[thechat] Solve This Political Triangle

[Bob Davis]

>At 2:18 PM +0100 6/21/02, John Handelaar wrote:
>  > Subject: RE: [thechat] Solve This Political Triangle
>>
>>  >Err... Austria's in NATO, Bob.   Has been for decades.
>>
>>  Wrong.  They've been legally neutral since '52. They can't end it
>>  unilaterally.
>
>I'll take your word for it then.

You don't have to! That's the beautiful part. You can look it up in 5 seconds.


>My 'evidence' was attending a briefing by a NATO
>staffer from the Austrian Army at SHAPE in 1990...

Yeah, that's one of the cool parts about being "neutral". You're a
trusted party. That's why there are so many meetings held in Vienna.
OECD, nuclear disarmament, UN, OPEC, etc., etc. There are meetings of
all types there and they are trusted agents elsewhere providing
valuable diplomatic services.

>maybe I should call them and tell them they've
>got one of those neutral bastards in the building


It's funny that you mention '90, as that was when I was in Vienna
studying neutrality policy. I should have let the University of
Vienna know that they were, in fact, NATO members and had no business
employing Prof. Dr. Hanspeter Neuhold.

;-)

Neutrality is pretty cool - sometimes. Our (USA) position in WWI was
for shit. Sweden, otoh, played a hugely important role as a neutral
in post-WWII politics in maintaining the Nordic Balance between
Norway (NATO) and Finland (not Warsaw pact, but "Finlandized" - under
the Soviet thumb).

Austria too, played a valuable role as a neutral. Their strategic
location smack dab in the center of Europe, with Vienna farther East
than the western frontier of Czechoslovakia, an historical meeting
place, a convergence of East and West (Look at how many Hungarian,
Italian, Romanian, Polish, Czech, etc. names there are in the phone
book in Vienna).  It was vital that they remain neutral for the sake
of peace in Europe, just as it was vital that they declare neutrality
to avoid the fate that befell Germany (the partitioning of the DDR
and the FRD).

...

ok, so that got a little past what I wanted to write.

sorry...

bob
--

bob davis
bob at bobdavis.org
http://www.bobdavis.org/