The Master speaks on the Swiss army and the Swiss army knife.
Same principle though! “We are peaceful, we have no weapons!” isn’t much of a defense against someone who isn’t peaceful at all.
The Swiss also have a lot of fortifications; artillery and/or anti-aircraft guns hidden in barns, bunkers to support 114% of their population, tank traps, their tunnels are rigged for demolition.
See: Swiss Armed Forces - Wikipedia
The mountainous terrain no doubt helps too.
We’ll see…
I was in Switzerland about a year ago, and one of my guidebooks claimed that in the event of an outside attack all train routes into the country could be blown up within about 20 minutes.
On the other hand, if you talk to Swiss people about what their training exercises look like, you realize the Swiss army is a comic-opera conceit that wouldn’t last two weeks against a determined attacker with modern weapons. The real benefit of neutrality is that Switzerland has no enemies. That’s what really protects it – not a military whose doughtiness is more myth than fact.
No, sir, we at the SDMB - GQ do not have a sense of humor we are aware of.
What an odd thing for a guidebook.
Very effective against a wagon-lit-based offensive thrust, though.