Swiss War Game Envisages Invasion By Bankrupt French

An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph reports, 'Hordes of bankrupt French invade Switzerland to get their hands on their "stolen" money — such is the imaginary scenario cooked up by the Swiss military in simulations revealed over the weekend. Carried out in August, the apparently outlandish army exercise was based on the premise of an attack by a financially stricken France split into warring regions, according to Matin Dimanche, the Lausanne-based daily. ... Operation "Duplex-Barbara" went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel, Lausanne and Geneva, according to a map published in the Swiss newspaper. Behind the dastardly raid was a paramilitary organization dubbed BLD, the Dijon Free Brigade bent on grabbing back "money that Switzerland had stolen from Saônia". "For its credibility, the Swiss army must work (to ward against) threats of the 21st century," Antoine Vielliard, Hauate-Savoie councilor, told Matin Dimanche. However, Daniel Berger, captain of the Swiss armored brigade, sought to play down the specificity of the threat. "The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate" he told the Swiss press. ... "French towns were cited to provide soldiers with a real scale," he said. ... Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. '"

Comments

Countries do this all the time

[JoshuaZ]

Countries prepare war games involving invasions to or from nearby countries all the time. This just isn't that big a deal. The US likely has plans to invade Canada if necessary (although at least publicly the last one was canceled in the 1930s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red), and almost certainly has plans to invade Mexico. The Swiss have made their entire foreign policy center around a combination of neutrality and being prepared to repulse any invader, so this shouldn't be at all surprising.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Animats]

Countries prepare war games involving invasions to or from nearby countries all the time.

True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I live just outside of Wengen, Switzerland. Every home in my town has a bomb shelter. It was required at the time it was built.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[DrFalkyn]

Countries prepare war games involving invasions to or from nearby countries all the time.

True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.

All purely defensive measures, which for a small country that hopes to repel potential invaders, while retaining their neutrality and not having rely on "allies" to bail them out, seem pretty reasonable.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

And its paid off so far... no one has touched them. Less vigilant countries cannot make the same claim.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Cryacin]

The last time Switzerland was invaded was by the French. Nah... it won't happen again. It's like lightning, the French never strike twice.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[AHuxley]

The Swiss had their plans for hidden installations, bomb shelters, and huge military reserve sites sold to the Soviet Union and who knows who else by trusted gov staff.
So the Swiss know most of their much older sites are mapped out and new works can be plotted in by any interested country.
Their officer corp unique in is training, part time officer support and the global private connections of its mid-top ranking "part time" officers.
That upper rank on the CV was always covered.
The Swiss also seem to have done a lot of work with the US war college system and seem to have a very good on going understanding of emerging US military education.
The US mil would also have very good, generational friendship in all things "Swiss".
The Swiss have spread the idea that they will let an army "in" and get stuck with constant small fights, blocked roads, a non helpful local population, raids....
ie make the price per road, tunnel, bridge repair, town, city way too costly.
Modern military thinking would just orbit ~drones...
Farmer ... enemy combatant, group of workers... high ranking enemy combatants meeting, car/truck/van moving ... enemy combatants moving heavy weapons or a leadership convoy.
The vision of the Swiss moving pre selected "civilian" trucks packed with vital war equipment is not so safe anymore.
The Swiss have one expensive option - bring total war to the enemy. Why ruin their small country when a much more 'clean' distant option exists :)

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

But you need to admit that Switzerland did have all reasons in the world to worry from the 1940s onward. Given how Europe looked back then. When the second World War was over and the aggressive party (that would not have stopped at Switzerland should they have won their other battles), there was the threat of russia coming with the a Red Army
Scaling back such defenses is always a hard thing, especially if you maintain a symbolic stance by it (which is what they do by now).

Also, what else should Switzerland do in their scenarios? Elbonia Invades? They only can pick France, Germany, Italy (on the other side of the alps...) and then they have a very small border with Austria. All four are ridiculous candidates. They simply do not have many candidates to chose from - and unless they want to go totally cliche, they cannot pick Germany.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Dave Emami]

Famous but probably-apocryphal conversation between a visiting German general and his Swiss counterpart, prior to WW2:

German: How many men are under your command?
Swiss: I can mobilize one million men in less than twenty-four hours.
German: What would happen if I marched five million men through that pass tomorrow?
Swiss: I would call up my men. Each man would fire five shots. Then I would send them home.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[cold fjord]

True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.

And for some of them, an almost fanatical dedication to the pope.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[oldhack]

A price they pay for hawking tax evasion schemes in foreign countries.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, what else should Switzerland do in their scenarios? Elbonia Invades? They only can pick France, Germany, Italy (on the other side of the alps...) and then they have a very small border with Austria. All four are ridiculous candidates. They simply do not have many candidates to chose from - and unless they want to go totally cliche, they cannot pick Germany.

They should be preparing for the most dastardly enemy of all, Lichtenstein. You think those "denture" factories produce false teeth? Think again. They are gearing up for war, it's only a matter of time.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Sooner Boomer]

And its paid off so far... no one has touched them.

And then the USA IRS paid a visit. The Swiss folded like the French...

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Joce640k]

Every tunnel/bridge into the country is also permanently wired so they can blow them up at a moments notice if anybody tries to invade.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[laejoh]

Oh my gawd, I didn't expect that!

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Chuckstar]

In fairness, Switzerland also wasn't really in anyone's way and has relatively easy to defend terrain. Is it really the case that the only reason Belgium (which also tried to stay neutral) fell to the Nazis was lack of vigilance?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Living outside a small town in Norway, this is common here too. Our bridges are also prepared for quick demolition. Same thing in Sweden.

I thought this was common all over Europe, not just Switzerland even if they are the only country commonly mentioned.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[rahvin112]

The difference is the US learned years ago to call the enemy force some made up name even if they are operating canadian weaponry and wearing canadian uniforms. The press eats this shit up and loves to blow it out of proportion. Logic says the military plans for every contingency but idiots get riled up to learn neighboring country has plan.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[someone1234]

So, terrorists don't have much to do?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland is one of the most strategic points in Europe. For thousands of years being able to control those mountain passes meant the ability to take nearly the whole continent.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[rapidmax]

That's not true anymore. The explosives has been removed year ago.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[rioki]

Yes like the Toblerone Line. The Swiss really take their defense seriously... even more than the US and that means something.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Also applies to Finland. You an also take a look at the map and see how the east to west roads are almost completely missing.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Guy Harris]

The US likely has plans to invade Canada if necessary (although at least publicly the last one was canceled in the 1930s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red),

...and vice versa .

And then there's the previous invasion, although I'm not sure whether that counts as Canada the country.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists are such a vanishingly irrelevant problem that it's not on the scale of things we even need to protect ourselves against. We need to protect against vending-machine related accidents before we need to deal with terrorism. Or wide-spread robbery of public funds by the financial sector.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[umghhh]

well that is you know - your theory. We will never know of course but if you look at Balkans and great success nazis had in subduing this thing they called Yugoslavia you may reconsider. This does not mean they would not have tried if they had an interest and had enough resources free.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[aaaaaaargh!]

It's kind of amusing, because who can afford to attack Switzerland? Politicians of other countries have stashed away their tax evasion money there!

Anyway, I once saw a documentary in which a formerly top secret and now decomissioned installation against Germany was shown. It was an innocent looking family house whose complete facade could be lowered, revealing some mean looking mortar battery. Makes me wonder what they have built as a replacement...

Re:Countries do this all the time

[N3x)(]

In Sweden this practise is being discontinued. Premade drillholes are being filled with concrete and such. I doubt any of swedens larger infrastructure has these devices anymore.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Sique]

I often compare the number of people dying in a terrorist attack in Germany with the number of people dying due to suffocation by a fishbone (because I have the numbers for both). During the last 40 years, there were less than 200 deaths in Germany caused by known terrorist groups (32 of them killed by the Red Army Fraction, 10 by the National Socialist Underground). Every year, 700 people choke on a fishbone, which gives us 28000 fishbone related deaths in the last 40 years.

