Talking Neutrality with Pascal Lottaz & Benji Schoendorff

## Framing Neutrality as an Active Choice What emerges from this conversation is a reframing of neutrality away from the familiar caricature of passive inaction toward a theory of deliberate positioning within conflict constellations. Neutrality, as the discussion argues, is not simply the absence of engagement; it is an active decision about relationships. A neutral actor chooses to maintain distinct bilateral ties with opposing parties while declining to participate in their confrontation. That decision both shapes and is shaped by the wider dynamics of the conflict. Seen this way, neutrality ceases to be an abstract moral posture and becomes a concrete foreign-policy strategy with predictable consequences for power, diplomacy, and the prospects for resolution. This opening claim matters because it recasts debates about neutral states in our polarized world. When observers condemn neutrals for “sidestepping” moral obligations or praise them for “balance,” they are often talking past each other because they assume different meanings of neutrality. The conversation at the center of this article insists on clarity: a neutral state is not outside the conflict. Rather, it is a distinct vertex of the triangle created by two opposing parties. That geometric metaphor—belligerent one, belligerent two, and the neutral third side—grounds the rest of the analysis. ## Defining Neutrality: A Second‑Order Phenomenon The discussion foregrounds an important conceptual distinction: neutrality is a second-order stance toward a relationship, not a first-order disposition toward the actors themselves. A nation can be friendly with both sides of a dispute while refusing to take sides over the dispute. Neutrality thus references the conflict, not the actors’ overall diplomatic stances. This moves us beyond the image of a neutral actor “sitting in the middle” or “on a balance” and toward a more useful sociological model in which neutrality is a specific orientation to a specific conflict. Two implications follow. First, neutrality presupposes agency and deliberation. An actor who is genuinely unaware of or unconnected to a conflict cannot be meaningfully called neutral in this sense. The thought experiment of a hypothetical observer entirely cut off from the parties—ignorant of their existence—helps to show why: neutrality requires an intentional refusal to take part, not mere absence. Second, neutrality always has effects. It is never “outcome-neutral.” Maintaining diplomatic or economic ties with both sides alters the distribution of resources, information, and options in ways that influence the course of the conflict, often benefitting the weaker party more than the stronger. ## Historical Complexity: Neutrality in Practice The conversation uses historical case studies to unpack how neutrality operates in practice. The classical examples—Switzerland and Sweden—are familiar, but the exchange highlights less obvious instances that complicate neat categories. Francoist Spain and Salazar’s Portugal demonstrate that neutrality is not inherently democratic or moral; dictatorial regimes can, and have, used neutral postures to survive and pursue interests. Conversely, the Soviet–Japanese “neutrality pact” in 1941 reveals a technical use of the term. There, neutrality allowed continued trade and diplomatic interaction while both parties remained suspicious and strategically opposed elsewhere. Such cases underscore the contingency of neutrality. Its character depends on the specific choices states make about travel, embassy presence, trade, and the provision of aid or arms. A declared neutral can still facilitate exchanges—prisoner transfers, diplomatic communication, shipping routes—that materially sustain belligerents. These practical functions are core to why neutral actors matter in international systems: they can create or sustain channels that belligerents prefer to avoid directly, and in doing so they reshape conflict dynamics without necessarily endorsing outcomes. ## Neutrality, Power, and the Politics of Pressure One of the sharper points emerging from the discussion is the political pressure applied by stronger parties to coerce or delegitimize neutral actors. In asymmetrical conflicts, the stronger party tends to demand exclusivity from potential partners and seeks to block relationships that might assist, even indirectly, the adversary. This yields a binary narrative—either you’re with us or you’re with the enemy—that simplifies international choices into moral imperatives and punishment threats. When that tactic succeeds, many neutrals are forced to choose alignment or to suffer economic and diplomatic penalties. Understanding this dynamic explains contemporary moral outrage directed at states that refuse to take punitive measures against aggressors. From the perspective of the stronger party, neutral trade or continued diplomatic relations look like betrayal; from