We would like to clarify a few things.
Liechtenstein has never invaded anyone.
Our international body count is zero.
We do not possess nuclear weapons.
We do not possess weapons.
This is not a recent lifestyle choice.
This is not a rebrand.
This is not the result of a painful reckoning after having done terrible things.
This is simply how we have always been.
Liechtenstein has existed, in one form or another, for centuries without developing the urge to conquer.
While empires rose, fell, redrew maps, renamed themselves, and apologized after the fact, we focused on remaining intact.
Our borders are not the result of blood-soaked compromise or postwar negotiation.
They are the result of being small, dull, and uninterested in glory.
We did not spread civilization.
We did not defend it either.
We mostly tended to our business.
The last time Liechtenstein fielded an army was in the nineteenth century. It was small, polite, and unnecessary. In 1866, we sent soldiers to observe a conflict we did not join.
They did not fight.
They did not fire a shot.
They returned home with more men than they left with, having made a few friends along the way.
We abolished the army shortly afterward.
Since then, Liechtenstein has perfected a radical doctrine:
Not doing that shit again.
We did not colonize.
We did not overthrow governments.
We did not accidentally redraw borders with straight lines.
We did not discover oil and lose our minds.
When wars came to Europe, we were bypassed, ignored, or briefly occupied by people who realized there was nothing to gain here.
We did not resist heroically.
We did not collaborate enthusiastically.
We waited.
History moved around us.
During the twentieth century, when the rest of the world industrialized killing, Liechtenstein refined neutrality into a full-time occupation.
While larger nations tested ideologies on human bodies, we tested clocks.
While doctrines were sharpened, we sharpened accounting standards.
This was not cowardice.
This was disinterest.
It is sometimes suggested that war is the price of prosperity.
That violence is unfortunate but necessary.
That power projection funds stability.
That empires, while messy, keep the lights on.
Liechtenstein would like to submit a counterexample.
We have an economy.
A functioning one.
It is boring.
It is solvent.
It is not fueled by arms exports, reconstruction contracts, or the periodic flattening of foreign cities.
We do not carry national debt.
This is not because we are cleverer or purer.
It is because we did not build an economy that requires destruction to justify itself.
We produce goods.
We provide services.
We keep records.
We make things that are meant to last.
When we grow, we do so quietly.
When we profit, we do not call it strategy.
We are often told that war is good for the economy.
This is an interesting claim, usually made by people who do not intend to fight, rebuild, or bury their children.
War is good for some economies.
Specifically, it is good for contractors, financiers, political careers, and shareholders who never hear the explosions.
It is less good for everyone else.
The idea that war benefits “the nation” relies on a creative definition of nation, one that excludes civilians, soldiers, and future generations, while generously including balance sheets at the top.
We find this definition convenient for those who wrote it.
Liechtenstein did not get rich by destroying things and charging to replace them.
We did not confuse leverage with value.
We did not call extraction growth.
We simply opted out.
And yet, despite demonstrating, repeatedly, that prosperity without war is possible, we are told that annihilation remains necessary.
Not for our economy.
But for yours.
We would like to clarify one additional misunderstanding.
Liechtenstein is not perfect.
We are not wiser.
We are not purer.
We are not immune to corruption, stupidity, greed, or petty human nonsense.
We have arguments.
We have scandals.
We have bad decisions that age poorly.
We simply contain them.
Our imperfections are local.
When we fail, we fail quietly.
When we mismanage, the damage radius is measured in committees, not continents.
Our mistakes do not require airspace.
We do not export our insecurities.
We do not turn domestic confusion into foreign policy.
We do not respond to internal decay by setting someone else on fire and calling it leadership.
The great powers are not uniquely evil.
They are simply large enough that their personal problems become planetary events.
Their fear becomes doctrine.
Their pride becomes strategy.
Their dysfunction becomes everyone else’s emergency.
Liechtenstein has problems.
We just do not solve them by killing people who never met us.
Which is why the current situation is confusing.
After centuries of disciplined nonviolence, after a spotless record of not murdering strangers, after an almost aggressive commitment to irrelevance, we are now informed that we may be erased in a conflict we did not start, cannot influence, and do not understand.
Not as a target.
Not as an enemy.
But as collateral.
History did not make us dangerous.
Power did not tempt us.
Violence did not interest us.
And yet, we are included anyway.
Because apparently, in the modern world, doing nothing wrong does not exempt you from being destroyed by people who have done so much wrong.
We have been informed, politely, abstractly, and without apology, that in the event of a misunderstanding between the United States, Russia, and China, our country may cease to exist.
This misunderstanding may involve satellites.
Or radar.
Or pride.
Or a badly translated memo at three in the morning.
We are not told which.
What we are told is that this is necessary.
For the record, here in Liechtenstein we possess clocks, banks, cows, and an excessive commitment to minding our own business.
We did not cause this.
We did not expand east.
We did not expand west.
We did not expand at all.
Our most aggressive recent maneuver was a zoning dispute.
The United States assures us this is all being done responsibly.
Russia assures us it is being done defensively.
China assures us it is being done rationally.
All three assure us that if they did not hold the knife, someone else might.
None of them explain why the knife must remain at everyone’s throat.
We are told this arrangement keeps the peace.
This is an interesting definition of peace.
Several billion people are told that their continued existence depends on a permanent standoff between egos, doctrines, and machines that have already failed repeatedly.
We are told not to worry.
We are told worrying would be irresponsible.
Liechtenstein would like to ask a question.
If this is stability, why does it feel like being held hostage by people who keep congratulating themselves for not pulling the trigger?
We understand that great powers have interests.
We understand that history is complicated.
We understand that deterrence is a theory.
What we do not understand is why our children are included in your simulations.
We do not have a missile silo.
We have a playground.
We do not have a war plan.
We have a school schedule.
And yet, when you speak of “acceptable losses,” we are apparently acceptable.
The United States speaks of leadership.
Russia speaks of respect.
China speaks of order.
Liechtenstein speaks of remaining on the map.
We would also like to address the tone of recent discussions.
The casualness is impressive.
Entire cities are discussed the way one discusses traffic delays.
Extinction is referred to as an option.
Obliteration is treated as a regrettable but manageable outcome, like a supply-chain disruption.
We admire the confidence.
We would like to remind the great powers that the rest of the world did not consent to becoming leverage.
We did not vote on mutually assured destruction.
We did not sign off on being vaporized to preserve someone else’s credibility.
We were simply informed.
If this is adulthood, it is a strange one.
If this is responsibility, it comes with a body count.
If this is the price of order, it is being charged to people who never ordered anything.
Liechtenstein has complied.
We stayed neutral.
We stayed quiet.
We stayed small.
And still, we are told to accept that we may die screaming in a flash of light because three countries cannot imagine a world where they do not terrify each other.
We would like to conclude with gratitude.
Thank you for turning existence into a conditional privilege.
Thank you for explaining that this is for our own good.
Thank you for ensuring that if you fail, you will not fail alone.
We will now return to our normal activities of cycling, hiking, and skiing.
We are very hopeful to still be here tomorrow.
(This was written by an American who was meditating on what it must be like to be from a nation that doesn’t buy into the Vile Maxim and War for Profit ideology, and yet are, in reality, at the whim of 3 psychotic, narcissistic Super Powers. I can not claim to know how the people from Liechtenstein actually feel, I assure you that they have their own form of freedom that they apparently mostly agree on so they don’t need American intervention to reach it)
Via Stulti 
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