When do we start the War On Fishponds?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

Naming defense structures after a candy bar has to be one of the coolest things I've heard of a country ever doing.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[gl4ss]

yeah and switzerland didn't really matter.

switzerland WAS one of the most strategic points in europe. it ceased to be that long time ago. especially for hitler who had allies on other side of the alps anyways.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Chrisq]

That's not true anymore. The explosives has been removed year ago.

Probably safer. All it takes is for one of the guards to convert to Islam and BOOM

Re:Countries do this all the time

[drinkypoo]

In fairness, Switzerland also wasn't really in anyone's way and has relatively easy to defend terrain.

In fairness, Switzerland was already known for banking and the Nazis needed their services as much as anyone else.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[aliquis]

Your comment doesn't make any sense.

One million men * five shoots each all hits = five million hits.

One shot & bullet per German.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[drinkypoo]

You wouldn't believe the number of people here who seriously believe that Switzerland is sitting on "massive french tax-evaded riches", just because the government implied it over and over as it was doing all it could to avoid bankruptcy.

Even if it were true, how would invading Switzerland help? The money would go out the back door as they went in the front. The only solution is to clean up the mess at home, and address the future. The past is already past.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Xest]

Yes. Then airplanes, trains, and motor vehicles were invented and it became irrelevant.

Seriously, I know someone who got a speeding ticket about 3 months after they got home from Switzerland and they never paid it because it was also written in German which seems a stupid thing to send to someone living in the UK.

Then we looked at going on holiday through a few European countries, and despite wanting to visit those surrounding nations avoiding Switzerland for our travels really added very little extra time.

Even if you want to go to cities in neighbouring countries on opposing sides of Switzerland then simply going around it only adds 2 - 4 hours to your journey by land. Hardly a big deal.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Xest]

I think most countries plan to try not to be invaded rather than plan for being invaded.

I know that's the case here in the UK, we generally focus our efforts on keeping invaders out rather than worrying about them getting in.

But I guess we have the benefit of being an island which means we have a somewhat better natural protection against invasion which makes that easier I suppose.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[matt007]

Except the Swiss Army always trained for a defense against an invasion from the East.
There is clearly a change here.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

By folded you mean what?

The swiss have been making a fortune by acting as a tax evasion haven for Europeans. The dirty little hypocrites have been saying one thing and doing another for generations. And I apply that to most of the EU.

So the Swiss start expanding their game to US clients and shockingly the US IRS isn't as willing to play that game.

We're always told about the taxes in europe. But one of the secrets is that the tax enforcement agencies in europe are a joke compared to the IRS. Income in France for example is negotiable. That is you can bargain about what your income actually was that year. The IRS isn't interested in your bargains. They want to know what you made and on what and when. The IRS is not f'ing around. True, they're getting scammed pretty hard by the multi nationals but its unclear as to why that is happening. It could be bribery or it could be just getting out played. I suspect they're mostly getting out played. The Multinationals like to bury bureaucracies in details until their eyes bleed. IBM famously gave the government something like 5 million documents in a court case involving monopoly charges. Case went on for a decade because the government had to read through all the documents. Which took hundreds of people that whole time. By the time the government got around to making a case it was too late and no one cared anymore.

Microsoft did the same thing. Enron TRIED to do the same thing but it didn't work.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[AmiMoJo]

Conventional war in western Europe is almost unimaginable now. There really isn't much point each country having strong internal defences.

The Swiss do it because they like the idea that everyone does military service and it provides useful employment and economic benefits. As you say, their military serves little practical purpose these days.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[gsslay]

Yes, but vending-machines have much better PR agents.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

Switzerland was helped by their geography.

But don't pretend that Hitler didn't want to take it. He asked his generals to war game it. They came back with very nasty loss projections.

In the end, the Nazis just said it wasn't worth it. But that was because the Swiss made it not worth it.

A better example of a country trying and failing would be the Dutch. As usual when invaded, they broke their dikes. It slowed the germans down a little. But ultimately it wasn't enough.

The real failure was in dissolving the armies after WW1.

Old Roman maxim... If you desire peace, prepare for war.

Welcome to planet earth. Deal with it.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Joce640k]

That's not true anymore. The explosives has been removed year ago.

I guess the chances of a land invasion by Europeans is pretty slim compared to 60 years ago.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Increases in the rate of fishbone deaths are not fueled by successful fishbone deaths.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[tigersha]

The nazis has a plan to invade Switzerland, Operation Edelweiss. They did not commit to it because while the operation was certainly doable Switzerland's rugged terrain and well trained militia would have caused unacceptable losses to the Wehrmacht. So they let it go. All the surrounding countries were in Nazi hands or allied in any case so it was not worth the fuss.

Yugoslavia was a different matter because it was on the way to Greece which the Nazis considered important to improve control of the eastern mediterranean. Not that that plan worked out very well. The med was a British lake through the war.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[dunkelfalke]

Welcome to crony capitalism.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/like-a-psycho-thriller-movie-4-civil-servants-of-the-german-irs-were-judged-psychologically-unsound-after-doing-their-jobs-to-well/

Re:Countries do this all the time

[bfandreas]

I think most countries plan to try not to be invaded rather than plan for being invaded.

I know that's the case here in the UK, we generally focus our efforts on keeping invaders out rather than worrying about them getting in.

But I guess we have the benefit of being an island which means we have a somewhat better natural protection against invasion which makes that easier I suppose.

You feel safe now, but just you wait. UKIP has uncovered an insidious plan! Apparently ALL Dutch citizens have been issued drinking straws to drink the North Sea empty so they can safely walk over to you and install their own king. Again.
They are only waiting for an extra large shipment of Kool-Aid.

Nigel Farage came to me in a dream dressed like a pixie and told me only I could prevent this by voting for him.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

Not really.

Its a rational response to an out of control tax and spend system.

People... any people... are not going to put up with it.

In the US they mostly try to get the laws changed and the taxes set to reasonable levels so that everyone can do their jobs and no one needs to play games.

In much of europe that battle was lost which means the laws are frequently unreasonable and as a result people don't try to deal with the system reasonably. Instead, they bore wormholes through it and try as much as possible to simply avoid it.

This is most common in Italy but you see it in France and germany as well.

Set the tax rates at reasonable levels and people will pay them. Be unreasonable and people are going to subvert the system. Its that or death. We really don't have a choice on the matter.

Be reasonable or be treated like you're unreasonable.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they're union.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[khallow]

In Germany, currently, not in the Middle East or Africa. Algeria for example lost somewhere between 40k and 200k people to a nasty ten year civil war and it has a population about a third that of Germany. Even at the lower estimate, that's more than an order of magnitude greater than the alleged death rate from fishbones.

And if as I suspect, the 700 choking deaths from fish bones per year is over the world's population rather than Germany's population, then you're looking at a three orders of magnitude difference.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[mjwalshe]

wel that is because the RAF et all to be blunt where a bunch of middle class pussys - The death caused by the troubles in NI is much higher because the IRA and UDA where much better organized 3.5 dead 50k total casualties. From work I know maybe 6 or 7 people from NI and 2 of them are going through the truth and reconciliation process ie you have had a very close family member killed thats over 25%

Re:Countries do this all the time

[mjwalshe]

Cough Cough Delawre :-)

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Xest]

If Nigel Farage gets anywhere near power I think the rest of Europe will have to worry about being invaded by Britain's smartest and most productive people as they all flock away from the anti-intellectual failed state that Britain would become.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[oldhack]

You must have caught the idiot fever.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[rossdee]

I'd guess the Swiss army still has some 7.62x51 calibre rifles for sniping

Re:Countries do this all the time

[dunkelfalke]

I live in Germany, pay the taxes and don't consider them unreasonable. In fact, they were higher 20 years ago (and Germany was better off back then as well).

