Mar 2, 2007 - Associated Press

ZURICH, Switzerland - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

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"Lost," huh? Yeah ... right. Just like Iran is developing nuclear technology for "peaceful purposes."

“… [I]t’s not a problem,” according to  Mr. Reist. Of course it’s not problem – from the Swiss perspective. And it only stands to reason that Liechtenstein, for its part, would “play down” the affair. It has no army. What are they going to do about it – file a strongly written letter of protest to the United Nations? Guess what: Switzerland doesn’t belong to the UN!

   The notion that the Swiss, who are known for an abiding love of  precision to the point of obsessiveness, might make a mistake like this strains credulity, to say the very least. After all, this is the country where train engineers will slam their doors shut on little old ladies rather than run 10 seconds behind schedule. And lest anyone think that this incursion was insignificant, it’s worth noting that Liechtenstein is less than three miles wide throughout much of its length; at many points, "just over a mile" from the Swiss border puts one halfway to Austria [see map].

   Mr. Riest’s official explanation is seen by cynics as a transparently obvious attempt at propaganda "spin" with more holes then a block of his country’s vaunted cheese. One world traveler, who has lived in central Europe and witnessed the local fondness for fermented spirits, suggests the soldiers’ missteps were alcohol-driven. “Do I have to draw a picture here?” she asked sardonically. “A bunch of guys out in the woods at night, away from the wives and kids, playing soldier-boy?! Let’s just say I don’t think they were drinking hot cocoa around the campfire that night, OK?”

Such raillery notwithstanding, others see a darker picture. “Of course, they didn’t have any ammunition,” said one French border guard who refused to give his name for fear of retribution. “With those knives they’re packing, who needs guns? Believe me, you don’t want to know what they can do with those damn things," he added with a shudder. "Let’s just say you do NOT want to be taken alive by those guys.”

The much-ballyhooed Swiss neutrality has created a deceptively benign image in the minds of many, and it would be a serious mistake to write them off as a gentle bunch of chocolate-eating dairy farmers a-yodeling through the edelweiss in their lederhosen. When the Swiss say that their airspace is neutral, those aren’t just empty words. This is neutrality with an edge, as veteran pilots from World War II can attest. Switzerland has a surprisingly strong air force – and they’re not afraid to use it, either. It’s a little-known fact that Swiss pilots shot down both Nazi and Allied planes that violated Swiss airspace.

So it’s no coincidence that recent furor in Europe over covert CIA flights transporting terrorist suspects to secret foreign prisons has been spearheaded by Switzerland. Presumably, recently-appointed CIA director Michael Hayden (himself a U.S. Air Force general) knows that he and his minions would do well to take Swiss protests seriously. If Switzerland decided once again to aggressively assert the sanctity of its airspace,  the lightly-armed Gulfstreams employed by the CIA and its aviation “front” companies for “extraordinary renditions” would stand little chance against the Swiss arsenal, which includes (among other things) 33 F-18 fighter planes.

A high-ranking Austrian military officer opined that the Swiss action was a strategic probing action designed to test any NATO counter-response. He went on to warn against allowing the apparent comic aspects of this incident to obscure the quiet efficiency behind it. “34,000 people in Liechtenstein – and no one noticed them?” he exclaimed incredulously. “What does that tell you? These guys are no amateurs, that’s for sure.”

When Nazi Germany goose-stepped into the Czech Sudatenland in 1938, it was only the beginning of its march to European domination. Military experts in Brussels express similar concerns over the seemingly imminent annexation of Liechtenstein into a Greater Switzerland, which, they caution, is most likely just the opening gambit of that country’s imperial designs. “They’re picking their battles carefully,” said one Pentagon official, noting the icy calculation with which that Alpine nation might be expected to strike. “They’re not going to take on the Big Boys – yet,” he said. “After Liechtenstein, they’ll target the other Small Fry first: Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra. None of these countries will be able to offer even token resistance, and the Swiss will thus be able to easily establish four proxy states with a minimum of casualties and materiel expenditure. What’s really brilliant about this strategy,” he continued, “is that it will serve to disperse the Swiss military machine across a radius of nearly 1,000 miles, making it exceedingly difficult to mount any effective concentrated counter-strike against them.”

A key acquisition would be Monaco, whose casinos and banks could provide a sizable injection of hard currency for the Swiss. “All Monaco has are three coast guard patrol boats, which wouldn’t be much use against a land invasion from the north,” pointed out a veteran analyst for a prestigious Washington, D.C. foreign policy think tank. “This would also give Switzerland a base for naval operations in the Mediterranean," he added, "from which they could then choke off maritime traffic in both the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, giving them a stranglehold on the economy of the entire region.”


Moreover, it is highly doubtful that the larger European powers would be ready, willing or able to prevent this land grab. Luxembourg, despite its declared neutrality, was summarily invaded during both World War I and II by the Germans, who still harbor the belief that it, like Alsace-Lorain, is rightfully theirs. Hence, Luxembourgians could most likely expect precious little sympathy or help from that quarter, which leaves the French …

The French -- on paper, at least -- are responsible for Monaco’s defense. Students of history, recalling such French military accomplishments as the Maginot Line and military stalwarts like Field Marshall Henri-Philippe Petain (responsible for the infamous Vichy regime), would probably counsel residents of Luxembourg and Monaco, in the event of a Swiss invasion, to simply submit to their fate quietly and spare themselves useless bloodshed and property damage.

Andorra, for its part, while it has been a parliamentary democracy since March 1993, still retains as its chiefs of state two “co-princes”: the president of France and bishop of Seo de Urgel, Spain, who are represented by their local emissaries. This, of course, does not bode well for Andorra. Were it to find itself actually under attack, one can scarcely imagine -- between the language barrier, the inherent hostility between secular and theocratic bureaucracies, and the inevitable squabbling over authority (to say nothing of a lack of ready cash) – that the Andorran authorities would be capable of mounting an effective defense against even a well-led Boy Scout troop.

