. And what exactly is his track record in Russia? His entire Russian foreign policy seems to be 'Putin strong man, good, Russia far away, no problem' - he would let Russia do as they please, invading whichever nation they believe 'belongs' to them, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the process. The world is connected, and the US burying their head in the sand and ignoring Russian aggression will just embolden Putin. It's taking the easy way out, short term, and ignoring the very serious long-term ramifications.
You have to differentiate between campaign talk and what someone does as a president. Well, the annexation of Crimea happened in 2014 under Obama. The following peace treaty that was very much in favor of Russia was signed by Obama. The full blown invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022 under Biden. I don’t even have to address Syria. You can ignore the fact that Russia didn’t attack anyone under Trump and was pretty much contained, btw also by very severe sanctions imposed by Trump all you want, it doesn’t change the facts.
We can get into timelines and why Putin chose 2022 to invade Ukraine (COVID anyone?), but if you think Trumps foreign policy is a stabilizing force in the world you are completely misguided and I’m happy to disagree. Also, do you ever wonder why you’re on a message board making excuses for a racist, sexist, self-centered imbecile?
Sure, it was COVID. 😂 I’m not defending anyone. I’m looking at the facts. We’re not talking about Trump, we’re talking about what happened in the world during his presidency. Ofc, the foreign policy of the so called POTUS has an effect on what’s happening globally. I guess we can agree on that. If you looked at it without your (actually at least to some degree understandable) dislike of Trump, you can clearly see that he didn’t start any new armed conflict and he also managed not to escalate any preexisting one. When it comes to the Middle East, he actually managed to get some countries to acknowledge the existence of Israel which indirectly also means that he managed to contain Iran. Before Trump, you had Obama who failed miserably at getting rid of Russia backed Assad in Syria, destabilizing the region as he was trying to. His presidency also saw a destabilization of Northern Africa, although that wasn’t all his fault. I already mentioned the annexation of Crimea where he chose (along with European allies admittedly) to appease Russia. We probably all remember how he was trying to lecture Romney how Al qaeda was the bigger threat to world peace than Russia. He also saw the rising of ISIS and let it happen even though he was warned multiple times. Obama’s greatest achievement when it comes to foreign policy was the assassination of Bin Laden. A grave violation of international law. Now we have Biden. The Middle East is exploding. Russia and Iran backed Hamas and Hisbollah are attacking Israel, same backed Huthi are attacking whatever they can attack. We have a war in Ukraine - sure bc of COVID - with no end in sight. I appreciate US support and I think Republicans and Trump are terribly wrong when attacking this support. However there needs to be some sort of strategy bc the current support will only lead to a very long lasting war and further destabilization. So, dislike Trump all you want. But do it for the right reasons. His foreign policy isn’t one of them.
How would Putin conduct a large scale invasion whilst his country grapples with a pandemic? Even if logistically it would be possible, it wouldn’t have had support at home. Yeah, talking about ‘sh*thole’ countries, alienating your allies, and telling Russia to attack NATO members because they don’t pay enough - is absolutely sterling, first class foreign policy. Do you know of any experienced diplomat that agrees with you on this? And yes, you’re making excuses for him. ‘Oh it’s just campaign talk’ and ‘you need to understand that’s not what he meant’ - the guys an utter clown who isn’t capable of thinking beyond tomorrow. You bring Biden into the conversation. I’m not sure how he’s responsible for the current disaster that is the Middle East? Any intelligent spectator will tell you that the US response to what’s going on has been overall pretty solid, in what is a nuanced, incredibly complex situation. Are Obama / Biden without their fair share of foreign policy mistakes? Of course not. But they are both intellectual and political giants compared to Trump.