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Nimey]

IIRC it was closer to there being twice as many German as Swiss soldiers, and the Swiss response was "I would tell my men to fire twice!".

The joke works because the Swiss soldiers (and rifles) were well-known for being accurate.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Kinthelt]

Old Roman maxim... If you desire peace, prepare for war.

Funny you mention that. The latin wording is "Si vis pacem, para bellum". When Georg Luger invented the Pistole Parabellum 1908, he named it after that phrase. The Pistole Parabellum 1908 is also known generically as the "Luger" which was the official sidearm of the Nazis.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

The trivia is interesting but it has no baring on the point.

If you do not have a significant retaliatory capability you invite attack.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

Your employer probably doesn't pay them. Which is more of the point.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[operagost]

That was so funny, I almost fell out of my comfy chair.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[lennier1]

IIRC the Swiss have a bomb shelter capacity for about 114% of the actual population.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[jbburks]

Obviously /. is a Swiss shill, as evidenced by their almost universal use of Helvetica.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shia84]

I've served as field transmission soldier and command staffer in our military for 10 months... reasonable is not exactly a fitting adjective. There's no enemy (except for jokingly mentioning Lichtenstein etc.) we could hold up against, and our main defensive strategy (still basically the Reduit/Bison plan) is just WTF-ish: fully abandon the ~20 biggest cities, most of the population, all industry, nearly all agriculture and hole up in the alps waging guerilla warfare.

We're a country of 8 million and had a military strength of ~0.8 million 30 years ago (keep in mind it's a militia system, that's basically 800k Ueli's [=Joe Public] with a rifle). After the reductions are completed, we'll have roughly 80k militia by 2020. If you want to use the word "reasonable", the continuation of this trend would be a good subject to apply it on.

The military expenses remain mainly penis enlargements for traditionalists, but as has been the case since even long before the French invasion, we absolutely have to rely on allies with actually large/modern militaries (probably northern/western Europe) to bail us out should pretty much any nontrivial invader decide to give it a go.

Diplomacy is our best defensive weapon and has been sufficient for the last two centuries (also: money). Plus there's not even a remote threat on the horizon except for "The Terrorists", though tanks and artillery have not exactly proven effective against those.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[bcmm]

True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.

It seems to work for them, though. How many countries have had nearly 200 years of peace?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Mashiki]

Considering the majority of Britain's smartest and most productive people have already fled from the country? Your comment is pretty moot. They've already moved to Canada or Australia, some would have gone to the US but the application process is too long.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[HornWumpus]

I don't know, I bet Swiss jail is kind of nice. Restful, no cell phones. They could build a club med...

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Herve5]

friended ;-)

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Xest]

I'm pretty sure in a population of 63 million there's still quite a lot of smart people left in the UK.

I think most of the smart ones that have gone have actually gone to places like Scandinavia, Germany, and New Zealand. The current Canadian and Australian administrations make the British look like a bunch of left leaning liberals in comparison and the US even more so. The level of anti-intellectualism in the US and certainly within Harper's regime and to a lesser but still great extent Australia makes the UK look fantastic right now.

Harper's regime is the main reason me and my partner (who is Canadian FWIW) haven't gone to Canada because sadly even the Tories here in the UK are better than his lot, and that really is saying something.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[nukenerd]

Terrorists are such a vanishingly irrelevant problem We need to protect against vending-machine related accidents before we need to deal with terrorism

There is only a mildly negative feedback loop wrt vending machine accidents. The makers might put a little more effort into the safety of the next design, and I might be a bit more careful if I hear of a friend being hurt by one (I never have).

OTOH, there is a very strong positive feedback loop with regard to crime, including terrorism. If potential criminals hear of others getting away with it, they are likely to try their luck too. If you want an example of that, it is the London riots last year when looters came out in force when they heard that the police had lost control (or never took control) and others were getting rich pickings.

By your reasoning, we should repeal the law against murder, because murders are really quite rare.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[nukenerd]

in the UK, we generally focus our efforts on keeping invaders out rather than worrying about them getting in.

No, around 1950 Britain stopped trying to keep any invaders out. There are now millions of people here of foreign origin, increasingly in positions of control, originally invited or let in because some people saw some short-term advantage to themselves. Even recently, Tony Blair welcomed immigrants as more likely to be Labour voters.

A very similar situation to when the Romano-British leader Vortigern invited the Saxons to Britain around 450 AD because he wanted them as allies against other rival Romano-British tribes and the Northern Celts. It ended with the Saxons driving the Romano-British (the ones they did not manage to massacre), including Vortigern himself, into the Western corners of the island (Wales and Cornwall), and some even to France (Brittany) where they are resentfully licking their wounds even to the present day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortigern

Re:Countries do this all the time

[jcdr]

Switzerland frontier with France have the less strong geographic barriers compered of the rest of the country's frontier. The Jura mountain chain is not height enough and there is large potion without any substantial elevation.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[cold fjord]

Terrorists are such a vanishingly irrelevant problem that it's not on the scale of things we even need to protect ourselves against.

Terrorism appears to be a small problem in the West since it is under control and active measures are being taken. The result of that is a regular stream of arrests and prosecutions of would-be terrorists in many countries, such as the US and UK. If you want to abandon all efforts at suppressing terrorism, then you should expect truck bombs at public events and massacres at shopping malls as other parts of the world experience. It isn't magic rocks protecting you, it is intelligence work and police work.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[cold fjord]

Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser

Re:Countries do this all the time

[cold fjord]

Times change. Europe will be undergoing big changes in the next 50 years. The EU is barely holding together now in some respects, and the Euro itself is in danger. Such military concerns may become necessary again in our lifetime. We haven't reached the end of history yet.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[jcdr]

Actually most Swiss jails are overcharged due to a decade of criminal activity increase. Recent scandals have forced most of them to be very restrictive, to the point that blur the lines of international laws in that matter.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[jcdr]

That upper rank on the CV was always covered.

While this somewhat was true on the last century, this in not the case anymore. In fact the "federal vacation" (about 2 weeks per years of obligatory military exercise) is now perceived by the companies as a hug vast of there employees time.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Algeria for example lost somewhere between 40k and 200k people to a nasty ten year civil war and it has a population about a third that of Germany. Even at the lower estimate, that's more than an order of magnitude greater than the alleged death rate from fishbones.

You said it right. They lost them to a nasty civil war, not to terrorism. Before 9/11, even Americans knew the difference.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[HornWumpus]

Likely use inorganic cheese in the fondues, feed them _milk chocolate_ and week beer.

Like you say 'blur the lines of international laws'.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[dunkelfalke]

My employer does pay taxes just as well. I don't work for a multinational, I work for a small company.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[jcdr]

Don't know about the food, but if you are able to translate this link, it would give you a more actuate picture: http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevoise/champdollon-barre-700-detenus/story/16620565 . In resume, the occupation was 186% at the time of the article and is even higher today. A other link about this problem http://www.apt.ch/en/news_on_prevention/record-overcrowding-geneva-prison-is-a-pressure-cooker/ (even if the source is not completely neutral on that matter). Not exactly a club med....

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Chuckstar]

But if you're in Germany ... and you already control Austria... and Italy is your closest ally... then where are you trying to go that Switzerland is your most efficient path?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[khallow]

Terrorism is fundamentally the targeting via acts of destruction of civilian populations by non-government organizations. That last weasel phrase is needed to distinguish terrorism in the US legal sense from government-backed terrorism. And many acts of terrorism are indeed parts of some sort of war.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[khallow]

As I replied here, just because there was a civil war going on in Algeria doesn't mean that there wasn't terrorism going on. IMHO, most of those deaths had nothing to do with the rules of war, clearly marked combatants targeting only each other.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Mashiki]

Harper's regime is the main reason me and my partner (who is Canadian FWIW) haven't gone to Canada because sadly even the Tories here in the UK are better than his lot, and that really is saying something.

