|
Idk how true that theory is, but I heard an italian historian say that Germany didn't invade Switzerland because Hitler thought the Swiss are weird. Like, he doesn't want to contaminate the german genepool with those freaks. Having known a bunch of Swiss, that's lol.
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 13:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 14:18 |
|
|
I would contend that if you shelter the looted plunder of third world dictators and the gold from the melted fillings of holocaust victims, that you are not actually "neutral" in any meaningful way.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 13:37
|
|
|
chadbear posted:It's an interview with a Swiss newspaper, so you have to understand that quote in context of Swiss neutrality and recent Swiss laws restricting weapons exports after Swiss weapons had turned up in conflicts around the world. He means that Swiss weapons shall not be exported to an active war zone. Switzerland is a neutral country by constitution and mentality. Neutral countries, according to the Hague convention, shall not export arms to countries at war. It's pretty simple, everybody knew that before and I can't blame the Swiss for sticking to their own laws and international law. If the Germans buy weapons and ammunition from Switzerland they should not act surprised when the Swiss don't allow them to send Swiss materiel to Ukraine. The Swiss only make exceptions for situations like UN peacekeeping missions (in which they also actively participate nowadays) or wars sanctioned by the UN security council. chadbear posted:It's a huge blow to the Swiss arms industry, and I never disputed that. But you have to understand that neutrality in this conflict is not just a moral stance, neutrality is one of the foundations of the country. I can't blame the Swiss for sticking to their principles. You have to blame everybody else for buying from the Swiss arms industry and then acting all surprised. The interior minister has his own agenda and is not speaking from authority here (except in the sense that pacifists and conservatives cover 4/7 of our government and appear to be overruling the actual foreign affairs minister's stance in Ukraine matters and the defense minister's view on re-exports). He is yet another idiot fantasizing about peace talks and yelling at "warmongers", when he means people who want Ukraine to be supplied with the military hardware required to defend their country and internationally recognized territorial integrity (a goal most citizens would instantly be for if Switzerland was in the same situation), while Russia repeats over and over again that they will keep genociding and only plan to negotiate after reaching all war goals. Second, neutrality is simply not as easy a concept as he (and your explanation) makes it out to be. It's a "foundation" in the sense that almost everyone in Switzerland is for some form of neutrality but everyone has slightly or even very different ideas of what it entails. The origins of Swiss neutrality go back to at least 1815 (Treaty of Paris/Congress of Vienna), ie. a time when invading your neighbours to steal and control land was normal. It's being mythically exaggerated from there, but the constitution isn't actually very specific about what form neutrality takes, going "uh  can't be helped, we signed treaties in 1815 and 1907, can't do nothing Sir" is a flimsy excuse. In reality it has always been applied pragmatically when necessary (eg. during WW2 or during the Cold War). It was completely normal to trade weapons and arms with Western allies until a year ago, or even supply gear of all kinds to de facto warring nations as long as they were far enough away and not engaged in overly obvious wars (excluding certain insane media campaigns when someone found some Swiss hand grenades and ammo in Syria), meanwhile the government had some discretion to allow sales, eg. for economic and national security reasons.So for "allies", buying military hardware from Swiss manufacturers was not a problem until about a year ago when the government lost its discretion to allow (re-) exports because the centre left helped the hardcore pacifists on the left take it away for virtue signalling points. And since there was never going to be a war in Europe that would prove a problem (~end of history~ and all that), considerations for export control have almost exclusively been about the gear potentially showing up in civil wars in Africa or the Middle East. But it's explicitly not about sticking to principles, especially the right-wing isolationists were for selling weapons to EVERYONE before Putin went fully mask off. They still fantasize about building up the Swiss armed forces to the point where they can independently defend the country without having to resort to these shocking, outrageous concepts like cooperation and interoperation with neighbours, NATO or the US (even if it's just training and procedures). We have elections in autumn, right now both leftists and right-wingers have decided they really want to use absurdly orthodox concepts of neutrality in their election campaigns, no matter if that suicides the reputation of Switzerland and destroys the domestic defense industry (and all the jobs, tax revenue and ability for at least limited military independence it contains). Consequences are a thing you only care about when it's too late, so you can loudly complain about them again. Currently, it works because leftists live in a fantasy world devoid of wars and violence and would love to go back to infinitely cutting military spending. The isolationist right-wingers adore daddy Putin who sticks it to the woke zeitgeist and a handful of them would just really, REALLY love to go back to trading with Russia and have cheap oil/gas in return. Meanwhile "moderates" are somehow deathly afraid of the isolationist initiative to write an extremist version of neutrality into the constitution. Even though I feel like that would have about 20-30% yes votes, if moderates and leftists actually fought it, which is probably forbidden in times of E: Also part of the issue is that a lot of "Swiss" manufacturers actually belong to bigger international arms manufacturers producing for the international market. Gepard guns/ammo were originally designed and/or created in Switzerland by Oerlikon-Bührle (now part of Rheinmetall), the Piranha APCs Denmark wanted to supply were designed and built by Mowag (now General Dynamics European Land Systems). Swiss export control regulations as currently applied will have zero effect for arms proliferation in the medium to long run - Rheinmetall is already focusing on expanding their German manufacturing capacity, GDELS could build Piranhas elsewhere. It's just an unnecessary hindrance to supplying Ukraine with surplus Western gear right now. But yeah, that's roughly why you probably won't see Switzerland moving with regards to any form of "hardware" support (remember, we didn't even supply body armor because of ~neutrality~) for Ukraine for another year or three 
