Neutrals

Neutrality – a formal and internationally recognised status of nonbelligerency in time of war – is not a modern concept. The desire to keep out of a war is a natural response to conflict and as old as war itself, even if, as Robert Fisk so daintily puts it, ‘neutrality in war has never been regarded as an act of much honour’.2 Through the ages, the desire for non-belligerency has been voiced and exercised in a variety of ways and with varying levels of success. Whenever there has been war, there have been neutrals. Scholars usually look to Ancient Greece to chart the first uses of neutrality as agreements made to keep certain city-states from becoming embroiled in the frequent wars of their neighbours.3 Of course, where there were neutrals, there was controversy. In the fifteenth century, for example, Machiavelli famously espoused that neutrality was a false policy for a Prince to undertake, for