the perspective of the neutral, maintaining ties may be a rational effort to preserve national interests, avoid escalation, or provide humanitarian relief. The conversation highlights that neutrality often benefits the weaker side in the immediate calculus because it denies the stronger side a total chokehold; this relative advantage motivates coercive campaigns to isolate neutrals. ## Proxies, Indirect Engagement, and the Illusion of Neutrality Modern conflicts increasingly feature proxy arrangements that blur the line between direct intervention and abstention. The conversation points to contemporary proxy dynamics—where major powers supply arms, intelligence, or logistical support to a proxy force while avoiding formal entry into the battlefield—as a crucible for rethinking neutrality. Proxy wars reveal how a great power can attempt to retain a degree of neutrality in public rhetoric while shaping outcomes from behind the scenes. Conversely, states that abstain from overt involvement but allow arms and logistics through their territory or markets complicate the distinction between neutral and partisan. This complexity exposes why calls for moral purity—“if you’re not with us, you’re against us”—fall short analytically. Neutrality in a world of proxies and hybrid war is not simply a branded public posture; it is woven into global supply chains, intelligence-sharing networks, financial connections, and sanction regimes. A state that refuses to participate in military action but continues to permit trade or technological exchange with an aggressor is not “neutral” in vacuum; it is playing a strategic role that can materially affect outcomes. The conversation suggests that critics and advocates alike need to respond to this reality with finer-grained analysis rather than blanket moralizing. ## Norms, Identity, and the Politics of Recognition Another significant theme is the symbolic and normative dimension of neutrality. Recognition by other states, legal status under international law, and domestic political narratives all shape what neutrality means in practice. The discussion draws attention to unusual cases—small, authoritarian states that embrace neutrality for reasons unrelated to democratic values—which shows that neutrality can be instrumentalized for regime security, international prestige, or economic advantage. Institutional recognition matters too. When international bodies or diplomatic rituals validate a state’s neutral claim, they confer diplomatic leverage: neutrals can act as intermediaries, hosts for talks, or guarantors of humanitarian corridors. Conversely, when global opinion and coalition-building treat neutrality as tacit support for an aggressor, neutral actors can find their legitimacy eroded. Thus neutrality is not only a foreign-policy choice but a matter of recognition politics, with normative currency that can be spent or spent against a state in the global arena. ## Toward a More Realistic Politics of Neutrality The conversation concludes with a practical

Talking Neutrality with Pascal Lottaz & Benji Schoendorff Live-Stream on neutrality in IR. Join us! Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #Benji Schoendorff Welcome to a new episode of the Cyclips series of the Resistance is Fertile podcast universe. Today, I was hoping to be with my co-host Indica, who might join us later on. It's very early for him, like 5: 30 a.m. in Sri Lanka now. And so we'll see if he shows up, but I'm absolutely delighted to welcome today Pascal Lottaz of this great channel, Neutrality Studies. So, Pascal, welcome. And I want to tell our audience a little bit about how I first learned about you. My first very clear memory of you is going to the—what do you call it—the place where we take all the things to recycle nearby. It must have been three or four years ago. I don't know when you started the channel, maybe about that time. It was a very new channel, and you were a new voice. And from the beginning, I really liked the way you approach your guests. Like both, you're erudite but very open to their ideas and very generous in your questions. And it always made sense for really interesting conversations. Since then, I've had a chance to follow you much more closely. You've had the success that you've deserved. And I was telling you earlier before we started recording that I think you bring the widest range of guests that I've seen, you know, in the folks I follow on the internet. Of course, you bring the usual suspects, but also you bring folks who I probably never would have been made aware of if you hadn't brought them to your channel. So that's an absolute treasure. And of course, you invited me for a conversation about my perspective on psychology on your channel, which I was really happy with, and I really loved our conversation. And now you've agreed to come and have a live conversation with us. So welcome, Pascal Lottaz. #Pascal Well, thank you very much, Benji, for the kind