Umstrittene Schweizer Sicherheitspolitik ... - ETH Zürich

Institute
logic applies to all states, and certainly to those that share a part of the
Western economic, social and cultural values. The theme of “security
through cooperation” that was put forward in 1999 remains important
and central to future security.
There is a second implication of the risk of isolation that was noted in
the 1999 security policy paper and that is now much more pressing than
it was at that time: how much “cooperation” does Switzerland need to
contribute, and in what form, in order to have reliable partners that will
cooperate with – and even assist – Switzerland on issues of vital importance
to Switzerland’s national interests? Even in 1999, it was recognized
that the “bilan de solidarité internationale” of a state was quite important
for its partners, and that a state could not simply pick and choose where
it would make a contribution to international peace and security.
With ten years of hindsight it can be said that the choices made since
1999 have not produced a very broad “bilan de solidarité internationale”
for Switzerland, and recent events and relations with major European
states have highlighted clearly some of the risks involved in “à la carte”
or narrow cooperation that is limited in scope and impact and might
be seen by friends and neighbours as largely symbolic or, in some cases,
even as irrelevant. It is therefore very important to get the level of commitment
to cooperation right. It has to be something that is seen to be
valuable by partners.
What does this imply for the instruments of Swiss security? As all of
the documents and policy briefings note, Swiss security policy involves
several different instruments and several different institutions – armed
forces, civil protection, foreign policy, economic policy and police – which
involve four different departments. With Armée XXI, reform efforts have
concentrated on the armed forces, and there has been a major effort in
this direction in the last few years. I won’t address here the fine details of
this ongoing reform, but just make one point. The principle of “security
through cooperation” needs to be applied internally as well as internationally.
I have mentioned numerous times the idea that functional “divisions
of labour” between different tasks are no longer necessarily the most
appropriate way to meet transnational and transversal security challenges.
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