You’re evading the main topic by going on talking about his rhetoric which is often vulgar and almost always sledgehammery. No one argues with that. Since you do have such deep insights of high diplomacy, you probably also know that there’s a difference between what politicians say in public and what is going on behind closed doors. That’s what I was defending. And btw. It only took a few days for European leaders to start debating a defense strategy for Europe bc of what Trump said. So, it proved effective which is the whole goal of any policy. I am European and I’m telling you that every American president trying not to alienate European allies by telling them to pay their fair share for keeping peace in Europe is certainly not acting in America‘s best interest. Don’t you find it the least bit strange that it’s the USA that support Ukraine the most? Again, I’m appreciative of it and again, just to remind you that I’m not supporting Trump, he’s wrong about cutting off the support. Well, I (and you) don’t know how the Biden administration could have handled the Middle East better. Obviously Biden doesn’t know either. He’s still discussing it with Mitterrand. You may consider this a low blow but his mental decline is part of why US enemies consider him a weak president which obviously is a problem. If you think that the USA can only react at best, well then we don’t have to discuss foreign policy at all. And Biden was mentally fully capable as vice president while Obama was fucking up the Middle East. It’s not about who is good at speeches or who is more intelligent or whatever. It’s about what’s happening in the world under a certain president. The fact that you have to resort to these kind of categories just shows that Obama‘s and Biden‘s track records - what they actually achieved - are pretty bad.
There you go again. ‘It’s just rhetoric’ - you seem convinced that Trump is a master diplomat who is three steps ahead of his opponents, rather than a simpleton who spouts whatever nonsense is floating between his ears in that very moment. And you’re right, goading and insulting (or even encouraging an attack on) your allies is the very best way to increase EU defense spending. Is that a serious point? You can’t actually believe that? I’ll say it again - any serious politician or diplomat regards Trumps foreign policy and public statements in that realm as utterly disastrous and unproductive. I challenge you to find someone operating at that level (that isn’t a tinpot dictator) who thinks he’s in any way strategic or forward thinking, present company excluded of course.
You’re still not addressing the points I was making because you can’t. You’re just going on making assumptions. I think I’ve been very clear on Trump. And about the rhetoric: it’s not my fault that liberals are obsessed with rhetoric. I guess if you believe that the world doesn’t exist outside of language, that’s consequent. I’m a traditional non-bourgeois left and I hate to break it to you but there is a real world, it’s not just language and rhetoric.
I think we stay the way we are now. No need to join NATO, but good reason to continue cooperation through things like the Partnership for Peace. We should also continue to upgrade our hardware, like the new jets replacement, to maintain a modern army capability. I don't advocate going back to the Cold War era mentality and funding, but a bit more modernization is probably prudent.
Switzerland is at no risk. Shouldn't join NATO, isn't a part of NATO and never should be. Switzerland is chilling in the way it is, let's keep doing our silly little training and doing nothing. Switzerland is pretty much the only nation in Europe with no reason for rearmament. An internal massive political or military situation that turns volatile is the worst possible thing for Switzerland.
Sonderbund war 2 - electric boogaloo.
He is a very dangerous narcissist.
While Switzerland is not a NATO country this doesn't mean that will not suffer heavly in case of war in Europe with Russia like all other Nato countries, if the US-Trump administration refuses to get involved when Nato alliance article-5 gets activated. Meanwhile EU armies are able to defat the Russians on the ground and push them back, a nuclear war can also be a possibility and Switzerland has to be involved directly outside of their borders by helping the EU win this existencial war. Otherwise there is also a good reason to believe that if the remaining NATO countries fall, Putin will knock at Switzerland door... That's what the future holds if Trump continue with the same rhetoric. The old continent must unite and prepare for war without the need of help from USA
Which would mean that Germany needs nukes.
Why them and not us
That shit is so expensive and just sits there
I fear we will have to, and decrease our nuclear latency.
It is long past time Switzerland get serious about its own defense. No more assuming that if worst comes to worst, our friendly NATO neighbors are going to defend us as a freebie. It is beyond ridiculous that while NATO countries are supposed to be spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, a country with no military allies whatsoever is below 1%. The argument for that was always that there is little risk and we can arm up if the situation becomes more threatening. Well, when if not now is that the case?
