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Comment by pwlb | Hacker News Reader

Is there any country in history that prevented its downfall because its civilians are armed to the teeth?

The last person to successfully invade Switzerland was... Napoleon?

Likewise, while it may not be to your taste, Afghanistan's polity has spent the last 200 years stubbornly being Afghan, to the surprise and annoyance of the British, Russians, Americans, etc.

Who has tried since? I understood that in WW2 for instance it was their strict policy of neutrality that kept them from invasion, and the fact that Germany thought it was more beneficial to have them as a neutral rather than occupied country.

Keeping Zurich industrialists on their side was essential to helping supply German war efforts-that's how Dehomag laundered its purchases of Hollerith cards from IBM, and I think how GM Europe's part-ownership of Ethyl Inc.facilitated getting TEL to the Luftwaffe.

In addition to losing all that, it would be a costly and drawn-out war against an entrenched enemy on hideously unsuitable terrain. The desire was absolutely there, Hitler hated Swiss Germans, but cooler heads prevailed, apparently.

They didn't try though, that's the point. You have to try in order to succeed or fail. I mean, the USA famously had a plan to invade Canada - but they never did.

Industrial-age warfare has a different scale of opportunity costs associated with it than, say, agreeing to have dinner at the new Thai place down the street, to see if it is any good.

Invading someplace just to discover if it is or isn't invade-able hasn't been a workable strategy since Franciso Pizzaro tried it on Atahualpa.

My point is that you said:

> The last person to successfully invade Switzerland was... Napoleon

While I understand the idea of deterrence, your statement certainly implies the existence of unsuccessful attempts, but I don't think any attempts have even been made since.

Edit: all I am saying is that if you'd originally said "the last person to invade Switzerland ..." we wouldn't be having this exchange.

Yes, my use of the infinitive "to invade" was in the sense of the consummation of the invasive act itself; and not contingent upon the invader's assessment of the success or failure of their primary military objective, hence the adverb in the middle.

Now that we have that out of the way, IIRC there was an Austrian army mountaineering patrol on a winter training mission that got lost on the border near Liechtenstein. They ended up on a hillside in Grisons, just over the border, where a shepherd informed them that they were in the wrong country.

After some debate about proceeding further down the valley in the hope of finding a bar or restaurant, they decided that it was too cold and wet, so they marched back the way they came && called for a helicopter to pick them up.

There you go, a relatively recent but unsuccessful invasion of Switzerland.

> and not contingent upon the invader's assessment of the success or failure of their primary military objective, hence the adverb in the middle

You misspelled despite has hence

Switzerland has the loosest gun laws in the world next to America.

They have laws REQUIRING able bodied males have a gun.

Also, The Swedes inteternally had a coup to overthrow the monarchy.

I can't imagine the monarchy turned over it's power due to love or because someone asked nicely.

I imagine there's a significant possibility the threat of weapons may have been present.

Point of order on both nations: They also have protective geography that helps a great deal. The Afghani culture and being very well armed does contribute though, but IDK that we can say it's the sole reason.

Switzerland has been a neutral state during the entirety of modern aerial warfare era, so I'm going to put that less on the guns and more on the "why would I want to attack Switzerland?" attitude of the last ~100 years.

Belgium was neutral in WW1 but that didn't stop the Germans from invading it im order to try and circle around the French frontline. Switzerland being a mountainous hellhole (from a military perspective) is probably a big part of why, but it's also perfect terrain for an armed insurgency.

I think this one is hard to answer because it is hard to know whether the armed-to-the-teeth aspect was essential.

I'm more interested in the list of countries that prevented their downfall despite their civilians not being armed to the teeth.

No one cares what you think. Do the research yourself and let us know. We're not your interns.

I just read this comment and I'm horrified that I posted this. I don't even remember writing it. I had way too much sake at dinner. It really truly sneaks up on you. Sincere apologies for the rudeness.

Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth.

Do you think the monarchys would have happily and peacefully turned over their power because of the power of love?

Because someone said please sir?

And to expand on this, there's a reason why even Karl Marx understood the necessity of an armed working class: "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary."