invitation. And, you know, I'm a very lucky guy because all I want to do is have good conversations with interesting people, as many of them as I can, and it turns out other people like listening in. I mean, I didn't think that would be the case when I started it. Honestly, the channel at the very beginning was just an excuse to write an email to people: "Hey, can I talk to you for an hour? And I have this channel, by the way, we can publish it." It amazed me that it coincidentally actually fills a gap. #Benji Schoendorff -- 1 of 28 -- Yeah. And actually, this is the one thing that I love best about what I do — the chance to have absolutely amazing conversations with people who, I mean, literally broaden my perspective on so many things. So I'm glad that we have the same kind of experience doing this thing. And so you are, if I'm not mistaken, an assistant professor at one of Kyoto's universities — maybe there are several — which is, by the way... Yeah, go ahead. #Pascal It doesn't really matter, but just for the record, I'm an associate professor at Kyoto University. #Benji Schoendorff The University of Kyoto. I've been to Kyoto twice, actually, to give workshops for psychotherapists. And I thought there were as many universities in Kyoto as there are temples. Kyoto is this beautiful city, and you can't walk—I mean, there's at least a temple per block. And so it's a very nice place to live. And you're from Switzerland. I'm from Lyon, France, which is like 150 kilometers from Geneva. And you happen to have a channel called Neutrality Studies. And of course, to us French people, Switzerland is the land of chocolate and neutrality. Now, neutrality is a very interesting concept. As I've come to learn about European history, I think my childhood view of Swiss neutrality has evolved a little bit, because when you look at the details of maybe the Second World War, that neutrality was maybe not as neutral as it might have been. And recently, over the past, what, 40 years, it's hard to know exactly what remains of Swiss neutrality. But I didn't really want to speak to you about, you know, Swiss neutrality in general, but tell us a little bit about your concept of neutrality and what relevance you think it has in today's anything-but-neutral world. #Pascal Well, thank you very much for your interest in what is actually my core topic. And, you know, I'm building my entire project here at Kyoto University. Before that, I was at Waseda University in Tokyo. Before that, I wrote my dissertation about a connected topic. I wrote about Swiss, Swedish, and Spanish neutrality during the Second World War and how that impacted their diplomacy with Japan. And that's when I more or less discovered that I think a very important aspect of this topic is left out. And that's not just what the permanent neutrals do, but what the pure act of distancing yourself from a conflict and saying no to joining alliances does—what does that do, and what does that enable, or how does that impact the entire system? Because the biggest surprise to me was not the Swiss or the Swedish case. It was the Spanish case. You know, it was the fact that in the Second World War, the Spaniards had a constructive relationship with Japan, had a diplomatic relationship with Japan for the entire time of the war. And they could do more or less exactly the same thing as the Swiss and the Swedes. And actually, the -- 2 of 28 -- three of them built a network then of diplomatic relations for Japan, the belligerents—for the Japanese, for the Americans, for the Germans, and others. And they organized exchange ships, you know, because every once in a while, even during the height of the war, the belligerents still had common interests. For instance, getting your diplomats back that get stranded in each other's countries. And I realized, you know, Switzerland is an interesting case, but Spain is even more fascinating. And Spain is, of course, not a traditional neutral. Spain just happened not to join the Axis powers, which they, you know, almost did—already had kind of a handshake about that, Franco with Hitler—but then by the time that was supposed to happen, Hitler was already on the losing side and Franco didn't. But that position of remaining outside is what then still enabled a lot of things. And actually, you know, Franco, just like Portugal, as others are, fascist dictatorships, but they came out of the Second World War alive. They were not eradicated. The fascists on the Axis side who fought the war—Hitler and Mussolini—they were dead. Franco and Salazar were not. So this idea that neutrality is always a democratic thing is actually kind of one of the, not the myths, but it's one of the things that is not the full picture. You also have these dictatorial neutralities. And even today we have those. One of the most ardent neutralist, neutral countries on earth that almost nobody knows about is Turkmenistan. Thanks to Turkmenistan, the 12th of December is now the