[EdwardCoffin]

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.

[linksnapzz]

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.

[EdwardCoffin]

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.

[linksnapzz]

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.

[EdwardCoffin]

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.

[linksnapzz]

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.

[EdwardCoffin]

> 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