That's pretty delusional. After all, the torries in the UK have done amazing things like rolling back freedoms, and attempting to crush the press. Can you point out exactly what evils the Torries in Canada have done that's on the same level.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Xest]

I think a better start would be you explaining what freedoms you feel the Tories have rolled back in the UK and what you mean by "attempting to crush the press" given they're the only party that doesn't want the Levison recommendations implemented, even though that's a bad thing because the British press need regulating so they don't just lie about everything and actually have an obligation to publish the facts and compensate victims if they don't. (Hint: They also rolled back the scope of the DNA database, dropped the ID card scheme, and another of other things). Perhaps you're confusing the talk on Slashdot of things like porn filters with something they've actually done and passed? If so they haven't, and almost certainly wont be able to because there's little support for it, it's mostly just bluster from The Daily Mail above all else.

I also think you need to learn a bit more about what Harper's administration has done, starting with stifling discussion by government scientists.

Perhaps when you know a bit more what you're on about you'll be able to come back and discuss it properly without calling me "delusional" but whilst you've no idea what you're on about then there's little hope of that.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[IndieVoter]

"Or wide-spread robbery of public funds by the financial sector." Or politicians who extort campaign funds from the said sector.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shutdown -p now]

Once you have the wiring and convenient attachment spots, how easy it is to reinstall them if necessary?

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shutdown -p now]

It actually sounds like the defensive strategy you describe is very reasonable under the premise that "there's no enemy (except for jokingly mentioning Lichtenstein etc.) we could hold up against". If so, then holding the cities doesn't really matter - they will be taken pretty quickly anyway, with more loss of life if held. The point of waging guerrilla warfare is to deter the occupation by making it too costly - more costly than any benefits proceeding from it. The "Joe Public with a rifle" army model also makes perfect sense from that perspective, combined with the emphasis on individual marksmanship in Swiss military training - if you can reliably hit a couple of targets out to 300-500m and then bug out quickly, you can harass enemy occupation forces for a long time.

This does not go against everything else that you've mentioned, notably the need for diplomacy to avoid occupation in the first place. But then the very fact that country is prepared for a guerrilla warfare against any would-be occupation force is in and of itself a diplomatic factor.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shutdown -p now]

The core of the EU (France and Germany) is holding fine, and most other strong members are not leaving anytime soon. UK is questionable, but it's not key. The smaller states may cease to be formal members, but they will forever remain in the bigger guys' sphere of interests, including military.

In any case, the far more likely route for EU to develop is by dismantling the existing bigger nation-states. For example, while UK has a definite anti-EU streak, if it disintegrates into independent Scotland, Wales and England, at least the former two will rush to join EU. In Spain, similarly, any independent Basque state, as well as Catalonia, would be strongly tied to EU. In the end, I suspect that Europe will indeed undergo big changes, but those big changes will be the dissolution of some (if not all) bigger centralized states and their replacement with smaller ethnocultural nation-states which will not be viable on their own, and so will need a loose federation like EU.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shutdown -p now]

That is the modern assault rifle - it uses the small-caliber 5.56 cartridge, same as most new NATO firearms from 60s onward. No, it won't get through 3 people - at range, it lacks the punch, and close up, the bullet goes fast enough that it will fragment when it hits the first one.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, their stock assault rifle, Stgw90 (aka SG 550), used with their stock ammunition, GP90, is extremely accurate. While the round itself has obvious issues when it comes to long-distance performance, it's not because of accuracy. The combo is sub-MOA (the ammo itself is basically match grade), and in trained hands, it is quite capable of hitting a man-sized target out to 600m.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[volmtech]

I live in the US. It seems our bridges are built to be easily demolished. Unfortunately some collapse prematurely, it doesn't take much.

Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[VortexCortex]

Just wait till the shut-down the government in USA.

It'll be like Tienanmen Square, but with tanks vs smart phone slinging teenage mutant ninjas.

Even worse! All of the 401ks are backed by the stork market.... Another crash and it'll be 60 something hippies in business casual firing Ronald Rayguns.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[93 Escort Wagon]

The looming government shutdown in the US is not exactly novel - we've been through this a number of times before. Most people aren't going to even notice, unless it drags out.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till the shut-down the government in USA.

It's not going to happen, never has and never will.

The Debt Limit is stupid. Congress writes a budget, congress sets taxes then the executive executes the budget using the taxes. If the taxes don't cover the budget (they never do) then the government has to borrow money to make up the shortfall. The Debt Limit is a maximum limit on the amount of money the executive can borrow which is also created and controlled by congress.

So: we have a system that allows congress to buy things without having to set taxes high enough to pay for it and then they strapped a mutually-assured-destruction warhead to it which will cause a financial implosion unless the limit is raised. They could just not have the limit (and also stop paying for shit they can't afford) but it's much more fun and politically useful to gamble the entire future of the country on a self-invented problem in order to carry out a dick stroking contest.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[Black Parrot]

Just wait till the shut-down the government in USA.

It'll be like Tienanmen Square, but with tanks vs smart phone slinging teenage mutant ninjas.

More like, everyone out of work will kill their time trolling on Slashdot.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[ATMAvatar]

18 times (including the one that started an hour ago), in fact. I was a little surprised to see just how many there were when I looked it up. Obama has nothing on Carter and Reagan for shutdowns.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[Splab]

I think the big difference is how the world is connected today, wont be total melt down, but markets are bound to be nervous. Gonna be fun for a couple of days till they are done measuring penises.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[Crypto Gnome]

All of the 401ks are backed by the stork market.... Another crash and it'll be 60 something hippies in business casual firing Ronald Rayguns.

I don't see that as such a bad thing, if The Stork Market crashes it will help offset the global overpopulation crisis we're in the process of having.

Re:Reality is Stranger than Fiction

[jcdr]

The Debt Limit is stupid.

Until the credibility of paying the debts rate is lost. History have show that this kind of event blast disruptively fast and the most unexpected moment.

Not to worry!

[Black Parrot]

Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.

By, uhm, France.

Re:Not to worry!

[cold fjord]

"When the German Kaiser asked in 1912 what the quarter of a million Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by a half million German soldiers, a Swiss replied: shoot twice and go home. Switzerland also had a decentralized, direct democracy which could not be surrendered to a foreign enemy by a political elite. Some governments surrendered to Hitler without resistance based on the decision of a king or dictator; this was institutionally impossible in Switzerland. If an ordinary Swiss citizen was told that the Federal President--a relatively powerless official--had surrendered the country, the citizen might not even know the president's name, and would have held any "surrender" order in contempt" -- Stephen P. Halbrook - TARGET SWITZERLAND

Re:Not to worry!

[AHuxley]

Playing the last wars Cold? Today you have very legal double tap drone strikes to deal with. Your vital civilian truck with war supplies is taken out by a drone, the first responders get a quality drone strike too.
The coordination by the defending leadership tracked and destroyed at will.

Re:Not to worry!

[cold fjord]

Wars come in all shapes and sizes A., and pretty much all of them without my supervision. ;)

It is still a non-trivial task to take on a nation state, especially one of martial virtue as the Swiss are. Drones aren't really up to taking on a real air force yet, and the Swiss one isn't bad. I expect they will have their own drones in time, assuming they don't now. It would be a great force multiplier for them.

As you see in the story below, drone strikes still serve a purpose in Pakistan.

Car bomb kills 40 in northwest Pakistan

All the better to keep the black flag from rising over Pakistan. Maybe there is hope since for the first time ever a Pakistani Prime Minister finished his term in office recently.

Re:Not to worry!

[grelmar]

Yah, and that worked so damn well in A-Stan that America eventually just quietly started wandering off the field after a decade and declared "Victory" by handing the problem off to a puppet government they created - knowing full well that all the leaders of said puppet government are going to be up against a wall within five years of the last American troops pulling out.

All that tech, and the American/NATO militaries couldn't defeat an insurgency supported by a population with a tech level roughly on par with 10th Century Bulgaria.