And while Monaco and Andorra have at least received lip service regarding their defense in a hypothetical crisis, as far as San Marino is concerned Italy has not even gone through the motions of offering any military assistance. “Hey, those guys are on their own; we got enough trouble just keeping a government together for six months,” said Salvatore d'Imbroglio, an outgoing deputy in the Italian Ministry of Defense, while cleaning out his desk. “Here I thought I was all set up with a nice civil service job,” he added. “Now, it looks like I’m going to have to go back to the ... uh, family business in Sicily -- if you know what I mean.”

But while Italian politicians in Rome may be unconcerned with the fate of San Marino (and the four other aforementioned principalities), across town there is yet another tiny nation-state where some may be following these developments with keen interest. This refers, of course, to Vatican City, the political and religious capitol of the Roman Catholic Church.

Switzerland is by no means inexperienced at establishing remote military bases in southern Europe, as can be seen in Vatican City. There, for the past five centuries, the Swiss have maintained a garrison of mercenary soldiers, ostensibly to protect the Pope and safeguard his priceless stores of archeological relics and art treasures from avaricious dukes and militant Protestant reformers. Some chary-eyed observers, casting uneasy glances at the recent events in Liechtenstein, fear they portend the renewal of long-dormant Papal political aspirations.

One such observer is B. Iann MacBelfrey, a Calvinist minister and professor of Medieval history at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. A long-time Vatican-watcher, MacBelfrey harbors deep-seated suspicions that the current Pope – a German, he is quick to point out – may be nursing dreams of ancient glory reborn. “Of course the Vatican is behind this,” he insisted strenuously. “Obviously, this is nothing less than a Papist plot to reconstitute the Holy Roman Empire!”

Professor MacBelfrey claims that a covert alliance between Switzerland and the Vatican would merely be the logical conclusion of a dark and long-standing marriage of convenience. “This is 'realpolitik' at its most diabolical,” he said. “One hand would wash the other: the secret Swiss banking system would permit reactionary elites in Europe and in exile throughout the world to funnel in money,” he continued. “Four puppet regimes for the Papacy, backed by the Swiss military, would be embedded within France, Italy and Spain, from which a propaganda machine could operate with impunity, playing upon the Catholic sympathies of the lumpen proletariat in those countries in order to subvert their secular governments.”

Eventually, feels MacBelfrey, the security apparatus of all three countries, already dominated by a sympathetic Catholic aristocracy, would be infiltrated by operatives for the Vatican, including agents provocateur who would incite popular discontent and give the Papal forces a pretext for a series of military coups d’état, thereby establishing a theocratic hegemony from the English Channel to the Adriatic Sea.

As overwrought as this assessment may appear to many, a more sober-eyed evaluation does not necessarily preclude an unholy alliance between the Swiss government and the Catholic Church. Swiss mercenaries -- known for their harsh code of discipline and unbending loyalty to their employers -- have long been active in European reactionary movements, including the Bourbon Restoration of 1814-30 (when Napoleon abdicated, the French Republic was abolished, and the monarchy restored).

Even today, when most sovereign states expressly prohibit their young men from fighting for, and swearing allegiance to foreign countries, the Swiss government (including its ostensible Protestants) evidently has no objection to seeing hundreds of its citizens raising their right hands with the thumb, index and middle fingers extended (a totemic gesture meant to symbolize the Holy Trinity, one of Catholicism’s more recondite theological tenets) and reciting:

"I swear to faithfully, honestly and honorably serve the reigning Pope and his legitimate successors, and to dedicate myself to them with all my strength, ready to sacrifice, should it become necessary, even my own life for them. I likewise assume this promise toward the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals …”

Moreover, the Swiss Guard maintains a shadowy fraternal network akin to the Knights of the Golden Circle (forerunner to the Ku Klux Klan, originally comprised of former Confederate soldiers). Once their service has ended, all those who have served with whatever title or grade in the Swiss Guard in the Vatican remain in close contact with each other through the Ex-Guardsmann Association, which publishes a regular bulletin, 'The Exgardist.' Members also gather periodically for regional and federal meetings, creating an ideal conduit for political espionage, money laundering and the exchange of military intelligence.

Lieutenant Colonel Diego Gárcía y Vega, military attaché to the Spanish embassy in Rome, was asked about the potential military implications of this Zurich-Vatican Axis. “I fear that, in the event of hostilities, the presence of the Swiss here would put my Italian and French colleagues in … how do you say? — a rather difficult position,” he said, pointing out that as soon as the French and Italians arrayed themselves in any tactical formations against Swiss movement from the north, Switzerland would already have a well-established base behind their lines. “Not only would France then be compelled to divide their forces to counter any possible Swiss attack from the south,” he noted, “Italian supply routes, particularly to San Marino and Monaco, would be in serious jeopardy from the Swiss contingent here in Rome, who would be ideally situated to disrupt them at will.”

Asked if the Spanish military would not also be involved in such a dilemma, given its defense commitment to Andorra, Lt. Col. Gárcía y Vega gave a small shrug and smiled quietly. “My government is most anxious to avoid any unpleasantness involving the Holy Mother Church, which has many faithful followers among the Spanish people, of course. I’m certain that some … how should I say? — accommodation could be reached.” When asked if that meant that Spain would acquiesce to a Swiss takeover of Andorra, the colonel’s manner stiffened somewhat, and he abruptly terminated the interview, claiming to be late for an appointment with his tailor.