Switzerland adopts "Security Policy Strategy 2026": A warning about the situation in the Taiwan Strait and national resilience

A few days ago, Switzerland’s Federal Council officially adopted a 60-page “Security Policy Strategy 2026”.

Switzerland is a country that has not been involved in any foreign wars for more than two hundred years and is famous for its "permanent neutrality", but it issued a warning in this document. The reason is clear: Things are heating up in Europe, while Switzerland is fending off daily attacks on its critical infrastructure. When Switzerland, which has long pursued a policy of neutrality, began to seriously prepare to face war, Taiwan had no reason to pretend that it could stay out of the matter.

Switzerland not only talked about Russia, but also directly talked about the Taiwan Strait. The report pointed out that China is expanding its political, economic and military influence, and may also use other countries' dependence on rare earth and other resources as a pressure tool. The Chinese leadership still advocates "unification" of Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of military means. Once the Taiwan Strait escalates, it will have far-reaching consequences for the region and the world.

Switzerland has been able to maintain neutrality for a long time, not because it avoids talking about war, nor because it actively seeks peace; of course, it does not consider the completion of national defense weapons to be a provocation. Switzerland listed more than 40 specific actions in the report. There are many worthy of reference for Taiwan. We will list a few:

First, civil defense should be truly integrated into preparations for armed conflict. Switzerland should improve its special rescue, protective facilities, nuclear, biological and chemical protection and cultural asset protection capabilities, while also strengthening the interoperability between the civil defense system and the military. Switzerland's strategy has listed "strengthening resilience" as the first pillar. Switzerland is aware that the main battlefields of modern conflicts have expanded to include supply chain disruptions, cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, and disinformation operations by foreign powers. In other words, the military is no longer the only pillar of security. Financial stability, energy supply, cloud data security and civil defense mobilization will be fully integrated into Switzerland’s main national security architecture.

Second, what to do when facing gray areas. The manual mentioned that in view of the increasing diversity of attack methods and the increasingly difficult to distinguish between peace and conflict, threat judgment must be more flexible, and a more appropriate approach is to provide specific reference basis. It is worth noting that Switzerland has expanded the definition of armed attacks to include gray area attacks, such as using special forces to enter critical infrastructure to destroy, and even include cyber attacks and other situations. The intensity and pattern of the attack include: 1. A single attack has occurred; 2. The attack is about to occur; 3. Or the sum of multiple attacks. Based on the above, it is for the government to judge whether these "have" constituted an armed attack.

Other specific actions include: amending the law to require agencies to report cyber attacks within 24 hours, strengthening network defense and early warning; filling the long-range defense gap, giving priority to combating drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles; preparing shelters, planning large-scale evacuations, and integrating alternative services and civil defense into "disaster protection services"; strengthening public alerts and safety communications, and continuing to develop multi-channel warning systems.

I still emphasize: "Preparing for war does not mean that war will happen immediately." But whether a war can be avoided often depends on whether a country has already started taking action before a war occurs. As the manual reminds at the end: "Safety" has always been a hard-won and fleeting thing.