Permanent Neutrality Strategy And The Geostrategic Projection Of Major Powers

A permanent neutral country is a small country with a special status and role in the international relations system.However,in the theory of international relations oriented by the power system of the great powers,there is relatively little research and attention on such countries.Since the birth of the first permanent neutral country in the Treaty of Vienna in 1815,a number of countries have adopted a permanent neutral strategy to ensure their own survival and security.However,some countries have achieved their strategic goals through permanent neutrality,while others have declared failures in their strategy.This article is based on the geopolitical power structure,with the geopolitical projection of the big country as an independent variable,trying to explain the reasons for this differentiation."The geostrategic projection of a large country in a geopolitical environment determines the form of geopolitical power structure,and only a small country that is in the form of certain specific geopolitical structures can successfully implement a permanent neutral strategy." This is the core assumption of this paper.The first part of this paper defines and measures the variables in the hypothesis from the theoretical point of view,and logically establishes the causal relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variables.First of all,the paper defines the definitions of “neutrality” and “permanent neutrality” and establishes by strategy evaluation “whether universal international recognition is obtained”(including legal international recognition and international guarantees in practice)as a measure of whether a country's permanent neutral strategy is successful.Secondly,this paper defines the concept of geostrategic projection from the perspective of geopolitical power theory,and determines the key point of measuring the geostrategic projection of the great power-strength and direction.At the end of the theoretical part,this paper divides the power structure in a geographical area into three forms according to the different influences caused by the geopolitical strategic projections of the great countries in the geostrategic environment: “overlay”,“blank” and “balanced”.Only a permanent neutral strategy adopted by a small country in the power structure of the latter two can succeed.The second part of the paper selects Switzerland,Sweden,and Belgium during World War II as examples to confirm the previous assumptions.The three countries also implemented a permanent neutral strategy before the war,and they were in the same international system and geopolitical environment.Finally,the permanent neutral strategy of Switzerland and Sweden successfully maintained the security of their country during the war,while the strategy of Belgium was defeated.The variable that caused this divergent result was the geostrategic force projected by Germany as the center of geopolitical power.Switzerland and Sweden exchanged concessions and compromises for avoiding the path of German geostrategy projection covering,or directly becoming the target of geostrategic projection,maintaining the “blank” structure of the power structure in the geographical area where it is located,so the two countries' strategy of achieving national security with permanent neutrality is successful;Due to the geography of the geo-strategic projections on the western line of Germany's attack on France,other geopolitical countries such as Britain and France are unable to provide effective checks and balances on German geostrategic projections.The geographical power structure of the region is “coverage”.Therefore,Belgium's permanent neutral strategy has failed.