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Originally Posted by Truth-Bringer
A successful insurgency doesn't have to be expensive. See: Iraq.
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Not expensive, but I doubt the extend of the impact. Insurgency might be a nasty thing but a cold winter is nastier. After all the armies did not care too much for the civlians or their safety anyway, and its hard to cut down huge army on its way through your territory by some insurgency. Compared to the extreme over the top defensive structures on French territory it would not have mattered what the Belgians would have done, it would have always been the better choice for Germany.
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The Swiss policy was simply never to surrender. The President told them that any alleged surrender would be Nazi propaganda and should be ignored. If the vast majority of your population is willing to fight to the death, you make it very costly for a foreign power to try and invade you.
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Sure, nice for them. But thats not the reason the Nazis never invaded. They absolutely had no interest in invading it.
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Iraq is thwarting the will of the most powerful military on earth with a small minority of its population. Imagine if the majority of its people were participating in the insurgency.
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I addressed that already above, the situation is entirely different. The insurgency is causing large substantial problems in creating stability and prosperity in Iraq, or even safety, but the US army does not risk military defeat in their own camps against the insurgents. The armies in WWI did not care much about civlians, and if a few soldiers had to loose their lifes to insurgents, that didn't matter either, as they fell to the thousands at the front anyway.
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Granted, in comparison to the U.S., the the majority of Nazis were totally ruthless and had no regard for any human life, but still, there are instances where they were beaten by people who were far less well equipped.
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Oh, we are talking about WWII, not WWI? Well than the insurgents are even less of a point, because with the Blitzkrieg the tanks were already have out of Belgians before much insurgence could have been planned at all...
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They could have overrun the Swiss, but they could have never ended the insurgency. And the "victory" would have been incredibly costly. And, no "what ifs" are set in stone. Its possible that the Swiss could have repelled them. The terrain could have aided them just as the climate aided the Russians in their victory.
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Probably they could have overrun it, but what for? And thats the major point.