official UN- recognized Day of Neutrality. Nobody knows that, but it is still a fact since December 2017. Why the 12th of December? Because back in 1995, that is when a UN resolution recognized Turkmenistan's neutrality. And Turkmenistan infamously ranks, of course, one rank below North Korea on the Freedom House Index. Turkmenistan is a North Korean-style dictatorship by any standards. But it is also a stand-up, and a convinced neutral country. So there is a lot to actually explore when it comes to neutrality in IR. And I think the one thing that might also interest you from the psychological aspect is what I'm working on too—to kind of strip down the discussion about what neutrality is and isn't. And you alluded to it in your introduction. I mean, was it really neutral in the war? What we need to figure out is what we mean by “really.” And my point, and I would like to share this maybe here—and you're already doing a screen share—but let me try to... #Benji Schoendorff Try and do it yourself if you can. #Pascal I loaded a picture. Can you show that picture on the screen? #Benji Schoendorff -- 3 of 28 -- I think I can. #Pascal Here we are. Here we are. This is my base model that I'm working on and trying to tell people, look, when it comes to neutrality, this is more or less what we should keep in mind about these different actors. So my argument at this point is that this represents what neutrality as a sociological phenomenon is the best. B1 and B2 being belligerent one and belligerent two. Or you can think about it in everyday terms as party one and party two. You know, your friends—friend one, friend two. And those two are in a relationship with each other, which is unfortunately one of conflict, represented with the little flash, right? One of my main issues is that I would urge people in international relations to perceive international relations as inherently bilateral. Yes, we have multilateral forums. Yes, we have big venues. Yes, we have world wars where everybody is with or against everybody. But at the core of everything, the relationship between countries is bilateral, and it can be a good relationship. It can be a bad relationship. It can be a war relationship, just like the United States and Iran or Israel and Iran at the moment. But that's one of the main issues, right? They are at war. Now, the point for neutrals is that we often imagine them to be in the middle, squeezed, right, or on a balance. But that's a very, very unhelpful metaphor because it actually camouflages the main point of the relationship, which is that also the neutral party A has a relationship with both belligerents. It's at peace with B1, and it's at peace with B2. If you are friends with two people who are in a fight with each other, then you're friends with both. And the main problem arises from that, that you would like to maintain a good relationship with this one, and you would like to maintain a good relationship with that one. But unfortunately, these two have beef with each other. And one of my observations there is then that neutrality itself is actually a second-degree or a second-order phenomenon, because A is, of course, not neutral to B1 and B2. A is neutral towards the conflict. The neutrality itself is directed toward the conflict. You will say, like, look, I like you, I like you, but your fight with each other, I have nothing to do with it. And I will not have an opinion on that one, or I will try to have a distance from this while I try to be in a good relationship with both of you. And I will try to help you, and I will try to help you, but I will not do anything that somehow will impact this beef that you have with each other. And from this, I claim we have the main problem, which is, of course, the neutral actor A is neutral toward the conflict, but it is part and parcel of the conflict constellation. It is still embedded within the social fact that the conflict creates. And if that is not the case, if the neutral is actually not inside the conflict constellation, I would claim it makes no sense to talk about them as neutral actors. And my example here is the little man in the moon that I drew up there. #Benji Schoendorff -- 4 of 28 -- No conflict whatsoever. It's just sitting on the moon. #Pascal It's just sitting there. My point is, and I actually wrote about that in an essay, just think about it. I mean, you know, I did philosophy as an undergrad. And in philosophy, we take thought experiments very seriously, not because they're realistic, but because they help us strip down a couple of concepts to their bare bones. Just imagine for one moment the man in the moon existed. There is a literal man living in the moon, and he is living on the other side of the moon, the one that's facing away from Earth. The man in the moon has never heard of Earth because he's never seen it, right? He never crossed his event horizon, right? Doesn't know about it. He'd never heard of humans, never heard that humans org