orcane fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Mar 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 14:01
|
|
|
So is the argument is that Switzerland should not be neutral, never was neutral, or can be neutral and export arms? I'm not quite sure. If it's the first or second, fine, that's a consistent position to have. There are arguments for that. I'm concerned about the third. Let's assume that Switzerland really is a neutral country. Can it export arms to Ukraine? The reasons why Berset (or any other politicians on the left/right) sticks to not exporting weapons may not be a principled stance per se about neutrality. Swiss citizens may not agree on what neutrality actually means -- which is not surprising, ask any person in a Western country what democracy actually means. But can a country export arms (or allow re-export of arms) to a conflict zone and the citizens and politicians really claim to be neutral? Maybe people can believe that. I find it nonsensical. Neutrality in international law following the Hague and Post-WW2 UN agreements, as I understand it, is pretty clear about neutral countries not exporting arms to countries at war, except for the UN security council allowing it. It sure is idiotic from the perspective of Swiss arms manufacturers, it makes the war more difficult for Ukraine, but exporting arms to Ukraine would end Swiss neutrality from a perspective of international law. As I understand it, there are some who push a version of "benevolent neutrality", arguing that the UN security council is blocked by Russia, and thus you can export arms to Ukraine, since it is the victim of a war of aggression, and still be neutral. I find that nonsensical too. ymmv.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:02
|
|
|
OddObserver posted:It's not "a moral stance", it's a stance on side of defacto support of oppression and aggression from a country that manages to feel morally smug for having been defacto on German side in World War II. The “if you aren’t with us, you are against us” line is rightly mocked. Upholding the agreement that both seller and buyer agreed to in writing is not “defacto support” of a third different power in a different conflict.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:22
|
|
|
When you could help the victim of a brutal invasion and genocide, but chooses not to, you're not neutral, you're on the side of the invader.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:26
|
|
|
Atreiden posted:When you could help the victim of a brutal invasion and genocide, but chooses not to, you're not neutral, you're on the side of the invader. This also means that 95%+of countries out there are on the side of the invader and killers of Yemeni people, Palestinians, the Rohingya, etc. One can make a logically consistent argument to that effect, but then apply it to every case instead of a focus on one specific conflict. Countries who want to re-export weaponry mid-war should buy from someone other than Switzerland. Those who do not care about the ability to re-export arms can safely buy Swiss.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:31
|
|
|
chadbear posted:It's a huge blow to the Swiss arms industry, and I never disputed that. But you have to understand that neutrality in this conflict is not just a moral stance, neutrality is one of the foundations of the country. I can't blame the Swiss for sticking to their principles. You have to blame everybody else for buying from the Swiss arms industry and then acting all surprised. From what I understood from a radio interview on Sunday with one of the main people pushing to allow reexports, one of the big problems that caused it to fail is that the reexport question (of stuff already long in the stocks of other countries) is being (deliberately by opponents) mixed together with general neutrality, direct and indirect weapons exports to Ukraine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:32
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:The “if you aren’t with us, you are against us” line is rightly mocked. An intermediary country wants to give/sell equipment it once bought from Switzerland to Ukraine. The agreement it was originally bought under says Switzerland has to grant permission for this to be done. The problem here is that Switzerland is denying permission. Whatever reason they have for doing this is solely Switzerland's problem. Nobody else is forcing them to withhold permission and they incur no material cost by giving permission, since the equipment is already paid for by the original buyer. There's no moral 'Neutral' position between the decisions "Allow help for a victim of unprovoked aggression, at no cost to yourself" and "Don't allow that help"
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:33
|
|
|
Neutrality in the sense of pre-WW1 treaties applied to the modern world is worthless, yes. There's no neutrality with regards to modern international law, in response to blatant violations of All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.. It's not merely idiotic for Swiss arms manufacturers. And again, it's not even about directly exporting weapons to "countries at war" (I'm not getting into how ridiculous it is to frame defending against an illegal war of aggression as something ~neutrals~ have to keep out of, while the attacking side openly says he's actually waging war against NATO and the West). 99% of the issues Switzerland has right now is because of excessively tight export control laws. The gear is already owned by someone else. They're just not legally allowed to sell/donate it to Ukraine because we still care about rule of law.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:36