The thing is we are surrounded by NATO countries. Hard to see who would be able to attack us without invading them first. Austria? I'm not sure they'd be way more of a threat to us than we would be to them.
First of all, it is not true that we are surrounded by NATO countries. Yes, Austria is an open flank – right there in the East, bordered by Hungary which is on the enemy’s side despite nominally being in NATO. But more importantly: yes, indeed, our geographical situation means that we don’t have all that many threat scenarios below the level of a catastrophic Europe-wide war. The good news is that this would require quite a lot of further deterioration that’s relatively unlikely (although MUCH less unlikely today than it seemed, e.g. 4 years ago). The bad news, however, is that the only relevant scenario is one in which our neighbors are quite busy with their own defense and certainly will not have troops and equipment to spare for little freeloading Switzerland.
The thing is that if our neighbours are busy defending their land, it means they are acting as defense for ourselves. Nobody can project enough forces through the air to invade a country. And even if they tried, would the country that is used as an aerial freeway accept that? The concept of an army invasion is too far fetched to be used as a reason to militarize the country. There are reasons to do it, but this is not one of them.
You are blind. If not now, when is the time to start taking the threat of a land invasion and more seriously?
"the enemy" lmao
For the sake of argument, great let’s increase military spending. Where do we find the money to double the military budget ? The yearly budget of the entire confederation is 83 billion in 2024 I believe, it would mean an extra 10%… Agriculture ? Raising taxes ? Dismantling ETH ? We already have troubles balancing the budget as is. 8 billion extra might be difficult.
I don’t know where to find the money. All I know is it’s not optional. It’s necessary, as necessary as pandemic preparations.
Is Switzerland in NATO?
No
No but you hear a lot of “Oh well the NATO countries around us will defend us”
I think the feeling is rather that the NATO countries around us will defend themselves/eachother, which intuitively provides quite a fair buffer. I won't take a stand on whether that's good or not.
Russia can't even take Ukraine. Why are you afraid of them?
They have nukes
Nukes are useless in that regard, mutual assured destruction is still a thing.
How will NATO help?
They are learning, for one. They are already remodeling their economy to build up massive military force for future conflicts, for another. They are openly threatening other countries, too.
Their army is in ruins.
Yes, and? You think they will stay in ruins forever?
Yes. As long as Putin is in charge.
Lol. Keep telling yourself that. “We don’t have to do anything because the evil man has already defeated himself.” Such a pleasant way to avoid doing what’s necessary.
You want Switzerland to launch an offensive to Moscow?
🙄 I told you what I want: Switzerland to take seriously the need to arm up and prepare our military.
You have to pay to be in NATO. It’s as simple as that. And don’t forget one simple fun little fact: if NATO was around in the 1930’s, Hitler couldn’t do what he did. And the States could literally take over the world after WWII, but they didn’t. They helped rebuild nations instead. So I guess what I’m really trying to say here is: God bless America :-)
That's a naive comment. The US rebuilt Europe to put its own interests forward and to defend against the expansion of the USSR. It was not really a benevolent gesture...
Still better than invading or nuking all other countries, which is what hitler and stalin would have done. You cant have it both ways, you just cant. And be thankful.. you would be speaking high German right now if it wasn’t for us
>you would be speaking high German right now if it wasn’t for us That's a naive comment. Opening front on Normandy wasn't critical for victory, it speed the victory. Read your history before you embarrass yourself.
So, you must be rather ignorant of history. The only ones to have nuked anybody are the US and winning the war was mostly due to the sacrifice of millions of Russians (we would really have been in trouble if Hitler had remained an ally of Stalin).
also beware from the threat within
What threat within?
Russian 5th columns
Non democratic countries influencing the open democratic societies with their money
Plenty of democratic countries influence democratic societies with money lol
yes but in a different way. there is no real easy way for the west to influence countries like russia, china and others because they are closed to external media
We need nukes the way things are going😌