The Swiss are coming! And they have little knives.

Despite having a landlocked country in the Alps, the Swiss are not above maintaining a working naval force. Also, the obligatory military service of Switzerland means that this paragon of neutrality has one of the biggest armies per capita on the planet. We must not be blinded by their chocolate and cuckoo clocks, the Swiss are coming.

On March 3^rd, 2007, a first incursion of Swiss imperialism occurred on the Swiss/Liechtenstein border when a company of 171 Swiss «shock troops» crossed for some harmless recon. They made it two kilometers before turning back, we are told that it was an accident and that the whole thing should be shrugged off as an amusing ephemerid. The media buys it. They know nothing! Back in 1985, the same excuse was given when several Swiss ballistic missiles where fired for testing and «accidentally» landed in Liechtenstein.

The Swiss are preparing for war and the small principality at its Northeast will be the first to suffer the yolk of the Tyrolean oppression.

Exaggeration? Maybe. Overdramatic? Almost certainly, but it wouldn’t be the first time that a quiet country silently builds up military might and unleashes unsuspected hell upon the world.

In 1607, some settlers landed on a rock and founded Jamestown Virginia. Following that, for over a hundred and fifty years, the American colonists seemed like a friendly bunch of people that were much better off that the French colonists of the north who were battling frostbite, natives, famine and possibly bears. The settlers of the 13 colonies were prosperous slave merchants, farmers and «participants» in the mercantilistic triangular trade. One day, the Americans were confident enough to put down the farm tools and destroy all things British in the new world. Who knew they had such hidden military strategy and potential, certainly not the British, French or Spanish whom all succumbed to the territorial expansion of These «United» States (I place the word united in parenthesis to emphasis the irony of the impending civil war).

Similarly, when Hitler brilliantly thought that he could fight victoriously on two fronts at once and invaded the Soviet Union, he had no idea that the Reds had stayed home after the revolution and the wars of 1918-1922 to train and build. Millions had been grouped into militias and all food production was diverted to military mass production. They weren’t eating well but they sure pulled a «Napoleon» on old Adolf. Stalin’s following expansion led to the formation of the Danzig-Trieste iron curtain and to the cold war.

Now I am not saying that Swiss imperialism would not be a good thing but I am just saying to be careful. Perhaps they even have the bomb. I know, I know, no one really knows anything about Liechtenstein (I had to look up the spelling) but then again, no one knew anything about Afghanistan in early 2001. Think about it.

(Pictured: The flag of the first 13 American colonies - an imperial Swiss army knife)

End.