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Anonymous

national defense: the swiss model
    #2384543 - 02/27/04 06:15 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

aside for the mandatory military service, i'm impressed with their approach. in switzerland, there is only a very small standing army, but the male citizenry, trained and armed, form a sizable militia for national defense. switzerland was not invaded in either world war. even when all of continental europe was controlled by the fascists, switzerland remained free. it has been said that invading switzerland would be like swallowing a porcupine... something it looks like european powers have taken to heart when planning their military campaigns. armed neutrality is a good policy, and a body of citizen soldiers, not a standing army, is the most effective deterrent to invasion, as well as the best guarantee against tyranny. i like the idea and i think our national defense should be modeled more on that approach... the way it was intented. armed neutrality and citizen's militias, not a standing army stationed all over the world, is the way to go.

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InvisibletrendalM
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384559 - 02/27/04 06:17 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

I agree 100% with that.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384597 - 02/27/04 06:28 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

I can agree with that as well.

Though I'm not sure that without mandatory military service, we could have effective militias. But I do despise having our military stationed around the world unless the hosting country was paying for it.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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InvisibleJohan Shultz
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384633 - 02/27/04 06:45 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

"it has been said that invading switzerland would be like swallowing a porcupine..."

Its only about 10% of a deal. The major reason was Swiss Banks. Jewish money, money laundry, foreign investments and shit like that.
Anyway I am with you on this topic.


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Invisiblebert
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384735 - 02/27/04 07:24 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Switzerland is pretty small and it has a strategic geographical position too. The US wouldn't be able to pull off something like this I think because we are too big, we've got borders all over the place.


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Persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384799 - 02/27/04 07:52 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

I may have misintrepreted what your saying. Are you advocating a massive downsizing of the military and relying mostly on militia? I couldn't agree with that given the current state of the world.

Though hopefully with the importance the military has placed on unmanned weaponry, the day won't be too far in the future.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: bert]
    #2384848 - 02/27/04 08:16 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)


Switzerland is pretty small and it has a strategic geographical position too. The US wouldn't be able to pull off something like this I think because we are too big, we've got borders all over the place.


the bigger you are, the smaller the ratio is between border length and land area. the united states has got about 3.5 meters of border for every square kilometer of land area. switzerland has about 45. per unit land area, switzerland has got over 12 times as much border to defend.

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: Johan Shultz]
    #2384866 - 02/27/04 08:23 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Its only about 10% of a deal. The major reason was Swiss Banks. Jewish money, money laundry, foreign investments and shit like that.

i'm not sure why that would make them less of a target for invasion. the swiss were neutral. they were not allied with germany. swiss militiamen were prepared to fight against a german invasion and were instructed to fight to the last bullet. though switzerland was surrounded on all sides by the fascists, it was not invaded.

"The Nazis developed a full ideological critique of Swiss obstinacy. Nazi theorist Ewald Banse accused the German Swiss of "calculating materialism" and "unlimited self-reliance" and said their aloofness from their fellow ethnic Germans arose from a "belief, doubtless justified in the Middle Ages but long since obsolete, that liberty and equality - those most sacred of human possessions - are at stake." Hitler himself denounced the Swiss repeatedly as "despicable and wretched," "misbegotten," "renegades," "repugnant," and "a pimple on the face of Europe" which "cannot be allowed to continue." (Stalin couldn't stand them either.) The Fuhrer despised their purely defensive military philosophy: "An army whose only goal is to secure peace" is craven, he said. "In addition to all the other characteristics of the Swiss that Hitler disliked," Halbrook adds, "he hated them because of their free market capitalism, which he associated with Judaism." The ever-abusive Volkischer Beobachter resorted to the epithet Berg-Semiten: mountain Jews.

Again and again, Hitler ordered his generals to draw up plans to invade Switzerland - but never followed through. Why didn't he? One reason was that military crises elsewhere kept intervening. But another was Switzerland's convincing, if purely defensive, military posture. German troops referred to Switzerland as a porcupine (Stachelschwein); the Swiss air force consisted of 250 planes, none of them bombers. The most famous element of Swiss defense were the sabotage plans: At the moment of German invasion, the Simplon and St. Gotthard tunnels would be blown up, as well as all bridges over the Rhine, power stations, and air fields. Avalanches and landslides would be set off to block armor and infantry movement.

