No, it’s like college football: when you get a new country you have to choose a rival. If you don’t, then it defaults to France.
Ok I’ll bite Washington State Basketball Huskies
Of course, there are many countries in the world with not much history of engaging in conflict at all. Many of them are very small or located in places that have no strategic or economic value to anyone.
The first country I thought of is Liechtenstein.
Costa Rica doesn’t have an army. They spent that money on the environment.
Lichtenstein seems pretty chill, but I don’t know much about their history
Well, if you outsource your military to the Swiss …
The House of Liechtenstein has been involved in a lot of history though.
I’ve always associated Switzerland with consistent neutrality, but someone with more historical knowledge may correct me on that.
Their mercenaries were famous throughout Europe and the dependency of the great European powers on those mercenaries led to Switzerland being left mostly in peace.
That’s what I’ve read, but I’d love to be corrected.
I personally think it’s geography. The Irish, Scots and Germans were important sources of mercenaries and that didn’t stop anybody from attacking them.
Also Switzerland fought quite some wars throughout history against great powers like France and Austria too.
That makes a lot of sense and seems the most obvious answer.
They’re militarily neutral but their banks are super corrupt and stocked with fascist. So much nazi plundered wealth went into Switzerland and never came out. You read that right cheeseholes, Switzerland is a beautiful, well run country and the corruption of UBS alone will collapse Davos into a black hole.
@violet08@lemmy.world defend your home. A history lesson has been requested
I don’t think this answers your question, but this might interest you if you haven’t heard of it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
It’s an island with a tribe of people who have no contact with the rest of the world.
It definitely does not answer their question, as the Sentinelese seem to consider everyone and everything that comes near them an enemy. Given how colonialism usually plays out and how contemptible other people are in general, I can’t say I particularly blame them.
“That comes near them” is a crucial qualifier. If you leave them alone, they leave you alone.
The Shire.
Unless you have read the books…
I have.
Canada? We’ve been in a bunch of fights but haven’t picked them ourselves. Consider the bloody battle for Han Island as an example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_War
Canada was an open participant in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and a clandestine participant in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which kinda sounds like picking a fight to me.
I don’t have an answer for Afghanistan. We suck. Iraq? My understanding is that we wouldn’t go without a UN resolution which was not forthcoming. We have officers posted in other countries for various exchanges and they fought with their host countries. So we had a few hundred people there in various roles. I don’t know about the clandestine participant.
Hasn’t Canada had to answer for various war crimes?
We have. Notably during the World Wars. But we didn’t instigate those conflicts. We managed to avoid Viet Nam. We were involved in Korea but that was following a UN resolution.
The Swiss have managed to stay out of wars for a very long time and are famously neutral.
Back in the day, Switzerland was one of Europe’s main sources of armies-for-hire. We see the echoes of that today in the Swiss Guard in Vatican City, for instance.
They did not stay out of war by not being armed, rather the opposite. A mountainous country with a large army would be very difficult to invade in the first place and then very costly to control.
Survival tool. :)
Imo, if you go back far enough, it is unlikely. No matter how peaceful or charitable a country may be now, they had to lay claim to their land at some point. And making those claims usually meant displacing or conquering someone else.
And making those claims usually meant displacing or conquering someone
That’s not correct. There were fewer people in former times. The world’s population is growing. The differences in numbers are astonishing. Therefore they had much more “free space” then.
When the numbers were far lower they used more area to support people and they all wanted the better places too.
Iran hasn’t started a war or participated in an offensive war in modern times (since before the US existed).
The one where Iraq invaded Iran?
That one?
Though hasn’t Iran also provided funding and aide to known international terrorist organizations? Like you know, what the USA does for the “freedom fighters” and such?
