Word: mcphee
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...John McPhee explain in La Place de la Concorde Suisse, woe betide any nation that tries to change this. While Switzerland's economic fortunes have changed over the last half-millennia, its commitment to a strong defense has not. McPhee begins the book by noting that, "The Swiss have not fought a war for nearly five hundred years and are determined to know how so as not to." For the next 150 pages McPhee shows us just how they go about this. Most important are the frequent maneuvers that the Swiss army holds in the mountainous countryside. McPhee tagged along...
...McPhee's first, albeit somewhat obvious, point is that whereas most nations pay lip service to the idea of armed deterrence, the Swiss pay military service: anywhere from 10 days to more than five months a year, from every male citizen who is physically capable. If you can imagine the United States National Guard being made compulsory for every American, you've begun to understand the Swiss system...
...McPhee's account of his three week traipse through the Alps is nothing short of glowing (not entirely surprising coming from an author who is known to write paeans to the Rockies). If any nation had been planning to violate Swiss neutrality, reading La Place de la Concorde Suisse would be enough to make them scrap their battle plans and figure out another way to get through central Europe. Every bridge and railway track and alpine tunnel is mined and ready to blow up whenever needed. The army is scheduled to go into full mobilization in 48 hours. In practice...
...QUICKLY becomes clear that McPhee's admiration for the Swiss system is not limited to their ability to repel an attack. He is equally impressed by the role the Swiss citizen army has played in shaping one of the world's more tranquil societies. He writes that "Switzerland does not have an army. Switzerland is an Army." The Swiss seem to have maintained the idea, out of fashion elsewhere in the developed world, that an army can do more for a nation than just protect it. Instead, the Swiss see their army as a reversed social institution, bringing together citizens...
...birds themselves are funny though. John McPhee observed that a loon's "maximum air speed is 60 miles an hour, and his stall-out speed must be 59. Anyway, he scarcely slows up, apparently because he thinks he will fall." Big fat feet out behind them, they crash-land on their bellies, an avian comedy. On land, they flop along on their stomachs. When it rains, they mistake highways for lakes, come down like thunderbolts. People are always tending their abrasions and taking them back to ponds. To take off, they need as much as a quarter-mile...