Another key deterrent factor, Halbrook suggests, was Switzerland's tradition of a popular army - "the people in arms." At one point an astonishing 20 percent of the Swiss population was under arms, a figure unheard of in a modern country officially at peace - or even most countries at war. Every Swiss home had a rifle. Sharpshooting was and is the national sport; each weekend the hills are alive with the sound of gunfire, with fathers delighting in instructing their kids in proper technique. Swiss youths were trained to shoot at 300 meters, Germans at 100. German generals had to consider the example of the Finns, another small nation of skiers and riflemen who had recently held off a Russian invasion far more tenaciously than outsiders expected.

Finally, Swiss defensive preparations drew strength from an unrivaled display of the spirit of resistance. Soldiers were ordered to hold their positions to the last cartridge and then fight on with bayonets. Secret munitions caches were distributed through the countryside, and the populace was trained in how to organize partisan warfare. Unlike any other country in Europe, Halbrook says, Switzerland proclaimed that any reports that the federal council or army high command had agreed to surrender were to be ignored as inventions of enemy propaganda. This remarkable policy tied the leadership's own hands for the sake of maximum deterrent effect, and was thinkable only in a nation where a long tradition of decentralization had distributed the spirit of initiative far and wide. By way of contrast, "Hitler was able to conquer much of Europe by bluffing the central authority of various countries into capitulation," as when the Belgian king surrendered at a point where many of his countrymen would have preferred to fight on. "Switzerland was the only country in Europe that had no political leader with the authority to surrender the people to the Nazis.""

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1568/n5_v30/21141908/p4/article.jhtml?term=

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #2384869 - 02/27/04 08:24 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Are you advocating a massive downsizing of the military and relying mostly on militia?

yes.

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2384922 - 02/27/04 08:45 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

if a good portion of iraq's male citizens had rifles and knew how to use them, and they wanted us out, i have a feeling we'd be out of there by now.

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InvisibleLe_Canard
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2385446 - 02/27/04 11:06 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
Are you advocating a massive downsizing of the military and relying mostly on militia?

yes.




You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that the founding fathers had something similar in mind. It sounds like a great plan, if you ask me.

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Invisiblebert
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2385609 - 02/28/04 12:15 AM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Yes, but each of the borders of switzerland are closer to each other than ours. There's less land mass to protect. Your figures are misleading. Anyways, I'm not supportive of our crazy imperialism, I'm just saying its only practical for certian nations to adopt a switzerlandian defense model, but not neccessarily the USA.

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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2386310 - 02/28/04 10:00 AM (20 years, 1 month ago)

If we relied on militia our airforce would consist of biplanes. Of German or Soviet manufacture.

And if a good portion of Iraq's male citizens had rifles (what the hell are you talking about, they're citizenry has more guns than ours) they'd be dead. They can't compete with a trained, equipped true army. I think they would be referred to as "cannon fodder."


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OfflineTheOneYouKnow
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2386408 - 02/28/04 10:59 AM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

mushmaster said:
aside for the mandatory military service, i'm impressed with their approach. in switzerland, there is only a very small standing army, but the male citizenry, trained and armed, form a sizable militia for national defense. switzerland was not invaded in either world war. even when all of continental europe was controlled by the fascists, switzerland remained free. it has been said that invading switzerland would be like swallowing a porcupine... something it looks like european powers have taken to heart when planning their military campaigns. armed neutrality is a good policy, and a body of citizen soldiers, not a standing army, is the most effective deterrent to invasion, as well as the best guarantee against tyranny. i like the idea and i think our national defense should be modeled more on that approach... the way it was intented. armed neutrality and citizen's militias, not a standing army stationed all over the world, is the way to go.




Gosh, what a great idea! IF only everyone would have been like the Swiss, well, gosh, their wouldn't be any Jews, and the world would be owned by Hitlers decendants. Great idea! two thumbs up!

