Explaining Neutrality in Global Conflicts | Dr. Pascal Lottaz

## Why Neutrality Studies? Neutrality is not merely a quaint relic of diplomatic history or the inward-looking posture of a small Alpine state; it is a recurring and consequential response to the perennial fact of human conflict. The conversation recorded at Seijo University frames neutrality not as an abstract moral stance or a tidy legal category, but as an emergent behavior inside conflict systems. Studying neutrality systematically—what Dr. Pascal Lottaz calls "Neutrality Studies"—is an attempt to see third parties as actors whose choices shape, constrain, and sometimes intensify disputes between belligerents. If international relations is the science of how vast human collectives organize and occasionally destroy themselves, then understanding how and why actors opt out of direct confrontation is central to any effort to reduce harm and manage crises. This reframing matters because it shifts the analytic gaze away from a binary of combatant versus non-combatant and toward the triangular dynamics that actually structure most conflicts. Neutrality is not a neutral topic: it is instrumental, tactical, and political. When neutral actors are treated as passive or as mere placeholders between contending parties, scholars and policymakers miss how these actors are targeted, pressured, courted, and sometimes punished—moves that can alter the course of a conflict as decisively as any battlefield maneuver. ## Origins: A Personal and Scholarly Journey The idea for Neutrality Studies emerged from a seemingly narrow historical puzzle: what did neutral embassies do in Japan during the Second World War? Investigating Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland revealed more than archival trivia; it exposed a pattern. States that looked similar externally behaved differently, and diverse regimes—liberal, authoritarian, even post-civil war dictatorships—found themselves performing remarkably similar roles for wartime belligerents. Neutral states served as conduits for diplomacy, backchannels, and exchanges that the warring parties could not risk conducting directly. Dr. Lottaz’s path—rooted in his Swiss background, shaped by doctoral research in Japan, and broadened through comparative archival work—led him to treat neutrality as a research subject rather than an identity. That move from identity to inquiry allowed him to see neutrality in varied historical contexts: 19th-century diplomatic practice, maritime and land neutrality, wartime functions, and Cold War third-party positioning. The lesson here is methodological as much as substantive: neutrality is best understood through sustained, comparative inquiry that crosses disciplinary boundaries. ## Neutrality as a Reaction to Conflict A central analytical claim from the conversation is simple and powerful: neutrality exists because conflict exists. It is not a pre-given middle point on a spectrum but a relational stance produced in response to interactions between contending parties. Visual metaphors that place neutrals on a weighing scale between two sides obscure the dynamic forces at play. Instead of a line, the relationship is a triangle: two belligerents in conflict and a third-party neutral whose relationships with each belligerent are, by definition, non-hostile. This triangular configuration generates predictable dynamics. Belligerents will pressure, cajole, entice, or coerce third parties to shift toward support. Neutrals must navigate demands for material aid, diplomatic recognition, or symbolic alignment while preserving enough distance to retain utility as intermediaries or safe havens. In many cases, neutrality is a negotiated, conditional, and unstable equilibrium rather than a fixed legal status. The neutral’s position is reactive and strategic: it is crafted amid bargaining, signaling, and the constant risk that one party will disqualify the neutral as such, either rhetorically or through coercive means. ## Misconceptions and Stereotypes Popular images of neutrality—cartoonish scenes of a passive, do-nothing state or the comforting metaphor of a perfectly balanced scale—do real analytic damage. These stereotypes flatten the diversity of neutral practices and encourage policy misreadings. The “doing nothing” caricature suggests moral vacuum or cowardice, while the balance metaphor implies impartiality that is symmetrical and stable. Both are misleading. Neutrality often involves action: humanitarian relief, diplomatic brokering, intelligence sharing, sanctions coordination, or covert facilitation. Switzerland, frequently held up as the archetype of neutrality, exemplifies both the utility and the limits of the myth. As Dr. Lottaz observes, Switzerland’s refusal to send weapons in a hot war might coexist with sanctioning behavior in another dimension of the same conflict—actions that blur legal neutrality and political alignment. Other states—China, India, ASEAN members—may appear more “neutral” from certain external vantage points because they refrain from sanctions or arms transfers, even if they have not legally declared neutrality. The point is that neutrality is multifaceted and context-dependent; treating it as a single, uniform category yields poor analysis and