Heaven said:
Push the issue with the military? Against Switzerland? You cannot possibly be serious.
1. Switzerland quickly proceeds to freeze all US assets in its banks, shattering the American economy.
2. The entire international community unites against the US, destroying the last hundred years of economic and military power the country has developed.
3. A male population entirely trained with the use of assault rifles obliterates anything less than a full strength ground invasion, so you've killed off hundreds of thousands of American soldiers.
4. If that were to even happen, because any government stupid enough to launch that attack would face a military insurrection and a coup.
The military is a very limited tool, that is only useful to prevent active threats to a country's security. I'm not sure if you're trolling here, but you need to realize that A) America is not the overlord of the world, and B) NOBODY is the boss of Switzerland. Ever.
That's comedy gold.
Understand something, economics are meaningless to war, always have been, and always will be. Indeed obtaining money for a nation in trouble or that owes a lot of debt is one of the classic reasons for a war, after all if you kill the people that you owe money to, or take direct control of their assets, it solves a lot of problems.
I mean, I understand why liberals and the peace at any price movement have convinced themselves of this, but it's not true, and never has been.
Given the reasons for it, there would hardly be any kind of unification behind Switzerland if such a thing did happen, once the lines were drawn you'd probably find a lot of people wanting a piece out of making an example out of them, in hopes that it trickles down to nations like China and other countries that actually represent a threat.
Also do not confuse a real war with the crap you see in Iraq or Afghanistan, that's a police action run by morons. The entire principle of the US military is based on technology and to eradicate entire nations and cultures without even giving them a chance to fight back. We went in there with assault rifles for moral reasons (despite what anyone wants to think) and pretty much fought contrary to the entire development of our technology and engagement doctrine. The US military is designed to simply inflict devestation and use troops for little more than clean up, Even without WMD we have bombs and missles that can wipe out entire towns and cities more or less instantly. We just choose not to use them (despite all peacetime hype) because of collateral damage, which is one of the reasons so few people take the US seriously even if they understand the power we represent. Basically you can seriously hamstring the US by QQing where you can't defeat it militarily.
If the US comes for you, and REALLY means it, unless you happen to be China your pretty much doomed. Even if the entire world came at the US, it wouldn't work. We have something like a 20% chance of being able to simultaneously defeat/kill everyone else on the planet and remain something resembling the nation we are now after the enviromental fallout. The odds of the rest of the world are 0%, the US has the firepower to destroy the world 10x over without batting an eye.
A "war" between the US and Switzerland would probably amount to the US actually putting it's foot down for once and saying "we've decided you will do this, no diplomacy, do it or we'll make you regret it" followed by Switzerland laughing it off because the US usually backs down. This would be followed by guided missles simultaneously blowing through swiss air defenses like they aren't there and taking out every swiss leader not currently hiding in a bunker, and a few large bombs reducing a major city or three to rubble... after which the interim goverment would concede to whatever we demanded. There would of course be a lot of QQing both in the US and from the international community, but oddly a lot of those doing the QQing would also be overjoyed at the example we made and covertly start pointing thumbs at it when it comes to questions of IP rights.
See, right now it's hip to treat the US like it's not the dominant world power, or is in trouble for any reason other than we have allowed it to be for moral reasons. Barring a world unity, we will probably eventually be replaced due to our own choices, or someone else developing something we can't stop that is a game changer, but that's not today, and probably not tomorrow, or even next year... and right now is when we're being dealt with. Never, ever forget that most of what happens occurs because of what the US chooses to do, not due to us being forced to or having limited options. We choose not to invade and level countries, even against our own interests, not because we can't, or anyone could stop us, or because the world would "unify against us" (which is a big joke, some countries might, but a lot wouldn't care what we were doing but jump on our coattails for their own interests and because they would want to back the likely winner for their own benefit...)
Of course the funniest thing is that I was speaking in generalities which should have been obvious. But really, the swiss are a country whose survival strategy has been to declare neutrality to limit how badly they get steamrolled, and it's hilarious for people to act like they are a military power that would have everyone running to their aid. Honestly given how many people they have pissed off with their banking practices and how a lot of the politics have played out I think there are plenty of nations who would be cheering to see them decimated for any reason. Global "dirty finance" (the Swiss specialty) has been moving increasingly to places like The Caiman islands due to the Swiss pissing people off and already having guns put to their head to force reforms that made them far less attractive
to their clientele of choice. Heck, due to their handling of finances for terrorists and such under the pretensions of neutrality people have argued (beyond the context of this arguement) that they could be considered complicit in a lot of the worst crimes of the last few centuries through knowingly enabling these groups.
Don't worry however, I don't think the US will go in and slap the Swiss around over this policy. We generally don't do things like that despite the rumors. Besides it would never come to an actual war of the level I mention if we decided to. We'd probably just have to make a few subtle displays that we were actually serious for once and willing to go to
that point and the Swiss would back down despite what a lot of people might want to think.
Of course we won't for moral reasons, not because we can't. In general the big left wing arguement prevails that by doing that kind of thing we'd actually become the empire everyone treats us as. While I personally don't care if we are or not, the nation is polarized on issues like that.
