Or maybe he had money in Switzerland.

I'm not sure. I think that it had more to do with the neo-con's shifting attention to Iraq, which most Americans didn't associate with 9/11 and by the time of the Iraq invasion, quite a few were beginning to doubt the stories put out by the government.

Every country works out lots of plans that might or might not ever be used. The existence of that war plan does not mean it was intended for use.

War plans serve many purposes, including training tools for your officer corps.

I agree that in one one respect Switzerland did luck out tremendously.

The lets invade synapse in Hitler's unstable mind did not trigger on Switzerland. Or perhaps he listened to the OKW in that instance.

If we accept that Switzerland was a repository for ill gotten loot from the Nazis and the Fascists, that is probably why they were not invaded. The Swiss certainly could have put a defense long enough to transfer that loot out of the country. You don't rob your own bank.

When ISIS starts shooting at our embassy staff, we're involved whether we want to be or not...

Choosing not to get involved is not passivity; it is a positive decision not to get involved. If that is passivity, then most of us are passively not getting involved in other people's arguments and affairs most of the time.

I did not intend to imply a conspiracy to delay our entry into Europe because we were waiting for Russia to absorb more losses. As it was, we were too late to prevent the Soviet acquisition of Eastern Europe.

I agree with you that we should either clear out of Iraq or completely take it over. My preference is the former.

The root causes of the problems in the Middle East go back many centuries, before the US was a gleam in the Founding Fathers' eyes. We are following a long line of countries who have stuck themselves on the Middle Eastern tar baby and have found it quite difficult and painful to become unstuck.

As I said on another thread here, I favor the George Washington foreign policy: neutrality, trade with all, but stay away from alliances and stay out of Europe's wars. That is no isolationism. Economics has never been confined to national borders, and do we make nuclear explosions, the ultimate act of terrorism, more or less likely by intervening in the Middle East. I would argue the former.

To make an argument about a policy, I have to then state where I think that policy will lead. If that is assuming the consequences, I'm guilty as charged. How does one argue the best course of action without making some assumption about the consequences of that course of action?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_...

Germany was GOING to do it! Regardless of Swiss neutrality declarations or the fact that they were armed to the teeth. That wasn't going to save them.

The German war strategy demonstrably didn't make sense. They attacked Russia for reasons that amount to "Well, let's keep our troops busy. They have nothing better to do since we're not going to get to Britain quickly". When that operation went pear-shaped, they couldn't bother with a country that wasn't giving them trouble.

If the equation weighed out the other way, yes they would have gone into Switzerland.

But as always, its easier to pick the low hanging fruit.

Agreed, but there are two sides to that equation. The cost and the benefit. I would argue there was almost no benefit. But if the benefit was higher neutrality would not have saved the Swiss.

It would have to be an attack large enough to represent a mortal threat to the nation.

911 was a significant attack and it didn't cause us to pursue the fight with the vigor of WW2.

Multiple 911s might have done so... but not a single one of that size

I agree with your feelings about passivity, particularly in relation to our involvement in the middle east. The very first thing I learned when in a situation where bullets are being fired at you, is get to cover. Then, if you aren't in position to overcome those shooting at you, get the hell out of there. Live to fight another day.

They were strong enough to convince the Axis powers that the payoff of invasion would not be worth the price of invading.

And that was sufficient unto the day for them.

Maybe so, but if we waited until we were actually threatened or attacked, then we might well embrace those two concepts.

Probably true, but they were not strong enough to hold off Hitler and Mussolini.

If you consider that an objectivist philosophy based on owning oneself and having natural rights while also having respect for those same rights of others, then would not a nation based on those ideals also be rationally consistent with that philosophy? What else is there to analyze? I maintain that a nation has no more right to utilize force and coercion than does an individual, except in self defense. And within that, I might concede some level of pre-emption with sufficient proof that another intends harm. But as to influence--I'm not confident that matters to our success as a nation, more than the demonstration of the success of a country operated under the intent of the founders.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in the last statement, in that I intended that we may owe to ourselves the need to make gainful contributions to the stability of our own nation. (In the last decade or so, the US has dropped way down on the list of countries with the most freedom, either economically or individually. We currently have the largest prison population per capita or actually of any nation on earth. Some 2.1 to 2.6 million) But to do even that, we would have to stretch the concept of individual to our nation of individuals.

As to repressed emotions, I've always worked hard to not allow emotions to control my actions or opinions.

Exactly.

I never wanted us involved there in the first place. Its never going to be quick and clean, there is no easy solution.

Switzerland was far more able to defend itself than Norway, Finland or any of the other smaller states at the start of WW2 were.