Notes on the neutrality initiative’s enemies

Leading figures behind the neutrality initiative are being pilloried by the Zürich-based “Tages-Anzeiger”, a sort of dossier on the Swiss “Axis of Evil,” provided by an editorial team that claims to stand for “independent, critical, and competent quality journalism.”

The tone is set right from the headline: “Left-wing Putin sympathisers and coronavirus rebels: The unholy alliance behind Blocher’s initiative.” And to ensure there is not a moment’s doubt about the danger which is threatening Switzerland, the subhead immediately follows up with the question: “Who are these doubios accomplices?”
    What is this about? On 27 September, Swiss citizens will vote on the Neutrality Initiative. Its objective is clear: Switzerland is to return to a state of armed, perpetual neutrality – a stance it abandoned when it sided with the European Union and Ukraine and imposed economic sanctions on Russia. Switzerland is to refrain from joining any military alliance unless the country itself comes under attack. This is to be enshrined in the constitution.

Cross-party support for the initiative

The fact that prominent figures from various political camps are now backing the neutrality initiative ought to lead an editorial team possessed of sober, objective judgment to recognise that here is a process deserving of respect, generally known as democracy. The “Tages-Anzeiger” could simply state: “People from across Switzerland’s political spectrum support the Neutrality Initiative.” However, since the unthinkable cannot be allowed to be true – namely, that a sensible idea supported by the SVP, the Swiss People’s Party, could actually win people over – the author resorts to obfuscation and linguistic sleight of hand:¹
    “The camp of proponents has undergone a remarkable transformation and broken out of the national-conservative spectrum.” No. No front has opened up anywhere. Nor has any front shifted. “J’appelle un chat un chat,” – I call a cat a cat,” wrote Nicolas Boileau three centuries ago. This satirist, who mocked high-flown rhetorical nonsense, would today be astonished to read what feats of linguistic acrobatics the press performs to obscure the facts.

The spectre of Beelzebub

For a long time the Social Democratic-Green mainstream had only one argument against the Neutrality Initiative: “Not yet another Blocher initiative” In that juste milieu, the opposition to Christoph Blocher, the former federal councillor, is pursued as a matter of principle and as a substitute for actual policy. However, now the problem has arisen that there are many proponents of the initiative speaking up from within the political Left, causing the editorial team at the “Tages-Anzeiger” to lose the clear-cut enemy stereotype that served as their justification for rejecting the initiative.
    Lacking actual arguments, the author of the article now turns to the laborious task of presenting a sort of card index listing the individuals who champion the Neutrality Initiative and whom the “Tages-Anzeiger” lumps together as an “unholy alliance” of politically toxic elements. They are all gathered here, from the right-wing Pro Schweiz and the Giardino group to the Swiss peace movement, Communists, and the “instigators of protests against coronavirus measures.” Christoph Pfluger is inevitably included: After all, his association, Friedenskraft, Peace Power, advocates nonviolence in politics and holds scandalously “critical positions” regarding NATO and the US. Investigations by the Tages-Anzeiger have revealed that Pfluger has held rallies with historian Daniele Ganser, who is always and inevitably described as “controversial.” The “Tages-Anzeiger” leaves no doubt: The air around these neutrality fundamentalists reeks of sulfur and Beelzebub.
    Few escape unscathed. Among those attacked are Pascal Lottaz, the Kyoto University professor and publisher of Neutrality Studies, and the renowned social scientist Professor Wolf Linder. Apparently, no holiday snapshots from the Kremlin or moral slurry stains could be found on them. How great must be the fear of arguments among those producing “independent, competent, quality journalism” if the paper cannot bring itself to devote even a single full page to publishing one of the many lectures on neutrality given by experts such as Wolf Linder or Pascal Lottaz?

‘Feelings replace insight’

The Partei der Arbeit, the Party of Labour, is also counted among these “colourful accomplices.” According to the “Tages-Anzeiger”, this party defines a neutral Switzerland as a “non-aligned Switzerland that does not go along with the imperialist policies of the West and does not support the new Cold War against China and Russia.” This statement appears so brazen that the “Tages-Anzeiger” journalist can think of nothing better to do than quote Jo Lang, an experienced historian and former Green Party national councillor. According to Lang, these apostles of neutrality constitute a “reactionary amalgam of Covid deniers or “minimizers” and Putin sympathisers.” Quod erat demonstrandum.
    Sociologist Kurt Imhof once remarked on the problem of enduring hostile stereotypes: “Strangely enough, we possess a mode of emotional processing that operates independently of cause-and-effect relationships; for this, I use the disparaging term ‘gut-level Stalinism.’ Feelings replace insight. And feelings come cheap.”

Should Switzerland finally capitulate?

