ABSTRACT
Switzerland's enduring policies of non-aggression and non-intervention are said to date back to a formal announcement in 1674, as French and Austrian armies faced one another near Basel. In the mid-fifteenth century the Swiss Confederation, with a three century history of dramatic military successes, consisted of a collectivity of eight small, but expanding states renowned as Europe's fiercest and most resolute warriors. Neutrality in Switzerland, having achieved popular and formal institutionalization as an overarching cultural and political ideal, had become a central part of the complex of Swiss nationalism, synonymous with sovereignty and the national interest. The chapter focuses on the rivalries themselves, as processes inhibiting unification necessary for expansive efforts. It discusses local societies bound together in an essentially "acephalous" but interdependent political confederation place constraints on a state's ability to wage war, and thus may contribute to peaceful external relations.