Why? Because if the locals don't want you, and have access to even rudimentary firearms, sooner or later, you gotta just leave.

And the Swiss have some very nice rifles, and also hold an annual nationwide marksmanship contest (the largest marksmanship contest in the world at 200,000 participants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland).

Oh, and for reference on what a cranky old Afghan can do with an antique rifle vs. a highly trained Marine unit... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=327_1301285726&comments=1

Quite playing COD and read a history book. Your perception of how warfare plays out is deeply misguided.

Re:Not to worry!

[Zontar The Mindless]

As you see in the story below, drone strikes still serve a purpose in Pakistan.

Car bomb kills 40 in northwest Pakistan

You mean, to kill lots of innocent bystanders who aren't on a bus, right?

Re:Not to worry!

[cold fjord]

Read past the headline.

The scale of their preparations

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If it's still in print, find a copy of John McPhee's "La Place de la Concorde Suisse".

It won't go well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this, because I'm old enough to have googled French military victories .

Nukem

[linear a]

Nuke The Swiss And Steal Their Gold.

Re:Nukem

[Molochi]

I love warm gold that glows.

Operation "Duplex-Barbara"..?

[drkim]

I saw a movie called "Duplex-Barbara" once, but it was about this girl named Barbara taking a shower (in her duplex), and then the Pizza delivery guy arrives.

Now that I think about it - there was some French kissing in it...

Re:Operation "Duplex-Barbara"..?

[fa2k]

Did Barbara "interface" at full-duplex speed? (sorry...)

Re:WTF is this shit?

[cold fjord]

Just think of it as a sorbet to cleanse the pallet. You needn't indulge in the story if you aren't interested.
 

Re:WTF is this shit?

[cold fjord]

er, palate.

hilarious

[slashmydots]

"The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate"
Nailed it! A+ on war game IRL cover propaganda. They don't suspect a thing now!

Swiss Navy

[Neo-Rio-101]

Was the Swiss Navy involved in the war games?

Re:Swiss Navy

[feufeu]

Probabaly, since they patrol lake Geneva. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland#Lakes_flotilla

They're paranoid about their wealth

[Required Snark]

As the article points out, this is the second military exercise in a row based on the idea of impoverished outsiders invading over economic issues. The previous one had a premise that the Euro economic zone collapsed, and hoards of "refugees from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal" were overrunning Swiss borders.

So if you have a relatively homogenous population of Western Europeans, a high standard of living and a major banking sector that is known internationally as a haven for corrupt money, your paranoid fear centers around the idea of someone will invade and take all that money away. It's guilty knowledge: your situation was not fairly earned, it results from bad behavior. Therefore, the guilt is turned outward and ascribed to hypothetical predatory French economic terrorists who plan on looting Switzerland, or refugees overwhelming your homeland.

This should be familiar to anyone listening to US political rhetoric: it's the Republican attitude towards immigration. You know, all those inferior (i.e dark skinned) people who can't do OK on their own, so they are coming here to steal from all the decent hard working people (i.e. white Christians) who made the country great.

To preempt right wing whining, I refer to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Latinos: "there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57598020/rep-steve-king-stands-by-divisive-immigration-comments/ By the way, this asshat thinks he has a shot as the next Republican President.

Although not quite as blatant, the looming government shutdown over Obamacare/Affordable Care has a similar foul stench. Republicans support Social Security and Medicare for white conservatives (it's not welfare for them), but will wreck the economy to keep them damned minorities from laying their filthy paws on "our government" i.e. federal spending.

That's what the Tea Party types were saying when they spouted "I want my country back." Ask yourself "back from who?" The best response I heard was: "You can't have your country back since the South lost the Civil War."

Ultimately that's what it's about: is the US a country for everyone, or only for white Christian conservatives?

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[a whoabot]

Parent comment is not flame-bait at all, and is entirely on-topic.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[aardvarkjoe]

To preempt right wing whining, I refer to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Latinos: "there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57598020/rep-steve-king-stands-by-divisive-immigration-comments/ By the way, this asshat thinks he has a shot as the next Republican President.

You know, if you're going to resort to bald-faced lying by misrepresenting what someone says (hint: that comment was not about "Latinos" in general), you probably shouldn't link to a source that includes the quote in context.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Jesrad]

your situation was not fairly earned

Yes it was. Someone building up riches in one place does not cause some other guy in another place to suddendly lose his.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

No it wasn't. A lot of money in Swiss banks is money held by the owners illegally, we're not talking about tax avoidance here, we're talking about out and out tax evasion.

Switzerland has gotten rich by allowing criminally obtained money to be stored in it's banks and then refusing to cooperate with the authorities of nations from where it was obtained illegally.

We're talking literally billions of dollars that do not belong to the people Switzerland is letting keep it being held in Swiss banks which the Swiss banks, like pretty much all banks, then use to invest and make themselves wealthier.

Switzerland has very much gotten rich off the back of illegally obtained money. This is the problem with most tax havens and especially Switzerland - it's not just that they act as a low tax place for tax avoiders to stash billions, it's the fact that they also allow tax evaders to store money that does not belong to them.

The fact is that if Switzerland wasn't complicit in supporting criminality in just about every other nation in the world it wouldn't be even close to as wealthy as it is now, and that's what the GP was referring to - that the Swiss know full well if shit went down financially then people are going to come knocking and demand the Swiss hand back all that illegally held money and hence the reason they come up with such scenarios is because they know full well they're guilty and hold such illegally obtained funds in the first place.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

"Protecting your wealth is paranoia resulting from a bad conscience? Like if you earned it 100% legitimately you'd feel great about letting people take it? "

That's the problem. Switzerland hasn't earnt it legitimately. From holding gold and riches stolen by the Nazis from the Jews in the 30s and 40s through to acting as a haven for modern day tax evasion and other criminal enterprises, much of Switzerland's stored wealth doesn't belong to it or the people who have stored it there.

If someone hacked into your bank and stole all your money and transferred it to an account in Switzerland and the Swiss authorities refused to hand it back to you and the Swiss banks then used it in investments to make themselves richer would you honestly suggest they'd obtained that wealth legitimately? Because that's exactly the historical (and to a lesser degree current) situation with Switzerland's wealth.

This is why the Swiss have that un-admitted element of guilt and paranoia of someone coming to take it their wealth from them. Because they know most of their wealth doesn't belong to them in the first place.

They are improving, they are helping with some financial crimes, but historically they've gotten wealthy off of crime elsewhere and they still have a long way to go to become more responsible like most other countries in the world in this respect.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Antique Geekmeister]

The Swiss banking industry has been the haven of choice for private banking since the Middle Ages. With a proper warrant from the proper government, _and the account information_,, they will cooperate with recovering assets. But they don't allow governments free access to find that information. This has also been how Jews in WWII hid their assets from seizure by Nazis, and funds flowed from the US to guerrilla fighters throughout Europe. The banking privacy works both ways.

The concept that bankers are automatically sinful and should have their goods seized goes right back to the concept of charging interest as being a sin of "usury", and it's why some Jewish families became bankers for non-Jews: the laws did not apply to non-Jews. So, historically, a lot of the rage against bankers for stealing money they didn't earn has also been religious prejudice. And they do know that a lot of the money they manage, and hide the transactions for, has been purely personal or business discretion, and a lot of it has been with the full knowledge and support of the governments who've gotten critical loans or hidden payments to other countries through the Swiss banks.

Like free speech, discrete banking has many misuses, but its difficult to forbid without interfering with critical uses.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

I'm well aware of that, I'm aware for example that Jews were persecuted in the UK in the middle ages because they banked for the Christians who were forbidden to do it, but then produced so much wealth as a result they became an ever bigger target for taxation to the point they were used as a scapegoat and persecuted and almost wiped out (most Brits aren't taught about this shameful part of our history where we did what the Nazis did long before they did it).