To the sober mind, it is incomprehensible why the very same Social Democrats and Greens – many of whom until recently wanted to abolish the army – are now currying favour with a European Union that has been arming Ukraine for over a decade and officially declares it expects a war against Russia in 2029 or 2030. These Swiss pilgrims to Brussels are flirting with a European Union that is piling up mountains of debt for an irrational arms build-up.
    Russia will “always be an enemy and a danger to our European security,” said a Christian Democrat politician² in 2025 – this from Ignazio Cassis, who is now the federal foreign minister. One has to wonder whether any German over the age of sixty failed to notice during his lifetime that things did not end well the last time Germans declared eternal enmity against the Russians.
    Following the political motto “all against the SVP,” the Free Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Centre, and the Greens are banking on a rejection of strict neutrality and so hitching their wagons to a “sick horse,” – the European Union. They seek to curry favour with Brussels – which, through its sanctions against Russia, is driving EU industry into the ground. Instead of affordable Russian gas, the EU is purchasing American product at three to four times the price. And the war involving Iran is only exacerbating energy problems.Rumours are already circulating that the ailing Volkswagen Group, which just announced plans to lay off 50,000 workers, may need to be rescued by the Chinese. By prosecuting its economic war against Russia, the European Union has chosen a path toward its own economic decline. The fact that this path could – incidentally – also lead to nuclear war seems of no concern to the war planners in Brussels, who, just by the way, bear responsibility for the lives of 452 million people. And now EU zealots and NATO enthusiasts in Switzerland wish to hitch their wagon to this “Titanic.” They evidently want to be on board when Brussels rehearses for “war readiness.”
    The Federal Department of Defence is marching NATO-wards. “We must prepare for an imminent war,” Defence Minister Martin Pfister told the “Tages-Anzeiger” in late May 2025; his predecessor, Viola Amherd, had sounded the same note a year earlier: “Switzerland intends to intensify international cooperation with NATO, the EU, and on a bilateral basis,” Amherd said, “while upholding its obligations under neutrality law.”³ Yet it is not possible to intensify military cooperation with NATO while simultaneously guaranteeing adherence to “obligations under neutrality law.” Neutrality is not a pair of trainers one wears only in fair weather, leaving them at home during a downpour to slip into NATO combat boots instead.

The three famous monkeys …

Like the three famous monkeys, those who seek to make neutrality “flexible” shut their eyes, mouths, and ears to avoid acknowledging the fact that the European Union has long since become a party to the war in Ukraine. Military specialists from key NATO nations are collaborating with the Ukrainian army in areas such as weapons production, technical training, electronic reconnaissance, target acquisition, and intelligence. Media have published extensive coverage of CIA sites in Ukraine.⁴ One need not be a military expert to know that a cruise missile such as the Storm Shadow – which Kyiv has used to strike eastward since 2023 – cannot be deployed without the assistance of British and French technical personnel. Journalists willing to do the research could discover with a single mouse click that the US began arming Ukraine as early as 1990 and has maintained “boots on the ground” there ever since.
    When Ukraine fractured politically in 2014 following the NATO-backed coup in Kyiv – with the east having historically maintained closer ties to Russia – the government in Kyiv attempted to crush the resistance by military means. Eight long years of artillery fire directed at the Donbas, combined with the rampages of units like the far-right Azov Brigade, ultimately triggered the Russian invasion. The fact that NATO bears at least partial responsibility for this war – being determined to bring Ukraine into the alliance despite the clear understanding that nuclear-armed Russia would not tolerate further NATO expansion – remains a taboo subject among Swiss proponents of NATO and the mainstream media outlets aligned with them.

The foreign minister’s ‘flexible neutrality’

Last Tuesday, Foreign Minister Cassis explained his opposition to the Neutrality Initiative during a broadcast on Swiss television this way: “Neutrality is not indifference. If someone fails to abide by the rules, we must act.”
    It can be assumed that Cassis is referring to, among other things, the 1945 UN Charter, which prohibits wars of aggression. Exceptions apply only if a state is directly attacked or if the UN Security Council authorises military intervention (e.g., UN peacekeeping forces).
    During last Tuesday’s press conference, none of the journalists present seems to have asked Cassis why he did not “act” when President Trump ordered a commando operation last January to abduct Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela – an operation that resulted in the deaths of at least 80 people, including the Venezuelan president’s bodyguards.⁵ There is surely no legal expert at the Department of Foreign Affairs who would describe the raid on Venezuela as consistent with international law. In that instance, the very “rules” Mr. Cassis speaks of were disregarded. In such cases, Cassis says, “We must act.” But he did not act.
    His problem is that great powers rarely observe Ignazio Cassis’s “rules” when waging war. The US Congress’s Congressional Research Service has documented 250 US military interventions since 1991.⁶ A large proportion of these were “controversial under international law” – a mild way of describing the brutal power politics characterising the actions of the US (and by extension the other Western powers) when so-called vital interests are at stake. Many of these are covert operations that rarely become known to the general public. One recent example is the jihadist war the US supported in Syria beginning in early 2012 (if not earlier), which resulted in some 700,000 fatalities and which displaced 13 million people.
    For decades, the US has effectively played the role of global policeman – using NATO as a crowbar – with the unstated intent of enforcing the dollar as the dominant currency. “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.” That was US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s famous 1998 dictum. But perhaps Ignazio Cassis did not quite get all that.

