Switzerland rejected two U.S. military overflight requests on March 14, citing neutrality laws that prohibit its airspace from being used for combat-related operations [1]. The government approved three other requests for flights it determined were not directly linked to the Iran war. The distinction — combat-related versus non-combat — is the legal line Switzerland chose to draw.

The decision was reviewed by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation, the Directorate of International Law, and the Swiss Air Force before reaching the Federal Council [2]. Two reconnaissance flights scheduled for March 15 were denied. The government's statement was characteristically precise: the law of neutrality prohibits overflights with a "military purpose connected to an armed conflict."

Switzerland subsequently went further, halting new arms export approvals to the United States after formally classifying the Iran conflict as a "war" under its neutrality framework [3]. No new licenses for weapons or parts tied to the conflict would be issued. The move was modest in practical terms — Switzerland is not a major U.S. arms supplier — but symbolically significant. A neutral nation was drawing a boundary that most NATO allies would not.

The contrast is the story. NATO members granted blanket overflight rights. The EU issued statements of concern but took no restrictive action. Switzerland, which is neither a NATO member nor an EU member, was the only Western European nation to formally restrict U.S. military access to its airspace [4].

Neutrality, it turns out, still means something in Bern. Whether it means anything to Washington is a different question.

-- Hendrik Van Der Berg, Brussels