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:The “if you aren’t with us, you are against us” line is rightly mocked. I am alluding to a quote by Elie Wiesel here. There are things more important than a business contract made by a country that made defacto helping Hitler a mark of national self-righteousness.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:38
|
|
|
Slashrat posted:There's no moral 'Neutral' position Switzerland seems to disagree? quote:at no cost to yourself" Doing a lot of work here. There would be and have been costs to publicly allowing your weapons to be sold or given to third parties through intermediaries. As an example, do you think it would be the same or different if a country wanted to re-export Swiss air defenses to Palestine? Or to Yemen? Or is the argument that in this case, you think Switzerland could escape major ramifications, but in other re-export situations to other people facing conflict, they could not escape those ramifications?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:40
|
|
|
Funny you would mention Yemen, given that the Swiss sell stuff to the Saudis.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:45
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:Switzerland seems to disagree? Permitting one country to donate its equipment to Ukraine does not in any way force Switzerland to permit another country to re-export its equipment to a different third country.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:47
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:This also means that 95%+of countries out there are on the side of the invader and killers of Yemeni people, Palestinians, the Rohingya, etc.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:50
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:As an example, do you think it would be the same or different if a country wanted to re-export Swiss air defenses to Palestine? Or to Yemen? Also, as OddObserver mentioned, Switzerland is actually directly exporting to Saudi Arabia, one of the aggressor countries in the Yemen conflict.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 15:53
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:This also means that 95%+of countries out there are on the side of the invader and killers of Yemeni people, Palestinians, the Rohingya, etc. One can make a logically consistent argument to that effect, but then apply it to every case instead of a focus on one specific conflict. The Swiss simply should not have an arms industry. It's farcical for them to export arms and then try to navigate this kind of issue as if they are not obviously setting double standards. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Mar 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:07
|
|
|
I understand part of the frustration is the West's adherence to a strict rule of law because we can afford it and Ukraine, to some extent, cannot. I'm 100% certain if a big European land war was happening in Germany or Austria etc. we would be moving stuff across Europe from whatever stockpile we could find as fast as possible and gently caress the contracts and "neutrality". But it's far away in Ukraine so we can afford to go back and forth on sending 12k rounds of AA gun ammo for weeks, and slowly start looking for tanks to move east after a year of war. Or wait another half year+ for elections to pass before starting to talk about sensible exceptions to arms export controls. Also, limits on re-exporting are fair because you obviously don't want your state of the art AA system ending up in the hands of someone who will use it to shoot down airliners or fire missiles at hospitals in areas controlled by political opponents. But that's clearly not what re-exports to Ukraine are for. DTurtle posted:Somehow this entire thing reminds me of the whole delivering Leopard tanks thing. Germany "blocking" those deliveries was also supposed to the death knell for its defense industry. These kinds of reexport restrictions are very common in the defense industry - Switzerland is not special in this regard. Tiny Timbs posted:The Swiss simply should not have an arms industry. It's farcical for them to export arms and then try to navigate this kind of issue as if they are not obviously setting double standards. orcane fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Mar 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:10
|
|
|
It has nothing to do with neutrality. Switzerland doesn't want to support Ukraine because it damages relations and pisses off Russians. That's it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:15
|
|
|
DTurtle posted:The compromise here was that instead of allowing all reexports regardless of war, instead it would only be allowed if exporting to a country being invaded and that invasion being condemned by the UN General Assembly. The Swiss export to the Saudis during the Yemeni civil war? Wow, that is some very selective interpretation of neutrality. Technically Ukraine is not a war according to Moscow, so it should be perfectly fine to export to Ukraine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:16
|
|
|
Charlotte Hornets posted:It has nothing to do with neutrality. Switzerland doesn't want to support Ukraine because it damages relations and pisses off Russians. That's it. This is more believable. Developing weapons technology in the first place is not a morally neutral activity, and you have to get real fussy with your definition of political neutrality to allow it to cover a business where you develop weapons of warfare and then price and deal them according to the budgets and temperament of specific nations.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:22
|
|
|
The key distinction is the Yemenis are 1) Brown, 2) Muslim, 3) Far Away, 4) Poor, and not influential/important/valuable as a trading partner. Its not moral neutrality, its self-interest.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:23
|
|
|
Tigey posted:The key distinction is the Yemenis are 1) Brown, 2) Muslim, 3) Far Away, 4) Poor, and not influential/important/valuable as a trading partner. Ah, neutral only when the conflict is between nearby white christians. Perhaps it should be in their constitution then.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:48
