Peace in Switzerland

Switzerland has not engaged in military conflict in over 500 years, the last conflict resulting in a loss against the French in the Battle of Marignano. The Napoleonic Wars, though are what sealed neutrality into Switzerland, when their neutral state went back and forth, but was finally solidified when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and the neutrality was deemed a good buffer between Austria and France, as well as keeping the region stable, so in 1815 the Treaty of Paris was signed declaring their neutrality. Switzerland managed to remain neutral throughout World War I, World War II and the Cold war. Despite Switzerland's refusal to engage in military conflict, they do have a highly trained military for reasons of defense and all males between ages 18-34 are required to serve part-time. Switzerland is very active in international on the humanitarian end of things, but refuses to engage in military affairs, outside of self defense. Switzerland has not joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the European Union (EU) and only recently joined the United Nations (UN.)
Switzerland has a reputation as a "safe-haven" for people who have been persecuted. For example, a few years ago, an Ethiopian pilot self-hijacked his flight to Rome and landed in Geneva. He was sentenced 20 years in jail, while Ethiopia demanded extradition, but the Swiss demanded he stay in Switzerland after he is released because they didn't want the pilot to return to a country that abuses human rights. Switzerland has also acted as a safe-haven to over 10,000 Hungarian refugees due to soviet oppression in the 1950's and Switzerland leveraged its power in order to penalize the Russians.


Switzerland's neutrality and peaceful approach has deemed them the fourth happiest nation in the world as of 2017!
http://time.com/3695334/switzerland-neutrality-history/
https://www.history.com/news/why-is-switzerland-a-neutral-country
http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emily Routbort Mr. Roddy GPHC R 20 September 2018 Social Sustainability Addressing social sustainability is a challenge for many places in the world. Social sustainability works to reduce factors that negatively affect human social well being (p. 61 in the reading). Some examples of social sustainability issues are corruption, unfit healthcare and education, disempowerment of women, and social inequality. These problems should be dealt with after fulfilling basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and rest. From another standpoint, you might find to achieve economic and environmental sustainability, you must achieve social sustainability before other proceeding to solve economic and environmental issues. My reasoning for this is because you should have a strong established base that you can work off of (where everyone is working in harmony) so we can then proceed to work on other issues. In most of the world though, this is not the case (considering that you place s...
Read more

Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability

Anna Kaplan Mr. Roddy GPHC Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability Many people in the country suffer from and escape dangerous domestic violence situations in their own homes. These people often bring their children with them to escape the threat, but once they have left their home they are faced with a new problem: homelessness. Many of these people have no where to go so they try to go to a type of shelter or living facility, but many places discriminate against domestic violence survivors. In Rhode Island, 64.8% of domestic violence shelter requests were unmet. This being the highest amount in the country in 2013. Many states don't even have enough fair laws protecting people from being discriminated while trying to obtain shelter. As president, I would propose that all states must have at least three shelters that cater to particularly this need. These shelters would also have an emergency shelter service to help survivors in immediate need. ...
Read more

State of the Dis-Union?

Image
Donald Trump will be getting his State of the Union Speech after all, after Nancy Pelosi threatened him with the removal of that possibility during the longest ever government shutdown. Many are wondering what exactly Mr. Trump could be planning to address at the speech, and whether or not he will continue to pursue his harsh rhetoric on immigration, which was the primary cause for gridlock during the shutdown where he refused to sign spending bills without a $5.7 billion dollar allocation for a "southern border wall." . Although there is some hope that perhaps the President has come to his senses about the issue, and is willing to compromise and work with the new Democratic majority in the House, the likelihood of that is doubtful, as there are also speculations that he will declare a National Emergency tonight to bypass Congress for his funds. This will certainly die a slow death in the court system, ultimately costing the government a fortune and accomplishing nothing. ...
Read more