Switzerland The Swiss Army Gets Knifed

Although it has long been famously neutral, Switzerland, as an English scholar once wrote, "has been in a state of war every weekend since 1945." The gibe has more than a little truth to it. On weekends rifle ranges around the country resound with the din of thousands of Swiss practicing their marksmanship. At the same time, Northrop F-5E Tiger fighter jets skim along mountain faces and blue-gray-uniformed figures clamber down couloirs and across alpine meadows. With a militia of 625,000 men, Switzerland, as the well-worn saying goes, does not have an army, it is an army.

The Swiss military has...