That's awesome. Did not know that about Marx.

Any educated person who looks at cumulative human history can see this.

History as a rule is filled with subjugation by the powerful for thousands upon thousands of years.

There's the argument that policy cant reduce inequality, only plague, revolution, war, and state collapse, have ever reduced this.

What we have now in modern America is an anomoly... and if one looks carefully at the growing inequality...we're moving back towards equilibrium.

Wish history was taught better in schools.

In the UK the Monarchy was stripped of powers by other nobles, not regular citizens. I'm not sure about other places, but I wouldn't assume it was always a popular revolution of some sort. I would guess in many cases it was slowly ceded to other parts of the government.

I am guessing if the nobles did not have weapons and troops the monarch would not have given up some power.

Of course they had military might. But the point is it wasn't exactly "citizens", and whether regular citizens can bear arms has little to do with whether the standing armies of nobles can. The nobility of that period is not what I would consider regular citizens. The original assertion I replied to is obviously not as absolute as it was presented.

Sorry I wasn't very clear.

I am not sure if you consider soliders to be "regular citizens" but many of the troops would have been been subjects or lower nobles. If strictly the nobility (without their troops) were going against the king he may have been able to resist if he had his own troops.

I am not sure how possible it would have been to run England without the nobility so it is possible that troops were not strictly needed, but I am guessing the threat of the use of the nobility's troops at least made the whole process easier.

It of course wasn't a civilian uprising or something like that which may have been more of your point?

The Monarchy, like all rulers, is able to rule because they have the backing of powerful factions. No matter how powerful you think a ruler, ultimately they have to delegate a lot of control to those they want to carry out their orders. There is no difference in any country. Even in the US, were the DoD and some other departments able to successfully coordinate, they could easily take over the government, at least for a short while. That they don't is more a nature of how problematic it would be to do anything useful after that was accomplished, and that it would likely be short lived.

My minimal understanding of the Magna Carta, as taught to an American in middle school, is that the Nobility forced the monarchy to sign a document ensuring they are subject to certain laws like others are (but not necessarily all the laws the average citizen is subject to), which in essence increased the power of the Nobility. They were able to do this because most the military might of the time was in the hands of the nobles. The Monarchy might have had a larger army than any single noble, but the combined military strength of the nobility dwarfed the Monarchy (wars were generally fought by calling on the nobility to supply soldiers).

My point was though that the loss of powers of the Monarchy in the UK had little to do with the citizens, it was a power grab by the nobility. And then I assume eventually much of the strength of the nobility was ceded to parliament and then parliament was eventually opened to commoners (I'm getting into speculation here, but speculation based on snippets of history I do know so I think is likely not far off the mark).

In the end, the ability of the citizens to have guns specifically had very little to do with it I think. AIUI, there are other countries with mostly figurehead monarchies which I suspect had a more gradual shift in power as well, and wasn't explicitly at the threat of violence. It may have been spurred by the sight of that happening in other countries, but really that's more a realization that the populace is learning that they have power in quantity, guns or not, and those ruling them needed to contend with that reality.

Attributing it all to guns is a vast oversimplification in my eyes. It may have had far more to do with the printing press.

> Western democracy wouldn't exist without citizens who were armed to the teeth.

Citation needed. I can't think of any good examples, except maybe for the Revolutionary French "Sans-culottes", who, as the name suggests, were _famously_ well-equipped.

Carroll Quigley makes a convincing argument early in Tragedy and Hope that democratic governments tend to replace authoritarian governments when "amateur weapons" (e.g. rifled musket and pistols of the 19th century) are the pinnacle of weapons technology and the standard of living is high enough for the citizens to readily purchase those weapons, and vice versa when "specialist weapons" (e.g. tanks and airplanes of the 20th century) become the pinnacle of weapons tech.

> when "specialist weapons" (e.g. tanks and airplanes of the 20th century) become the pinnacle of weapons tech.

I will certainly agree with that, in the sense that the idea that armed civilians (even if they have some automatic assault rifles) posing an internal threat to a modern, well equipped military; is laughable, and is likely advanced for disingenuous propaganda purposes.

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