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Switzerland is the country that hasn't fought in a war since the 19th century. Its last conflict was the brief Sonderbund civil war of 1847, and since then Switzerland's armed neutrality has been recognized by every European power, including through both world wars. That makes it one of the longest unbroken stretches of peace of any sovereign nation on Earth.
Large-scale wars are a destructive and remarkable invention of the modern world. Medieval wars seem like puny skirmishes in comparison to the worldwide destruction caused by wars in the post-industrialization era. With most countries progressively increasing their military budgets, there is one country that has found itself in a Utopian position of operating based on ingenious policies regarding arms and ammunition. Despite literally being at the center of the continental battlefield for the World Wars (I and II), this country’s neutrality was still grudgingly respected by all of its neighbors.
The nation I am referring to here is Switzerland. It is not simply a mecca for clockwork fanatics and cheese connoisseurs. Switzerland, with its one-of-a-kind political system, is also a very interesting case study.
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Pre-World War
The Old Swiss Confederacy goes back to 1291, but the modern Swiss Federation owes a lot to Napoleon. Before Napoleon, the cantons were a loose alliance plagued by internal strife, with their neighbors regularly trampling all over them for their own militaristic ambitions. Napoleon partially restored the sovereignty of the cantons during his occupation of Europe, and after his defeat the Congress of Vienna in 1815 formally recognized the country's borders and its "permanent armed neutrality" - a status the European powers have respected ever since. The only large-scale conflict Switzerland has fought since then was the brief Sonderbund War of November 1847, sparked by tensions between the Catholic and Protestant cantons. The war was over in less than a month with only about 100 dead, and the peaceful resolution led to the 1848 Federal Constitution, which forged Switzerland's modern directly-democratic federation. No external war since.
Second World War
During the Second World War, Switzerland felt constantly threatened by Hitler's forces. Hitler was quickly conquering most of continental Europe, and Switzerland was smack in the middle of it. Germany was strengthening its military right outside Switzerland's front doors, which would be worrying for any country. The Swiss kept guns in every household and rolled out the so-called National Redoubt plan: a strategy of falling back to fortified positions in the Alps if Germany invaded. Historians cite several reasons Hitler ultimately never moved in: the difficult mountainous terrain and Swiss fortifications, the cost of a war against a heavily armed conscript army, and the simple fact that neutral Switzerland was more useful to Germany as a financial and transit hub than as occupied territory. The popular "Hitler was scared of armed citizens" explanation captures only part of the picture.
This attitude has not changed in Switzerland since that time. There are still a formidable number of guns within the Swiss border, although there have been some significant changes in policy within the country.
Today
Switzerland still has one of the highest gun-ownership rates in the world. Roughly 2 to 3 million firearms are estimated to be in civilian hands, which works out to about 28 guns per 100 residents (Small Arms Survey, 2017). That puts Switzerland in the global top 15 for civilian firearm ownership; it sits well behind the United States (about 120 per 100) and a handful of others, rather than the third place sometimes cited. Despite no real threat to their personal safety, the Swiss still choose to keep firearms in their homes.
This love of guns is tied to Switzerland's unusual militia army. Most of the armed forces are not full-time soldiers but trained reservists who go back to their day jobs after basic training. Eligible Swiss men are compulsorily conscripted; women are not conscripted at all but can volunteer for service. Soldiers go back to civilian life after their training, but in an emergency the country can call up its trained citizen-soldier army for defense. Some serve in officer roles, although these ranks rarely lead to active command, given Switzerland's lack of conflict. Most senior officers just slip back into ordinary careers rather than basking in military glory. The rank of "General" in particular is only filled during wartime; since 1815, Switzerland has had only four Generals (Dufour, Herzog, Wille, and Guisan), the last of whom served during World War II.
The citizen-soldiers can, however, choose to retain their right to keep their firearms after training, and many prefer to do so. Ever since World War II, Swiss households have taken personal and national safety very seriously. They consider it a commitment to community responsibility.
As Switzerland is a direct democracy, the people can easily intervene in policy-making processes. In fact, in Switzerland, you can actually challenge a law if you manage to gather 50,000 signatures against it within 100 days! In other words, it is the people that end up deciding the budget for the military, as well as the equipment that will be used.
Isn’t that incredible? It is the people who choose the kind of military to defend their own nation. The citizen-soldiers of Switzerland are not just mindless pawns that follow orders. They make executive decisions regarding the use of the weapons entrusted to them. The rest of the world could certainly learn a thing or two from Switzerland’s policy.
The flexibility of Swiss democracy regarding its military was displayed after a tragedy shook the nation in September 2001. In the city of Zug (sometimes spelled Zoug in French), a gunman named Friedrich Leibacher killed 14 cantonal parliament members before taking his own life. The country was devastated, and gun laws quickly came under public scrutiny. The government eventually decided in 2007 that, while militia members could still keep their service rifle at home, the army would no longer issue them ammunition to store with it; ammunition is now kept in central armories instead.
The reason this reform was accepted nationwide is that the Swiss don't fear for their personal self-defense as much as for their national defense. Crime rates in Switzerland remain astonishingly low despite the number of firearms. Gun homicides number in the low tens per year in Switzerland, compared to roughly 19,000 a year in the United States (CDC data, about 50 a day). Mass shootings are rare; the country has seen a handful of additional firearm attacks since 2001 (including a 2011 shooting in Daillon), but nothing on the scale of Zug. By any measure, that's a remarkable record.
However, some feel that Switzerland doesn’t need to keep up this vigilance in today’s modern world, and the country is slowly moving towards a more relaxed position regarding peacekeeping. There are several organizations that are lobbying against compulsory military training. However, the topic remains hotly debated. It will be interesting to watch how this country moves forward from its current status of armed neutrality!
