In Defense of Neutrals

The demise of neutrality has been much exaggerated. Finnish membership and Sweden’s accession application to NATO have been interpreted in some corners as evidence of its decline. In wars of aggression, refusing to pick sides is untenable, some hold, as they berate those who still do not send weapons to Ukraine or sanction Russia.

Yet whether critics like it or not, neutrality isn’t going anywhere. Principled stances of neutrality, always and everywhere, are reactions to conflict. So long as conflict exist, so too will neutrals. Not even the two World Wars, the 40 years of the Cold War, or 30 years of U.S. unipolarity could get rid of the so-called fence-sitters—a pejorative to discredit the nonparticipation of third parties to conflicts. The argument is always the same: Not helping the good side of an epic struggle between good and evil is equal to doing evil yourself. Yet the very logic of war and conflict ensures neutrals don’t go away.

That’s because although wars usually devour some neutrals, they always breed new ones: The Napoleonic wars created Switzerland’s permanent neutrality, and the Belgian revolution against the Dutch brought about Brussels’s version of the same. The First World War destroyed the latter but, in turn, inspired Danish and Norwegian neutrality. The Second World War ruined those (and many more) but birthed Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish neutrality. The Cold War did away with the last three, but gave rise to the neutrality of Austria, Finland, and Yugoslavia—and the entire nonaligned movement, too. The current war over Ukraine is no exception; it has given rise to neutral policies in roughly two-thirds of the world. Nonaligned behavior of third states is a fact of international life and will remain one.

As a political concept, there is no universally accepted definition of what neutrality actually means. It is most commonly understood as not taking sides in international conflicts—but this shallow definition is also the root of the misperception that neutrals are politically apathetic, which they are not.

Neutrality had been defined under international law before World War I, but only as the relationship of third parties to belligerents during hot shooting wars. This understanding is often quite useless for political analysis because it leaves out peacetime neutrality and creates a binary world in which a state is either a belligerent or a neutral, with nothing in-between. This rarely aligns with reality, as visible in Switzerland’s support of EU sanctions against Russia while refraining from sending weapons to Ukraine.

During the Cold War, the common understanding of neutrality shifted from nonparticipation in foreign wars to nonparticipation in military alliances, spurred most prominently by the foreign policies of Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, and Yugoslavia, and to some degree, the nonaligned movement.

States that mention neutrality in their foreign-policy principles or even constitutions, such as Switzerland, Austria, Ireland or more recently Serbia, Moldova, and Mongolia, simply promise to always keep to the basic laws of neutrality in any future conflict, especially when it pertains to active military involvement.

Beyond what neutrality is, there are deep, pervasive misunderstandings about its effects and why various states embrace the strategy. Most widespread is the allegation that neutrals are passive and lethargic in their foreign policies. The opposite is true. Maintaining an independent policy that does not align with the wishes of belligerents (be it in a shooting war or a trade war) is exceedingly difficult and requires constant engagement with all conflict parties. This was true for Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland during WWII, and it is true today for nations such as India, South Africa, and nearly all countries in Latin America, which are in exchange with Russia, Ukraine, and the West to balance their nonaligned way through this war.

A second assumption is that neutrality equals weakness and pacifism. However, a functioning neutrality policy is usually a sign of strength, as it was for the United States during its 150 years of neutrality. Neutrals have to be strong enough—militarily and ideologically—to withstand the criticism and threat from all sides of a conflict to maintain their independent positions, as the pressure on India to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict shows. Last year, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar had to explain to a European audience that India rejects the West’s binary framing: “I don’t think it’s necessary for me to join this axis or not, and if I’m not joining this I must be with the other one. I don’t accept it.”

A successful neutral must meet at least two conditions. First, its status must be credible and predictable. This means neutrals must communicate their policy stances unequivocally and be able to put up a minimum defense on their own if attacked, which is what Switzerland did during WWII when it threatened to blow up its infrastructure and fight vehemently should Germany invade. This does not mean that neutral countries need to be armed to the teeth, because neutral credibility also implies not posing a threat to either side. If one side comes to perceive a neutral as a threat—either because it is armed too much, too little, or collaborates extensively with the enemy—it’s often game over, and the neutral may become a target of economic or military attack, as happened to Laos and Cambodia in the Vietnam War.

Second, a neutral state must be useful. It can do so by assuming the function of a buffer state, offering good office services (representing belligerents diplomatically on their enemy’s soil), acting as a diplomatic intermediary for negotiations, providing a platform for international trade, offering its banking and currency to all sides, or even by tacitly accepting spying on its territory to function as an intelligence hub. Switzerland, for example, explicitly acknowledged in 1815 that its neutrality would serve peace and stability in Europe by buffering the Austrians and the French—and later served all the above functions during the World Wars.

It is often assumed that neutrals are by default strategically disadvantaged, since they can’t rely on external support to confront threats. However, being useful to belligerents is the best security guarantee a state can get. It dramatically increases the cost of attack for a potential invader, up to the point where both sides of a conflict might be willing to intervene, should the neutral be attacked. Such was the case for neutral Belgium in 1914. It was precisely the infringement of its neutrality by Germany that prompted the United Kingdom and France to declare war to help the buffer state—no alliance needed. In the Cold War, too, former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower signaled the defense of neutral Austria. “An attack by the Soviet Union on Austria’s neutrality would mean World War III,” the U.S. State Department proclaimed over the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

But what about Ukraine, critics say. It had a neutrality clause in its constitution, and it was attacked! Credibility is the issue here. Not only did the NATO alliance promise eventual Ukraine membership during the Bucharest summit of 2008, but the Maidan revolution swept out the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych, bringing in pro-NATO forces. With Ukraine’s buffer state status gone, or at least questionable, Russia went on the attack in 2014.

On the other side of Russia, Mongolia stands as a counterexample, successfully buffering Russia and China with no threat against its sovereignty from either side. For Ukraine, permanent neutrality had been an option before the Russian invasion began and even until late March 2022. (It was a part of the Istanbul negotiations, which fell apart in April). Now permanent division of the country will be more likely.

During the 20th century, neutrals have worn many geopolitical hats, and they proved especially valuable during the Cold War, as the belt of neutrals from Finland and Sweden down to Switzerland, Austria, and Yugoslavia put physical space between NATO and Warsaw Pact members. What’s more, the neutral and nonaligned states helped bring about the few cross-iron curtain political breakthroughs: During negotiations for the nuclear nonproliferation treaty  and the Conferences on Security and Cooperation in Europe , they often functioned as the oil that greased the wheels of world diplomacy.

Now that Finland and Sweden have relinquished their roles as buffers, Russia has already signaled it will treat them as potential threats, making them front-line states in case of a NATO-Russian war. Former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky understood this dynamic and hence tried very hard to settle as many international organizations in Vienna as possible—even during the hottest peak of the Cold War—because they would prove Austria’s usefulness and serve as a pragmatic guarantee against a nuclear attack.

Successful neutrality is anything but fence-sitting. Engaged neutrality means taking an active role for one’s own interests and the interests of all conflict parties—being omnipartial, rather than impartial. It means getting involved whenever possible and staying out only when necessary. Engaged neutral states are obliged to raise their voices when it comes to massive human rights violations, genocide, or war.

Today, the question of whether nonalignment is long gone or having a resurgence is moot. When it comes to neutrality, there are really only two questions that matter: First, which neutrals will leave the stage, and which ones will be born? Second, will the neutrals play a constructive role in the new global conflict, or will they be relegated to the margins? For better or worse, if history is of any guidance, neutrality is here to stay. We might as well think about how to use it productively.