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by m_eiman 850 days ago
Sweden. Switzerland?

There was a civilization in South America whose city/cities didn’t have defensive structures, don’t remember the name though.

Edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav%C3%ADn_culture

Warfare does not seem to have been a significant element in Chavín culture. The archaeological evidence shows a lack of basic defensive structures in Chavín centres, and warriors are not depicted in art, in notable contrast to the earlier art at Cerro Sechín. Effective social control may have been exercised by religious pressure, and the ability to exclude dissidents from managed water resources. The climate and terrain of the neighbouring areas outside the managed land were a daunting option for farmers wishing to flee the culture. Evidence of warfare has been found only in contemporaneous sites that were not influenced by Chavín culture, almost as if those other civilizations were defending themselves via warfare from Chavín cultural influence.

3 comments

Sweden are joining NATO right now due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and so did Finland. Both of them border Russia and did not join NATO in the past to try and avoid any form of escalation.

Switzerland may have been formally neutral during WW2 but some individuals had other ideas. Was Switzerland neutral through WW1? My 100 years thing goes back to 1924, so post 1914-18.

Joining NATO does not mean they are involved in a war. Not yet at least. And Switzerland was not involved in WW1 - the last war involving Switzerland was in the 1840s.

You could look at Iceland too. It was declared it's own country in 1918, and other than a brief, zero-casualty "occupation" during WW2 has never been involved in a war. It has no military and no legal mechanism to be able to declare war.

And the occupation was friendly.
Switzerland doesn't count being one of the main beneficiaries of Nazi ideologies and literally hording the gold that used to be part of the teeth of the jews getting killed in concentration camps. Nazi Gold is a synonym to Swiss banking. A visit to Auschwitz or Mauthausen might help to get some perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gold

Plus I'm not convinced you can carve out any individual European country and call it a "society" in this context.
Don't forget the fights between the Protestants and Catholics, including the second war of Kappel
Igitur quī dēsīderat pācem, præparet bellum.

Pacifism can only endure as a privileged lifestyle on the backs of warriors. Defenseless, clueless folk get wiped out, enslaved, or subjugated by the first "Viking raid".

Soldiers, not warriors. A soldier serves a community. War is an essential part of both the identity and the lifestyle of a warrior.
Latin quotes defending weaponized aggression as the only possible way ?!? self-parody