The Limits of Compensation Swiss Neutrality Policy in the Cold War ✣ Thomas Fischer and Daniel Mockli¨ After World War II, Switzerland was in a unique position in Europe. Although situated in the center of Europe, it had not been attacked by Nazi Germany and could thus emerge from the war with a strong economy, stable political institutions, and social cohesion. This peculiar experience of World War II forged a collective identity and role perception different from that of other continental states. The Swiss felt a deep emotional commitment to neutrality and shared a conviction that autonomous defense would continue to be an effective security strategy after 1945. The Swiss government acknowledged the need for, and was supportive of, the new United Nations (UN) collective security system and was also well aware of the benefits of Western collective defense and European integration as the Cold War divide came about. But Switzerland was willing to associate with these new multilateral governance structures only to the extent that they did not erode neutrality—or, in the case of European integration, Swiss economic interests. Swiss decision-makers accordingly came up with a foreign policy doctrine that rendered neutrality a quasi-axiomatic paradigm of Swiss postwar foreign policy. This was coupled to an ideologization of neutrality that was to defend the country against future outside accusations. The conceptual basis for Swiss neutrality during the Cold War was laid during the long tenure of Foreign Minister Max Petitpierre, in office from 1945 to 1961. The main elements were non-membership in military alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and in international “political” institutions such as the UN, as well as non-participation in the European integration process. Switzerland was severely criticized in the immediate postwar period over the its neutrality, but it gradually managed to foster international acceptance of its foreign policy conception by pursuing a strategy of compensation, promoting itself as a neutral mediator and humanitarian benefactor outside the UN, and participating in Western economic, technological, and cultural cooperation. However, the limits of this strategy became increasingly visible in the early Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 4, Fall 2016, pp. 12–35, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00678 C 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 12 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00678 by guest on 01 October 2021 Swiss Neutrality Policy in the Cold War 1970s, when major changes in the international system occurred with the onset of superpower detente´ and a shift of focus in the UN system from the East- West to the North-South axis. However, efforts to adapt Swiss foreign policy and open up toward more multilateralism in the 1980s were rejected by Swiss voters, as traditionalist notions of neutrality proved resilient on the domestic level. This article shows that the effects of the postwar policy of promoting a rigid understanding of neutrality as a cornerstone of Swiss identity decisively narrowed the foreign policy options of Switzerland in the later Cold War years and are indeed felt to this day. The article is divided into five sections. The first section examines the establishment of a rigid neutrality conception after World War II and outlines the practical handling of neutrality in the early Cold War period. The second section analyzes the conceptual basis of Swiss Cold War neutrality—including its compensatory elements—and explains how neutrality became ideologized after 1945. The article then looks at how Swiss neutrality regained international acceptance by the mid-1950s and assesses the extent to which the Swiss were able to implement their compensation strategy at the height of the Cold War. Next we examine the Swiss government’s difficulties in adapting Swiss foreign policy to the changes of the international system in the later Cold War period, with the electorate turning down Swiss membership in the UN in 1986. In the concluding section, we offer a brief look at the growing domestic polarization concerning Switzerland’s role in the world after the end of the Cold War, with the meaning of neutrality becoming a hotly debated issue. This section also discusses how the historiography of the subject of Swiss neutrality has evolved since 1989.1 Sticking with Neutrality after 1945 When World War II ended, the Swiss were dead set on maintaining their traditional policy of neutrality, no matter how the world was changing. The Swiss widely believed that the policy of neutrality and autonomous defense had 1. For two general overviews of the recent historiography of Switzerland’s international relations during the Cold War, see Sacha Zala, “Publications sur les relations internationales de la Suisse parues depuis la fin de la Guerre froide: Notice historiographique,” Relations Internationales, No. 113 (Spring 2003), pp. 115–133; and Andreas Wenger and Christian Nuenlist, “A ‘Special Case’ between Independence and Interdependence: Cold War Studies and Cold War Politics in Post–Cold War Switzerland,” Cold War History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (May 2008), pp. 213–240. See also Sacha Zala, “Historiografische Anmerkungen zur Geschichte der schweizerischen Aussenbeziehungen in der Nachkriegszeit,” Traverse, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2013), pp. 242–257. 