|
|
|
Probably the right choice for Switzerland. The meaningful neutrality of 2023 is between the US bloc and the China bloc, which are - to my eternal disgust - coalescing into the two sides of a new iron curtain. Neutrality has always involved consciously deciding that you are not going to act to stop the suffering of others because it is more important not to pick sides: that’s what it is. Staying neutral from a Russian and Chinese perspective involves not supplying arms to Ukraine. We might all agree that it’s not appropriate to do that in these circumstances but for a country that has made neutrality its foreign policy core for longer than the lifespan of anyone alive today, it shouldn’t surprise. To be clear, if you have the right to stop the use of weapons and you choose not to exercise it, you are picking a side. Switzerland is committed to not picking sides. So they didn’t.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 16:50
|
|
|
Does the effort to remain "neutral" have anything to do with the profitability of money laundering for Russians or has that mostly moved to London by now? What would Switzerland do with Putin's mistress and their children if they really rolled up their sleeves and took part in the war effort?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 17:11
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:This also means that 95%+of countries out there are on the side of the invader and killers of Yemeni people, Palestinians, the Rohingya, etc. One can make a logically consistent argument to that effect, but then apply it to every case instead of a focus on one specific conflict I mean, yes? That's true, and they are. Nice of you to make this point.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 17:56
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1635685779639873540 RuAF forces down US drone over the Black Sea. Wonder if anything will come of it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:01
|
|
|
sniper4625 posted:https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1635685779639873540 https://www.dvidshub.net/news/440347/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-international-waters quote:At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional. Looks like they downed it by flying like idiots rather than shooting it down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:07
|
|
|
kemikalkadet posted:https://www.dvidshub.net/news/440347/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-international-waters Why would you do all that if you didn't want to bring the drone down, though? What does an MQ-9 do? Signal intelligence collection?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:10
|
|
|
Pissing fuel on a drone sounds like a cut scene from Top Gun Maverick
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:11
|
|
|
That's a pretty common tactic Russia/Soviet Union/China has been doing for decades and to be fair the U.S. does that too when Russian aircraft probe around our borders albeit not to such an aggressive extent. This has resulted in accidents in the past such as the Hainan Island Incident in 2001 where a Chinese J-8 collided with a US Navy EP-3 resulting in the EP-3 having to make an emergency landing at the Chinese island of Hainan and the J-8 pilot was killed. It won't result in anything but strongly worded posturing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:12
|
|
|
Popete posted:That's a pretty common tactic Russia/Soviet Union/China has been doing for decades and to be fair the U.S. does that too when Russian aircraft probe around our borders albeit not to such an aggressive extent. This has resulted in accidents in the past such as the Hainan Island Incident in 2001 where a Chinese J-8 collided with a US Navy EP-3 resulting in the EP-3 having to make an emergency landing at the Chinese island of Hainan and the J-8 pilot was killed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:14
|
|
|
Is this as dumb as it sounds? The mq-9's cruise speed is probably near the su-27's stall speed so it seems like a high risk brake check.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
You have to be pretty reckless/idiotic to collide with and almost kill yourself trying to intimidate an unmanned drone so yes it is as dumb as it sounds.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:23
|
|
|
Let me attrition my airframes even more! Maybe this is how they will get more chips for their semiconductor needs. If they can salvage it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:29
|
|
|
Zhanism posted:Let me attrition my airframes even more! Attrit 
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:30
|
|
|
Basically down the done without actually firing a weapon.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
Popete posted:You have to be pretty reckless/idiotic to collide with and almost kill yourself trying to intimidate an unmanned drone so yes it is as dumb as it sounds. Yeah these sort of incidents have been going on since people first started using airplanes for reconnaissance -- hell, French and German pilots would whip out pistols and shoot at each other before they figured out how to strap machine guns to planes* -- but usually they are between manned aircraft. The intercepting planes fly erratically/recklessly to try and force the observation plane off course because the pilots want to avoid a collision so they don't die. That's what that Chinese interceptor was doing when it clipped the American P-3. Doing it on a drone seems ... less effective. *I think I read that somewhere but I might have just made it up because it sounds cool.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:33
|
|
|
Seems to me that deliberately letting your expensive and all but irreplaceable jet get carved up by a whirling blade is something to be avoided, but I'm not a big- brained Russian fighter jock.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 18:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 14:18 |
|
|
For some reason this reminds me of that Russian column that bravely defeated the static BMP memorial outside a military academy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 19:08
|
|