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: TheOneYouKnow]
    #2386505 - 02/28/04 11:51 AM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Gosh, what a great idea! IF only everyone would have been like the Swiss, well, gosh, their wouldn't be any Jews, and the world would be owned by Hitlers decendants. Great idea! two thumbs up!

i don't follow you. if everyone had been like the swiss, the germans might not have made it out of poland. instead, most of europe surrendered to hitler without much of a fight. not the swiss though. switzerland's jews were not taken to the camps. they, unlike the rest of europe's jews, were waiting with their rifles.

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: zappaisgod]
    #2386517 - 02/28/04 12:00 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

If we relied on militia our airforce would consist of biplanes. Of German or Soviet manufacture.

we'd still need a professional airforce and navy i think.

And if a good portion of Iraq's male citizens had rifles (what the hell are you talking about, they're citizenry has more guns than ours) they'd be dead. They can't compete with a trained, equipped true army. I think they would be referred to as "cannon fodder."

guerrilla warfare works very well when the populace is armed and united against the enemy. the iraqi resistance is poorly trained and doesn't enjoy the support of most of iraq's people. they are actually pretty pitiful.

" Commentators often attack the vitality of the military and political functions of the militia concept with the argument that they can no longer be performed by a militia. Simply stated, the argument is that an armed citizenry cannot restrain a domestic tyrant or deter a foreign conqueror backed by a modern army. This empirical assertion is frequently made by lawyers, politicians, or other advocates who offer neither argument nor authority for the proposition. And while this assertion may be true in some limited number of circumstances, as a categorical assertion it is demonstrably false.

Consider some recent examples. The Vietnam War demonstrated that a modern military power can be resisted by guerilla fighters bearing only small arms. This lesson has not been forgotten. In 1992, the United States declined to intervene in the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina after an aide to General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised the Senate Armed Services Committee that the widespread ownership of arms in the former Yugoslav republic made even limited intervention "perilous and deadly." The deterrent effect of an armed populace was emphasized by Canadian Major General Lewis Mackenzie, who led United Nations peace keeping troops in Sarajevo for five months. Despite the tremendous capabilities of the United States Armed Forces, he explained, the prevalence of arms ownership in the area caused him to believe that if American forces were to be sent to Bosnia, "Americans [would be] killed.... You can't isolate it, make it nice and sanitary."

The validity of these concerns has also been demonstrated in the current conflict in Chechnya where "[m]ore than 40,000 soldiers from the Russian army ... have quickly been humbled by a few thousand urban guerrillas who mostly live at home, wear jeans, use castoff weapons and have almost no coherent battle plans or organization." The Russian army's nuclear capability apparently has not translated into a tactical advantage in the streets of Chechnya."

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndobs.html

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InvisibleXlea321
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Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2386855 - 02/28/04 03:04 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

swiss militiamen were prepared to fight against a german invasion and were instructed to fight to the last bullet.

And the Russians wern't?  :rolleyes:

Halbrook says

Stephen Halbrook is an NRA lawyer. What else would you expect him to say?

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InvisibleXlea321
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: ]
    #2386866 - 02/28/04 03:12 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

the iraqi resistance is poorly trained and doesn't enjoy the support of most of iraq's people.

Says who? Donald Rumsfield?

that the widespread ownership of arms in the former Yugoslav republic

The widespread ownership of arms in Afghanistan didn't stop them. Is there anything worth invading Yugoslavia for? Oil for example?

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OfflineCrobih
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Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: Xlea321]
    #2386997 - 02/28/04 04:24 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

Maybe you miss the major point of US army. That is the power to control the whole World. That is the way how american economy did not die yet due to the high corruption on the top level of your society.

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Anonymous

Re: national defense: the swiss model [Re: Xlea321]
    #2387057 - 02/28/04 04:56 PM (20 years, 1 month ago)

And the Russians wern't?

no. the russian populace was disarmed by soviet authorities in 1929.


Stephen Halbrook is an NRA lawyer. What else would you expect him to say?


he's talking about adolf hitler's sentiments towards switzerland, something which is historically verifiable. why do you think that his involvement with NRA makes his remarks about hitler's attitude toward the swiss less credible? would you be happy if i were to find a different source?

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