Pensi che sia giusto che la Svizzera possa utilizzare solo lo 0,7% del PIL sulla spesa militare e fare solo affidamento sull’essere circondati da paesi della NATO e dell’UE che spengono sempre più il denaro? Inoltre, avendo un accordo bilaterale con l’UE in cui solo CH ottiene i benefici, qualcosa che l’UE implora di rinegoziare? 🙂

idk too busy counting my CHF.

No, we should spend 0.0% instead.

Why choose % of GDP as your metric? Switzerland has less territory to defend, many natural defenses, and an unusually high GDP for its size. Per capita, Switzerland spends more than many of its neighbors. Per square kilometer the same. Percent of adult population military-trained, same.

I think Switzerland is doing a similar degree of military defensive preparedness– perhaps more– than neighbors with a higher percentage of GDP expenditure. If Germany suddenly had a spike in GDP, does that mean they should instantly spend more on the military even though the circumstances of what they have to defend (borders, airspace, etc) haven’t changed? Why GDP?

Switzerland is not in NATO and has a long history of neutrality, albeit in recent years it’s taking more and more positions aligned with the west. All in all nobody is asking Switzerland to raise military spend, even if it has far more capacity and room to do so from a fiscal standpoint.

And that’s because nobody expects the Swiss army to ever be on a mission anywhere. The entire Swiss military system is geared towards extreme defensiveness which is inherently cheaper – basically an heritage of the doctrine in WWII that was successful back then. The point of the doctrine is that you make it so difficult for an enemy to invade Switzerland (even if of course, as a landlocked country eventually they would win) that it becomes more logical to go the diplomatic way.

You may argue this doctrine is a bit obsolete as a concept since nuclear weapons were invented, and I would probably agree to some extent (I for one think Switzerland, like most armies, would be grossly unprepared for an hypothetical and absurd land invasion in a modern era of drones and electronic warfare…but that’s for another day).

Yet, I think it’s Europe that could learn from the Swiss doctrine: arm yourself to a point that Russia looks another way to please Putin’s ego. If Europe starts waking up and actually arm itself as it needs to, yes I think it’d be say for Switzerland to contribute in some form (albeit I don’t think raising its own military spend would be the sensate thing to do). If it’s just an excuse to ask Switzerland for extra money that will be spent on DEI initiatives at the Europarliament, then no thanks.

The bigger problem however is that there is an open secret in Europe: most Europeans do not care about a war with Russia, beyond meaningless words. Russia is never going to attack France, Italy, Spain or Germany. Germans, Italians, French and Spanish people have everything except the willingness of raising their spend to protect Poles, Fins or the Baltics states. That’s why those countries are already ramping up their own military spend, while Macron and the other Western leaders organize nice meetings in Paris and do absolutely nothing concrete since 3 years.

Trump’s actions, as questionable as they are, are just putting this open secret more and more out in the open: Europe is a set of disunited, litigious countries who have very, very little care for each other. Even in front of literal war Europe didn’t move. Let alone the possibility of actually completing the union with a unique marker for services or a banking union, or a real federation. Switzerland won’t and should not do the first move, and for sure not in military, as it’s clearly outside the EU project.