I thought that the Netherlands were attacked in WWI. Was that not part of the Schleppen (Likely misspelled) Plan that Germany followed in WWI? Is this wrong?

Switzerland has not been in any wars for hundreds of years because of the mountains around Switzerland and not just their neutrality. Even if Switzerland did have enemies and didn't work on creating the powerful mountain defenses, many countries wouldn't have attacked Switzerland because of their inherent natural defenses.

The Dutchman is correct,of course. The Netherlands were neutral in WW1. After the war "Der Kaiser" went even to live there in exile. If memory serves me well he also is burried there.

__________________
-Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Decimus Iunius Iuuenalis).
Murphy was a bleedin' optimist!

i actually wouldnt know if he's buried here, never heard this. he did indeed hold residence here though.

I'm sure geography, neutrality, defenses, and the banks were all important factors for preserving peace.

I think the main point of contention about the effectiveness of neutrality to prevent things like terrorism is whether the Islamic extremists attack us because we intervene in their affairs, or if they attack us because they want to destroy freedom and our way of life, as Bush puts it. I'm sure a couple of them simply want to destroy us, but I'm sure Bin Laden would find his recruit pools rather dry if not for America's arrogant and interventionistic foreign policy.

But Belgium was not as prepared, militarily, as Switzerland was. You have to be neutral AND militarily strong. The Swiss national militia is a perfect model for this.

Good points, but you're still leaving out some things:

"Neither Nationalist nor Socialist: How the Swiss Kept Their Freedom in World War II"

(by Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute, from Reason Magazine)

An "island of liberty and harmony in a sea of dictatorship and discord" and "a citadel of peace through stormy centuries," to quote a 1938 New York Times analysis; "it is a land of hard work and frugal habits, of justice and cleanness and tolerance, of the very essence of live-and-let-live" -- and, not incidentally, the bulwark of free-market capitalism in Europe. To say that Switzerland enjoyed a favorable reputation in America until recently would be to understate matters. Today, after a relentless and astonishingly one-sided media campaign, there is scarcely a horror tale about the Swiss too extreme or absurd to be picked up in the press.

The assault began with widely circulated allegations -- the truth is less clear-cut than news reports have made it sound -- that Swiss banks swallowed great sums deposited in private accounts by victims of the Holocaust. (At press time, Swiss banks had reached a tentative agreement to settle those allegations, and avert threatened sanctions, by paying more than $1 billion.)

Picking up its own momentum, the indictment soon expanded into a depiction of the Swiss as a nation of heartless profiteers, "Hitler's silent partners," working to advance the Nazi cause without being shot at. In June the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center made worldwide headlines by issuing a report claiming that pro-Nazi activity "thoroughly saturated...the core of Swiss society." Teenagers now grow up hearing that the Swiss spent World War II rooting for the Axis powers.

Now Stephen Halbrook, an attorney and well-known Second Amendment expert (he's the author of 1984's That Every Man Be Armed), has taken a much-needed look at the Swiss wartime record in a new book titled "Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II." The book not only provides a starting point for all future discussions of Switzerland's military role in the war, but also makes an interesting contribution to the literature on both federalism and gun rights; according to Halbrook, Switzerland's traditions of extreme decentralization and of a well-armed populace played a key role in preserving its freedom in an hour of peril.

Rest of article at:

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Well I do not really see how this adresses the point that Switzerland was one of the major war profiteers. It had not really a damage but could sack a lot of lost Nazi money. When no one is left to claim it and no one knows anything the money remained where it was at the large Swiss banks.

The Swiss did not do much harm to anyone, but the vastly profitated from the cruelties and crimes of WWII.

Belgium was strategically very important, Switzerland was not. Not in those specific cases. The geography did also help a lot in favor of the Swiss.

Belgium could have militarized as much as it wanted, it would not have saved them, unless they would have ruined their economy and put every single coin into the army already before the war and even then...

Well I'm certainly not claiming that the geography couldn't be considered a factor, but I still think that the policy is more important.

A successful insurgency doesn't have to be expensive. See: Iraq. 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.

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.

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. 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.