poor policy. ## Neutrality in Practice: Cases and Complexities Historical and contemporary cases illustrate the variegated nature of neutrality. The Second World War example shows how neutral embassies maintained diplomatic functioning, acted as intermediaries for prisoners and civilians, and sometimes facilitated communication between antagonists. Neutral roles included protecting powers’ interests, providing consular services, and serving as go-betweens for humanitarian exchanges. In the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, neutrality takes different shapes—strategic autonomy, hedging, non-alignment, or multivector diplomacy—each tailored to specific geopolitical circumstances. The contemporary war in Ukraine highlights the layered character of neutrality in the 21st century. There are multiple, overlapping conflicts: a hot battlefield war between Russia and Ukraine, a broader structural contest between Russia and NATO, and sub-regional disputes. A state can be neutral at one level (no weapons transfers to the hot conflict) while effectively aligned at another (joining sanctions in the structural contest). External observers may evaluate neutrality differently depending on which layer they privilege and which costs they emphasize. This multiplicity of levels complicates legalistic prescriptions and underscores why neutral behavior must be analyzed at the level of practice rather than declared doctrine alone. ## Neutrality, Power, and Moral Questions Neutrality raises hard normative and strategic questions. Is neutrality morally defensible when grave injustices are unfolding? Can neutrality be used as cover for power politics? These concerns are not merely rhetorical: belligerents often expect or demand moral clarity and may charge neutrals with complicity or cowardice. Conversely, neutrals can perform crucial humanitarian and mediatory functions precisely because they retain contacts and trust on multiple sides. The morality of neutrality cannot be fully adjudicated without situating it within a broader cost-benefit calculus: a neutral actor’s choices might save lives by preserving channels of communication, but they might also legitimize or sustain aggression by allowing it logistical or diplomatic space. Neutrality is therefore not a purely legal or ethical posture but a strategic instrument that must be evaluated by outcomes, context, and the range of alternatives available to the neutral actor. ## Building an Academic Field and Public Engagement One of the practical ambitions emerging from the talk is institutional: to turn Neutrality Studies from a research project into a scholarly field. That requires conferences, journals, collaborative networks, and pedagogical materials that bind together historians, anthropologists,

Explaining Neutrality in Global Conflicts | Dr. Pascal Lottaz This was a public talk at Seijo University, in Tokyo, on what "Neutrality Studies" exactly is and why I am connecting this academic project with a social media platform through this YouTube Channel. For anyone who has been wondering about my work, here are some behind the scenes insights. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies. As most of you know, I'm actually an associate professor here at Kyoto University, where I'm on a research contract to investigate my topic of neutrality studies as an academic discipline. The other day, I was invited to Seijo University in Tokyo to give a talk about my field of study and why, as part of that, I'm running this very YouTube channel here. So I did that, and after the event, the organizer, my friend and colleague Dennis Riches, told me that it might also be interesting for some of you here to know more about the background of academic neutrality studies and how I came to start a YouTube channel in the first place. I'm sharing the recording of the presentation with you in the hope it adds some more clarity about how this all goes together. Many thanks to Dennis and his team for hosting this event, and here you go. My name is Pascal Lottaz, and I lead two lives. On the one hand, I'm at Kyoto University, and I lead a research group called Neutrality Studies. I've been engaged in this academic project of Neutrality Studies for at least eight or so years. I did my PhD here in Japan. I started in 2014, and around 2015, I found my topic. In 2016, I realized I didn't understand my topic, so I found neutrality. I'm Swiss, and as a Swiss, neutrality is something that we talk about every single day. It's something like—sorry, not that we talk about it every single day. We don't. But it's just with us. It's just the most natural thing in the world that we think of ourselves as neutral. It's kind of the way that, you know, the word freedom would be intimately connected to you as Americans. Or how I hear from a lot of Americans, you know, freedom is a very important way and a myth of identity. And so for the Swiss, neutrality is an important part and myth of identity, which is why I wasn't interested at all in it until my advisor here in Tokyo told me, "You know, Pascal, we don't really know what the neutral embassies did in Japan during the Second World War. We just don't know." His name is Kito Koshinichi, and he is a good historian, and he knows a