Moral soap bubbles

The claim that neutrality must be slightly diluted to “punish the aggressor” in international conflicts is a moral soap bubble that will burst at the slightest contact with reality. Did the Swiss government seek out and punish the aggressor during the twenty-one years the Americans waged war in Vietnam after the French defeat – the most genocidal conflict since 1945? What business did the US army have in Vietnam?
    Did the Swiss Federal Council seek out and sanction the aggressor during the twenty years of war in Afghanistan? What business did NATO have in Afghanistan? Immediately after 9/11, President George W. Bush accused the Taliban of responsibility, insisting they be held accountable for the attack. The US was never able to produce evidence of this, yet the fabricated case for justified “self-defence” served as a blank check for the “war on terror” across the globe.
    What kind of delusional ride are those people on who believe Switzerland needs to handle its neutrality “flexibly” to teach moral lessons to great powers such as Russia or China? Moral self-righteousness is invariably accompanied by hypocrisy. Mr Cassis certainly uttered no outcry to campaign for the freezing of Swiss bank accounts belonging to pro-government Israeli and American businesspeople – even though President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iran in February as a “pre-emptive strike” without any basis in international law.
    For two centuries, neutrality has guaranteed Switzerland freedom from war. It has brought the country great prosperity, as vast amounts of capital flowed from war-torn and unstable regions into neutral Switzerland. It has transformed Geneva into a hub for international legal institutions and global diplomacy. How can anyone be so blind as not to see that all of this was the product of neutrality? How can anyone be so politically tone-deaf as to believe that neutrality can be bent on a case-by-case basis to garner applause in Washington, Berlin, or Brussels, without causing harm to Switzerland?
    All those who seek to dilute neutrality today – preaching “Western values” and a “rules-based order” while fleeing from the “evil Russians” under NATO’s “protective shield”– are intellectually stuck in 1990. They still believe that the US, as the hegemonic superpower, dictates the course of the world through the North Atlantic alliance. But that era is over. Today, the Trump administration is no longer capable of keeping the oil trade’s most vital maritime routes open or of putting a check on the Israeli war machine. The ten BRICS nations – including Russia, China, and India – now have a significant say in geopolitics. If they no longer view Switzerland’s neutrality as guaranteed, then there will be an end to our era of “good offices” – and of good times.

NATO and nuclear bombs

The case of Germany illustrates what it means to be in step with NATO. Two dozen US nuclear bombs are stationed at Büchel in the Eifel region. German fighter pilots routinely train for their deployment. One need not be privy to military secrets to know that, in case of their being used, Russia would be the target. Yet ordinary German citizens do not want nuclear weapons in their country. Even the German parliament has clearly spoken out against them – but to no avail. There is no direct democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany allowing the people to vote on such matters. The Americans and NATO decide whether or not there are nuclear weapons in Germany. They also decide that their wars and drone strikes in West Asia and Africa – those “flying executions”– are conducted via the US airbase at Ramstein, which serves as a relay station.⁷ The German people have no say in this.

‘Daring peace is the courage of the brave’

There have been 250 wars since 1991. Our Swiss “neutrality surgeons” have evidently come to the conclusion that Switzerland must finally join a little in these wars – if only by imposing sanctions on the “bad guys” and applauding the “good guys.” All “for the sake of our security.” Yet even the historical knowledge of an average secondary school student would be enough to see that it would be better for our security to remain neutral when the likes of Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, and Boris Pistorius are preparing for war against Russia or China or both. Pascal Lottaz puts it simply: “Neutrality means: I simply do not participate – neither with arms shipments nor with sanctions.” Daring peace is the courage of the brave, as a Taoist saying goes. •

¹https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/neutralitaetsinitiative-linke-allianz-verbuendet-sich-mit-svp-965741584176
²https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/johan-wadephul-cdu-politiker-wird-opfer-von-russischem-fake-anruf-a-821aed70-85a8-4ece-b2fa-0f9012fbab88
³https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/viola-amherd-wir-muessen-jetzt-in-die-verteidigung-investieren-192326706997
⁴https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html
⁵https://taz.de/Trumps-Angriff-in-Venezuela/!6143137/
⁶https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions-1991/
⁷https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/welt/air-base-in-ramstein-ein-abzug-der-usa-waere-eine-katastrophe/

Originally published in Global Bridge on 14 August; https://globalbridge.ch/ein-reaktionaeres-amalgam-von-putin-verstehern/

(Translation Current Concerns)

* Helmut Scheben, born in Koblenz, Germany, in 1947, was a wire service reporter and news media correspondent in Mexico and Central America from 1980 to 1985. In 1986 he became editor of the weekly newspaper WoZ in Zürich; from 1993 to 2012 he was an editor and reporter for Swiss television, SRF, and for 16 of those years he was with Tagesschau.