13 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00678 by guest on 01 October 2021 Fischer and Mockli¨ prevented an invasion by the Wehrmacht. Moreover, even if neutrality could not guarantee an effective defense against future challenges, the same could be said from the Swiss perspective about the global and regional institutions that emerged after the war. Neutrality, however, did not have a good international standing in the postwar period, and it had to be redefined in relation to the new global and European governance structures in some way or other. Accordingly, the process of conceptualizing Swiss postwar neutrality took place against the background of a series of practical foreign policy challenges. The most immediate, though conceptually least influential challenge con- cerned the Allies’ intense criticism of how the Swiss had practiced neutrality during World War II. The United States had respected the Swiss decision in 1944–1945 not to join the war despite the likely victory of the Allies, but it strongly criticized the Swiss for continuing to trade with Nazi Germany. Although the Swiss pointed out that neutrality law allowed for trade with all countries at war, they were accused of prolonging the war and of profiteering. Swiss concessions in the Washington Agreement of 1946 attained a provi- sional settlement of the dispute with the United States, Britain, and France over German assets in Switzerland and gold acquired from the Reichsbank. Yet, Swiss neutrality continued to be viewed with skepticism in the international arena, with the country only gradually succeeding in overcoming its postwar isolation.2 A major challenge with enormous conceptual implications for Swiss for- eign policy was the founding of the UN, which declared war illegal and defined a system of collective security based on economic and military sanctions against violators of peace that theoretically left no room for neutrality. Sweden reacted to this development in 1946 by subordinating its neutrality to UN law, which meant that it chose not to apply its neutrality when the Security Council agreed on sanctions. Austria, too, joined the UN in 1955, based on the assumption that the international community would respect its neutrality when the lat- ter clashed with sanctions obligations. In 1945, Switzerland tried to secure recognition from the UN that the country’s position constituted a “special 2. The following draws on Daniel Mockli,¨ “Neutral Switzerland and Western Security Governance from the Cold War to the Global Economic Crisis,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies,Vol.9,No.4(December 2011), pp. 282–304. For the immediate postwar period, see Daniel Mockli,¨ Neutralitat,¨ Solidaritat,¨ Son- derfall: Die Konzeptionierung der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit, 1943–1947,Vol.55 of Zurich Contributions to Security Policy (Zurich: Forschungsstelle fur¨ Sicherheitspolitik und Kon- fliktanalyse, ETH Zurich,¨ 2000); Daniel Trachsler, Neutral zwischen Ost und West? Infragestellung und Konsolidierung der schweizerischen Neutralitatspolitik¨ durch den Beginn des Kalten Krieges, 1947–1952, Vol. 63 of Zurich Contributions to Security Policy (Zurich: Forschungsstelle fur¨ Sicherheitspolitik und Konfliktanalyse, ETH Zurich,¨ 2002); and Daniel Trachsler, Bundesrat Max Petitpierre: Schweizerische Aussenpolitik im Kalten Krieg 1945–1961 (Zurich: Verlag Neue Zurcher¨ Zeitung, 2011). 14 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JCWS_a_00678 by guest on 01 October 2021 Swiss Neutrality Policy in the Cold War case,” exempting it from implementing sanctions because of its neutrality. When Switzerland failed to win such recognition, it decided to stay outside the UN. That the one-world vision propagated by the UN’s founders soon proved unrealistic was not unwelcome news for the Swiss, as this diminished the price of abstention. Yet, although the bipolar international system that emerged was in principle much more conducive to a policy of neutrality, in reality it, too, posed a serious challenge to Switzerland’s traditional foreign policy. In both geopolitical