But ultimately it's still the case that much of Switzerland's wealth comes from criminal activity which in this day and age is the largest use for secret banking.

There are better ways of handling the situation though, the Swiss could just as well set up an asylum type system whereby people can make a claim that they're hiding funds because of say religious or racial persecution and have the Swiss authorities make a decision based upon that. That balance between protected the persecuted and avoiding helping criminals and the subsequent burden of proof from one to the other needs to change over time as the most likely scenario of persecution or criminal activity also changes. In the war it probably made sense to assume persecution, but post war it makes more sense to assume criminal activity.

The danger is of course if the Swiss don't sort it out, that they become a target for blanket transaction taxes (which is why most tax havens are now making deals to do something about the problem) but I believe in Switzerland the measure recently failed the popular vote. Let's be frank, that's not because the Swiss by and large give a shit about any potential persecution or injustice, it's because the Swiss know full well they're wealthy off the backs of crime from the industry and that any crack down on criminal proceeds means they're going to have to work harder for their nation to maintain the same level of wealth and no populace is going to voluntarily except that, until something harsher comes along - like a financial transaction tax on transfers into Swiss banks.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Alomex]

So if you have a relatively homogenous population of Western Europeans,

Ah the myth of a homogenous society: 15% of the population in Switzerland is non-Western European, and nearly a quarter of Swiss residents are not from Switzerland. In Zurich fully half of the residents are immigrants.

In contrast, heterogeneous "melting pot" USA has only 14% of non-USA residents,

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[intermodal]

That's like saying Seagate and Western Digital are unscrupulous because some of their users store illegal data on hard drives they manufactured.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

No, it's really not.

For starters, the Swiss banks are using the illegally obtained money to make more money through investments. When you buy a hard drive it's a product you take home and not something Western Digital et. al. retain access to to take your data and make more money off the illegal stuff by say, selling it on. If they did do that however then yes I'd say that would make them pretty fucking unscrupulous.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[intermodal]

If pseudo-police is how you envision proper banking, I'm not sure we're going to reconcile your totalitarian bent and my libertarian one.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

I don't pretend to know what the answer is, so your massive jump to the idea that I somehow support totalitarianism is pretty insane and demonstrative of a rather irrational mind. You obviously have a distinctly combative mindset where if someone explains why your analogy is flawed they're obviously a police state loving totalitarian. That screams insecurity.

But it doesn't matter, because none of that changes the fact that Switzerland got rich off of crime and illegally obtained money.

In some ways I can even understand why some kneejerk reactions amongst the Swiss might be who cares, everyone else has a degree of criminality in money making given the level of criminality that isn't dealt with in banking in places like the UK and US but that wasn't really the argument I was having. The argument I was having was simply that Switzerland's wealth is built on top of money that doesn't belong to it, or the people it is holding it for, and given that that was the extent of my point then if you're still arguing against it you're either ignoring reality, or arguing that it doesn't matter in which case you are not a libertarian but an anarchist because you're effectively claiming the rule of law should be ignored.

I don't think that is what you meant though, I think you jumped to an extreme conclusion in response to an argument you imagined we were having, but that we actually weren't.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[IamTheRealMike]

No it wasn't. A lot of money in Swiss banks is money held by the owners illegally, we're not talking about tax avoidance here, we're talking about out and out tax evasion.

Are you American by any chance?

The US certainly feels that way, but that's because the US has a retarded tax system that is based on citizenship as well as residency. That is, anyone unlucky enough to be born American (or get a green card or a bunch of other factors) is expected to pay tax to the IRS no matter where they go and live. Giving up your citizenship isn't so easy either, beyond the fact that you'd need some other country to take you in, there's an "exit tax" to pay too.

No other country except some tin-pot African dictatorship uses such a scheme. Unsurprisingly then, as seen from Washington literally every country in the world holds "lots of money from tax evaders", even though that position is stupid. Hence FATCA.

Now, the Swiss could certainly argue a different viewpoint to the one you just espoused. The Swiss have been wealthy for a long time, but the idea that banks are supposed to be some shadow police force is a very recent one. It dates to the US passage of the Banking Secrecy Act in the 70s and the Money Laundering Control Act in the 80s. Actually the whole concept of money laundering was created quite recently by the USA. As a social policy it's younger than most people are. Despite many extremely serious costs and side effects, these policies were then forced onto the rest of the world, through threat of financial sanctions in some cases.

The Swiss have always until recently had strict policy of strong financial privacy. So guess what - Swiss reluctance to sign up for the new fad of turning bankers into policemen suddenly means they're the bad guys. By the way, banking privacy in Switzerland has applied to their own tax collectors too. Somehow they still manage to collect tax, have a strong government, low crime rates, low inflation and low tax rates. Apparently their approach is not incompatible with civilised society after all!

This idea that the Swiss are rich exclusively because of some evil rule breaking is exactly the kind of absurd rhetoric that could lead to some invasion scenario, which is why the military uses it to practice with. But it's just not matched by reality. If you look at a GDP breakdown by sector you can see that manufacturing and specialised services make up a huge fraction of the Swiss economy. The biggest Swiss company isn't even a bank, it's Nestle. A big chunk of Swiss wealth comes from precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, IT, tourism and specialised financial services which are NOT banking (think industrial insurance etc).

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[intermodal]

What I was responding to was the idea that it is a bank in Switzerland's responsibility to determine whether foreign money was earned in harmony with the laws of whatever countries it has come from. That is the responsibility of the country from which the money came. Switzerland operates under Swiss law, and nobody else's, and thus in terms of storing the funds, Swiss banks operate (for the most part), quite legally, under Swiss law. Even if their clients have varying legalities in their varying countries.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

Ultimately though it's a problem that other countries are going to want to solve because by allowing it they're effectively subsidising Switzerland's wealth with tax money (and other proceeds of crime) owed to them.

So sure Switzerland can on one hand say "We're doing nothing wrong under our law" but as this is an international issue, at one extreme, other countries could simply ban all money transfers to Switzerland and bankrupt the country overnight. A less extreme measure given that most countries wouldn't want to see that happen but are still unhappy at their lack of cooperation is to simply tax all transactions in and out of Switzerland to discourage any kind of banking there but how high that tax is depends upon how hard everyone else wants to squeeze.

Of course the alternative is that the Swiss do do something themselves to deal with the problem, whether that's say, allow investigation of accounts whose holders are not Swiss citizens, through to full on transparency of accounts with other governments. Alternatively they could just refuse to allow accounts for non-citizens, or they could put conditions on non-citizens such as forfeiture of all funds to their country of nationality if they are found to be evading tax.

What they can't do is keep getting rich off of money that belongs to other states, do nothing about it, and then complain if other nations take action against Switzerland or it's banks. They can't expect to have a free ride off the back of others and there not be repercussions. Such extremes as action against Switzerland or it's banks may sound unlikely, but it's not far from the truth as to what is happening:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/9779615/Switzerlands-oldest-bank-Wegelin-to-close-after-pleading-guilty-to-aiding-US-tax-evasion.html

I understand your viewpoint regarding privacy of accounts and not wanting banks to act as police, and sympathise with it because the idea of some average Joe from the tax office or bank fumbling through my bank statements does creep me out a lot, but as you can see there are other ways the problem can be dealt with of varying extremes. The question is, which one? Right now the direction is very much towards that of hitting Swiss banks or transactions directly given that their populace voted to keep banking secrecy either their government suggested a deal to better aid foreign investigations into evasion using Swiss banks. I'd applaud them for that vote if I didn't think they voted for it more to keep themselves an incredibly rich and wealthy state from criminally obtained funds, rather than because they give even the slightest shit about privacy, but maybe I'm just being cynical on that one.

