Swiss War Game Envisages Invasion By Bankrupt French

An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph reports, 'Hordes of bankrupt French invade Switzerland to get their hands on their "stolen" money — such is the imaginary scenario cooked up by the Swiss military in simulations revealed over the weekend. Carried out in August, the apparently outlandish army exercise was based on the premise of an attack by a financially stricken France split into warring regions, according to Matin Dimanche, the Lausanne-based daily. ... Operation "Duplex-Barbara" went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel, Lausanne and Geneva, according to a map published in the Swiss newspaper. Behind the dastardly raid was a paramilitary organization dubbed BLD, the Dijon Free Brigade bent on grabbing back "money that Switzerland had stolen from Saônia". "For its credibility, the Swiss army must work (to ward against) threats of the 21st century," Antoine Vielliard, Hauate-Savoie councilor, told Matin Dimanche. However, Daniel Berger, captain of the Swiss armored brigade, sought to play down the specificity of the threat. "The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate" he told the Swiss press. ... "French towns were cited to provide soldiers with a real scale," he said. ... Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. '"

Countries do this all the time

[JoshuaZ]

Countries prepare war games involving invasions to or from nearby countries all the time. This just isn't that big a deal. The US likely has plans to invade Canada if necessary (although at least publicly the last one was canceled in the 1930s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red [wikipedia.org]), and almost certainly has plans to invade Mexico. The Swiss have made their entire foreign policy center around a combination of neutrality and being prepared to repulse any invader, so this shouldn't be at all surprising.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[DrFalkyn]

Countries prepare war games involving invasions to or from nearby countries all the time.

True, but Switzerland takes it up a level. Permanent tank traps in farmers fields, hidden military installations all over the country, bomb shelters, and a huge military reserve with regular training.

All purely defensive measures, which for a small country that hopes to repel potential invaders, while retaining their neutrality and not having rely on "allies" to bail them out, seem pretty reasonable.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Karmashock]

And its paid off so far... no one has touched them. Less vigilant countries cannot make the same claim.

Re:Countries do this all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists are such a vanishingly irrelevant problem that it's not on the scale of things we even need to protect ourselves against. We need to protect against vending-machine related accidents before we need to deal with terrorism. Or wide-spread robbery of public funds by the financial sector.

A sign of the times

[hpa]

It is a good sign of the times how far things have advanced that a country in Western Europe cannot come up with any military exercise scenario which can be considered credible. This hasn't exactly been the norm, to put it mildly. At this point in time, the risk of a war in Europe is largely confined to the Balkans, and even there is looking increasingly unlikely that we'll have a full-scale return to fighting.