Swiss Defence Industry in the Global Arms Trade – Successes and Challenges

When we talk about the Defence Industry (DI), arms transfers, military expenditures we mostly refer to data accumulated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). In the SIPRI Top 20 list on Largest exporters of major arms for 2019, small states hold consecutive positions: Israel takes 8th place, Switzerland – 13th, Sweden, Norway, and Belarus 15th, 17th, and 20th position respectively. The author analyses the Swiss DI case due to its place in SIPRI Top, sharp rise of Swiss arms exports in the last years, Swiss neutrality strategy, country’s multilingual society, All-Government approach to the arms industry, though contributing to the limited scholarly studies about contemporary Swiss DI. The paper aims to explore Swiss DI, its strategies, identify the country’s defence and security policy’s influence for DI, discusses the Swiss DI place and future perspectives in the context of the global arms trade. At the same time paper in detail explores Swiss DI successes and failures that could be wisely used by other small states aiming to develop or enhance their relevant DIs.