It's worth noting though that it's been calculated that the amount of money being stored in tax havens (not just Switzerland) that was obtained through tax evasion is enough to solve the entire debt problems of Europe and still have a lot of change left over, so as you can see it's not a small problem, and that's why it's being taken so seriously now - it's reached a point where recouping even at least some of it can have a very meaningful effect on improving the world economic situation.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

Largely because the people doing the looting to those havens have been either the ones in power, or holding enough money to control or at least influence those in power.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

No I'm not American.

See my post here for a fuller explanation of why something has to give:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4284105&cid=45002843

"The biggest Swiss company isn't even a bank, it's Nestle. A big chunk of Swiss wealth comes from precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, IT, tourism and specialised financial services which are NOT banking (think industrial insurance etc)."

You're missing the obvious, companies like Nestle have been able to carry out a massive number of high profile takeovers to reach the size they have precisely because they've had access to cheap and easy credit from the Swiss banking system and what funds that credit? You guessed it. That's why banks are such an important focus when looking at a national economy, because it's not just the money they make themselves but the ease with which they allow the entire nation to invest and make money.

I don't pretend the Swiss economy would be useless without it's banks but it's hard to pretend it's banks aren't a key reason for it's wealth. It's a country of about 8 million people yet the 19th largest economy in the world, or 5th based on PPP (which puts it ahead of the US) and this is not it's natural level if you subtract income that belongs to other states (because it's owed to them as tax revenue etc.) and money earned off of that.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[intermodal]

There are some particular issues involved in this particular case.

First, the tyranny of the US government in its belief that is has a right to force its civil law on foreign companies. Admittedly, Wegelin made the mistake of having US arms of its business, but the Swiss government failed to protect the Swiss operation. We've seen similar issues with various foreign banks for dealing with Iran despite the perfectly legal status in their own nations, simply because they deal with US entities. I can't go too deeply into that one because I don't think anyone fully understands the whole Iran sanctions/US sanctions vs UN sanctions/etc. situations, but it appears that the US has been bullying banks of various nations for operating legally in their own countries.

Second is that in this case, the bankers were indeed well aware of what was going on. There's a vast difference between being a knowing accomplice and intentionally avoiding information. I work in the healthcare industry at present, and I'm actually legally obligated to not become privy to any more information than is necessary to do my job when it comes to patients. I see no reason a bank couldn't operate the same way, actively avoiding any unnecessary information beyond the basic information and balances required for a given account.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[bsolar]

Switzerland has gotten rich by allowing criminally obtained money to be stored in it's banks and then refusing to cooperate with the authorities of nations from where it was obtained illegally.

Swiss authorities are perfectly willing to cooperate as soon as you actually provide probable cause and get a warrant. The reason is pretty simple: in Switzerland bank informations are considered confidential and privacy law protects them. I find somewhat strange that we expect a warrant to be required to access e.g. a Facebook account but somehow bank accounts informations are supposed to be freely accessible by any government.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Khashishi]

So, they are like Megaupload

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

So say you're in America, and I stone you to death for blaspheming Mohammed then go to tribal Pakistan I've not actually committed any crime?

The crime is committed before the money gets to Switzerland dufus. Switzerland is just the place they hide it after it's been obtained illegally.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

I don't particularly disagree if I'm honest. I don't like the way the US does this. I don't like the way the US fined BAE, a British company over it's Saudi corruption either - it's not their job to take money off of BAE for corruption, that's our decision, it's headquartered here, else we could find plenty of US companies to arbitrarily take money from for corruption. This is a particular facet of US policy I don't like - the hypocrisy, it's fine time if a British company bribes to a get a contract, but when Boeing does exactly that it's all roses? I also don't like the fact that like the Swiss, we haven't defended our companies.

But it was just an example as to the fact that other countries are beginning to take action against the Swiss precisely because they're not being cooperative (which you may view as a good thing depending on the sort of cooperation being asked!) and I think that will only escalate, rightly or wrongly until the Swiss do start giving up money obtained through criminality voluntarily.

I support strong privacy laws, but I also very much dislike tax avoidance, let alone tax evasion, so you can probably understand why I don't have much of an opinion on what option is best - I've simply no idea what compromise is best because all options revolve around one of my opinions being compromised.

I suppose one possibility is that the UK for example hands over a list of people it suspects of being guilty of tax evasion to the Swiss and they confirm whether some individuals have accounts there, the UK then hands over details of the amount of wealth they've declared and paid tax on and the Swiss confirm if that's correct. There's still exchange of arguably private data there but maybe it's the best compromise that could be achieved? It also assumes the Swiss and UK will be honest in information passed and answers given so there's an issue of trust also though.

But anyway, it's not a problem I'm being given to solve, so who cares - I guess the politicians will make a fuck up of it either way. As usual.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Xest]

I don't think so, the number of French people living in London now exceeds one million I believe making it the 5th largest French city in the world. I think it's already lost :)

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[intermodal]

I think we largely agree on the main points. I don't know about the suspect list though, governments have shown a tendency to abuse those schemes. I'd prefer actually requiring probable cause to issue a warrant, and acting upon a warrant. A simple list of suspects is a bit broad.

As far as taxes themselves, I generally agree on evasion, but I also think part of the problem (at least in the States) is the mess of an income tax system our government relies on. It's backwards, complex, full of holes, and practically encourages people to cheat on their forms. It would be much better to rely on a concept more like the FairTax proposal because it would pretty much remove the burden on people, and place it into existing systems used for present sales taxes. That way, it doesn't matter who stores how much in what location. The taxation comes when the money is spent rather than forcing individuals to muddle through a bizarre set of paperwork full of obscure terms and nonsensical exemptions that surely were bought and paid for by some lobbyist or other.

Re:They're paranoid about their wealth

[Jesrad]

Switzerland has gotten rich by allowing criminally obtained money to be stored in it's banks

And so did every single person who ever sold anything to a criminal, ever.

refusing to cooperate with the authorities of nations from where it was obtained illegally.

When do they do that ? Seems to me from the news that they've pretty much always cooperated with other countries in order to freeze criminals' assets, when their judicial system is provided with sufficient proof of the crimes. As detailed here:

However, Swiss bank secrecy is not absolute and offers no protection to criminals. It is lifted in all criminal proceedings, including cases involving money laundering, corruption, insider trading, manipulation of stock exchange rates and tax fraud (which targets acts of commission and not omission, that is, forged documents - such as false invoices, false accounts or false balance sheets - which have been used to deceive the tax authorities).

On the topic of 'tax evasion': to think it wrong that swiss banks refuse to cooperate with US authorities when the US try to apply their own standards of "taxation by nationality" rather than "taxation by residence" standards of all of Europe and most of the world, makes as little sense as demands that adulterous women residing in the US be stoned to death at the demand of Saudi authorities.

Why Switzerland ?

[o'reor]

That's ridiculous. Why would the French army go to the pains of crossing the alps and trying to invade a country that has atomic shelters everywhere, a well trained national guard and a good army (or reputedly so), when it would only take two days and an infantry division to invade filthy-rich Luxembourg ?

Add a navy operation on Jersey, Guernesey and Sark to hunt down rogue bankers in neighouring tax havens for good measure, and voilà !

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[mjwx]

Add a navy operation on Jersey, Guernesey and Sark to hunt down rogue bankers in neighouring tax havens for good measure, and voilà !

Well Jersey, Guernesey and Sark are all protected by the British crown, that means the first thing they'll do is send angriest Scots in the Royal Army to invade France and historically, this has not worked out well for the French.

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[rapidmax]

Of course this is ridiculous. The scenarios have always been ridiculous. Mostly because there isn't any sane thread scenarios available. At least not for a classical war game that requires a good old army. When I was in the Swiss army we played "Blue Country" against "Yellow Country".

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[Xest]

"a well trained national guard and a good army (or reputedly so)"

I think it's probably more reputed than anything. Is there any reason to think a military that's pretty much never had any combat experience whatsoever is going to be able to even come close to a battle hardened military like the French, British, Americans, or Russians?

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[hotdiggity]

That's ridiculous. Why would the French army go to the pains of crossing the alps and trying to invade a country that has atomic shelters everywhere

Geneva would be a cinch to snap up. It's in low-lying lands, and France can invade it from the northwest, south, west, east. All French territory.

Of course, they would have to contend with the fearsome Swiss Navy on Lake Geneva. I hear they have some fearsome, multipurpose cutlery they could bring to bear.

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[mjwalshe]

No do it as a joint Uk/French/Spanish/German (if they are allowed out after dark these days) operation and take out the Chanel islands Andora,Lictensien and Monaco in one go

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's ridiculous. Why would the French army go to the pains of crossing the alps and trying to invade a country that has atomic shelters everywhere, a well trained national guard and a good army (or reputedly so), when it would only take two days and an infantry division to invade filthy-rich Luxembourg ?

The reason why the idea of France trying to invade Switzerland is so ridiculous is the very same reason why Switzerland organizes these war games: because they prepare themselves. This is the age-old mantra on military spending: money is spent on weapons, armies and drills such as this one so that these weapons and armies aren't ever used.

Regarding any hypothethical invation of Luxemborg, that's a problem for Luxembourgers to worry about, not the Swiss.

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[Nimey]

Look, Switzerland has three neighbors with a military worth a damn (if you count Italy) so they don't have a lot of options for realistic wargames.

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[Gibgezr]

Being well-educated makes soldiers fight better? Interesting concept.
For a differing opinion on this subject, try this movie: A Midnight Clear
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102443/?ref_=sr_1

Re:Why Switzerland ?

[jcdr]

Yes, Geneva is probably easy to invade from the military point of view, and this will not be enough to affect the rest of the Switzerland. But this will cause a major international problem for the invader because there is a lot of international institutions in Geneva, and there will have to react to assert there credibility. Almost half of peoples living in Geneva are not Swiss to give a other view of the picture.

What an odd premise...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

When was the last time that invading somebody for their cash was actually cost effective? Early Roman Empire? Modern war is damned expensive; plus it tends to play scorched earth with various flavors of stored value (human and physical capital destroyed, fiat money's health contingent largely on who wins(and there's always the alternative of just printing what the opposition has squirreled away into worthlessness rather than trying to grab it), markets for assorted intangible assets disrupted, you are basically back to stealing big chests of gold coins, if you can find any). Plus, unlike the good old days of barbaric plunder heaps, modern weapons are so costly that you had better plunder quite efficiently indeed.

Re:What an odd premise...

[stymy]

You underestimate how much money is in Switzerland. Think trillions.

Re:What an odd premise...

[drinkypoo]

When was the last time that invading somebody for their cash was actually cost effective?

For a nation? A long time ago. For the people running the war, and the people selling war supplies? Every time.

Re:What an odd premise...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sometimes not even then: ask the Spanish about the exciting inflationary action that trying to build an economy on the galleon-loads of bullion smash-and-grabbed from South America led to... They scored a massive pile of gold for the cost of a few shiploads of hardened psychos; but you can only buy so much actually-useful stuff for gold before you distort the precious metals market.

Unpossible.

[Snufu]

You can't invade and surrender at the same time.

Mmm... bacon.

[rsborg]

This just isn't that big a deal. The US likely has plans to invade Canada if necessary

Here is some excellent stolen documentary [1] of such a planned exercise.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/

They would deserve it!

[m.alessandrini]

Really, they live on money from all the other european countries! And San Marino, you're the next one!

(add some joking expressions from my face...)

Re:Historically...

[z0idberg]

I'd count staying the fuck out of Iraq as a pretty big win.

Wish I could say the same for my country.

Re:Wisdom follows, pay attention!

[Guy Harris]

The jews like to brag they are stronger than France

Which ones? (Srsly, most broad statements about "the Jews" are very likely to be bogus. There's a saying about that....)

Obligatory

[nicomede]

I, for one, welcome our new chocolate eating, gold-piling overlords (I live in France at 10 km from the Swiss border...)

Re:How about an opponent that has actually won a w

[Anonymous Coward]

That whole thing isn't even funny, it's just emblematic of American ignorance. Given that American independence was only won because of the French through to the fact that America lost, or at least, didn't win, in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan to name just a few it seems a bit rich for Americas to have both made up that myth in the first place and keep persisting it.

I'm from the UK and we really do have a decent track record of defeating the French but I still have more respect for them than I do the US military simply because even with us defeating them a few times they've still won a lot more, and lost a lot less than the US ever has and also because when we've fought alongside the French we've been victim to far less friendly fire incidents than we have suffered from fighting alongside America. Even during World War II the French resistance had an excellent track record of sabotaging the Germans.

You only have to look at Libya and Mali which were French led and compare them to Iraq and Afghanistan which were American led to see that when France goes to war, it more often than not, achieves it's goals quickly and cleanly (the same can be said of the UK: Falklands, Sierra Leone etc.). When America runs a war, it normally loses, and manages to do so over a period of a decade or more costing it thousands of lives and billions of dollars until it's forces lose popular support and just get yanked out with their tail between their legs.

Imagination

[wonkey_monkey]

Operation "Duplex-Barbara" went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel

Pfft. I've imagined way crazier stuff than this in my time.

So how good is this simulation?

[KirschDeborah]

If they have the French surrendering as soon as the fight starts, I'll give props to how realistic this game is.

Re:The plans to invade Canada...

[Megane]

And such delicious maple syrup.

Re:Operation "Hanna-Barbera"..?

[dkleinsc]

Sarkozy would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling Belgians!

Simple solution

[RMingin]

Ok, so Switzerland, who is entirely familiar with the concept of mercenaries, is invaded by France?

The solution lies directly North of Switzerland. Calculate expected damages due to invasion, offer half that amount to the Germans, and watch France surrender.

Hell, if you play your cards right, maybe Germany will cede some of France's territory to you after a few hours, when the French surrender!

(This is for comedic value and is not a serious statement regarding Germany, France, or Switzerland.)

French invading?

[operagost]

Better wear sunglasses; the glare from all those white flags coming out will be intense.

Re:WTF is this shit?

[Eunuchswear]

Oh, damn, I just ordered 3 tonnes of sorbet to clean my dirty pallets.

Re:How about an opponent that has actually won a w

[Eunuchswear]

Uh, France fought and won a war like 8 months ago.

Recently enough for you?

A sign of the times

[hpa]

It is a good sign of the times how far things have advanced that a country in Western Europe cannot come up with any military exercise scenario which can be considered credible. This hasn't exactly been the norm, to put it mildly. At this point in time, the risk of a war in Europe is largely confined to the Balkans, and even there is looking increasingly unlikely that we'll have a full-scale return to fighting.

Re:A sign of the times

[cold fjord]

The challenge will be keeping the peace within for the long term, and meeting external threats.

Neither are guaranteed to be easy.

Re:A sign of the times

[jcdr]

Very true. This is why there is more and more discussion in Switzerland to change the army role. While the majority of the population is afraid of not having a traditional army (we voted on that exact subject just a week ago) there is a raising concern about his efficiency against more modern threads, like government/commercial data theft and manipulation, or terrorism.

Re:How about an opponent that has actually won a w

[the eric conspiracy]

Go ask Saddam Hussein about that.

The big lie of the Swiss

[yooy]

That Germany was afraid to invade Switzerland. Fact I: Switzerland was more useful unoccupied Fact 2: Estimated time to submit Swiss during a war: Less than a week

Re:WTF is this shit?

[cold fjord]

When you get the sorbet, if it doesn't please your palate you can put it on the pallets and ship it back for a refund. Two birds, one stone. ;D

Re:Wisdom follows, pay attention!

[jcdr]

Even the French military power will not be able to kill millions of peoples. The end result of an invasion will be a massive exodus into the other foreign countries, a strong guerrilla into the Alpe and a big international reaction that will certainly not be in the advantage of the invader, nor in the short term, not in the long term. Think just a second how the EU would allow a such aggression from one of his member.