lot. And he said, "We don't know what that one is." So I said, "Okay, let me look into that for a term paper." And it turns out that indeed, this was kind of a mysterious part of the relationship between neutral European states and Japan. -- 1 of 10 -- And so I ended up looking at Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland because all three were neutral, and all three had a relationship with Japan even at the height of the war and until the very end. And that was fascinating. And then something hit me that was even more fascinating, which is that Sweden and Switzerland were two neutrals, looked similar on the outside, functioned differently on the inside, and they had a very similar relationship with Japan. But Spain too. Spain was a dictatorship under Francisco Franco, just finished a bloody civil war in 1939 after three years, and then a bloody dictatorship, and they had a relationship with Japan. And those three states actually started cooperating, collaborating during the war, because the Japanese, the Germans, and the Americans asked them to do that. And they did collaborate, and they did very similar things for the belligerents, and they upheld a diplomatic system for the belligerents during the war. That's when it hit me that there are not only things that we don't know yet about the Second World War, but there are also things we don't understand about how neutral actors interact with each other during wars. So I then made the decision to try to look more systematically into this topic of neutrality. And out of that grew my idea to call this neutrality studies. Let me study neutrality systematically. And when I understood how many things could be studied at such a deep level—not just the Second World War, but the First World War, the Cold War, the 19th century, 1870, maritime neutrality, land neutrality, warfare, permanent neutrality. There's so much that I say, like, okay, I call this the study of neutrality, and I'm going to try to do this with other people, because if I do it alone, I'm never going to get very far. I need the input of others, not just the ones that already wrote books and articles, but also the ones, the books and articles to come, in order to understand this better. So I did, in a sense, what I'm trying to do at the moment is to do what Dennis is doing with history. By claiming that there are neutrality studies, I hope that others pick it up. And if enough people do that, then it will be there. And if they don't, it will not exist. So I'm at a point where I'm trying to experiment on whether or not I can establish a thing, and if I can make others pick it up. And one of the things that I've started doing is, well, I created a homepage, and I reach out to colleagues, and we do conferences together. So we had a neutrality studies conference in October. Dennis was there, and Alex, and Brad, and everybody gave presentations. We had a very fruitful, I think, intellectual and academic exchange. On the other hand, I have my online life, in which I have a YouTube channel, also called Neutrality Studies. This YouTube channel is an approach of me just trying to assert that this thing exists and have people in the online space and social media pick it up. On the other hand, it's also just laziness because this thing started six or seven years ago just as a place to put webinars, just organized webinars with people who gave talks about their research. And I put that there just to park it, to have it somewhere. Until about three years ago, when I realized that webinars are lovely and nice, but they are hard to organize. And then you have a few people who show up, and you have a long discussion and Q&A, and later on it lives on the internet and gets -- 2 of 10 -- watched 10, 20, 30 times, maybe. And that's nice, it's okay. But if I talk to people one-on-one, I have one hour, I can interview, and I can ask deeper questions to these people, and I might get more interesting outcomes for myself. And then, if I share that with people and if I make these interviews and share them on the internet, then maybe people will be willing to talk to me. And my calculation was correct. I started reaching out to different academics and intellectuals, to diplomats, to politicians, and just by saying in an email, "Hi, I have a YouTube channel. Would you be willing to talk to me?" most people started saying yes, including people like Mr. Jack Matlock, the United States' last ambassador to the Soviet Union. So I got to interview him. I got to interview people like Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Nixon's principal translator when Nixon went to China to normalize relations, and a very brilliant critic of current U.S. affairs. And that way, I got to just also expand the network of people that I could talk to, learn from, and ask them honest questions. It's something that I also tell my students: when you write a term paper, especially a thesis, try to ask a real question, not a rhetorical one. Not, you know, how some people start with, "Should Russia have invaded Ukraine in 2022?" Well, you're not asking a question; you're setting up your own thesis, right? You're setting yourself up to reach the conclusions you want. The opposite of that is real questions, like, "How come we, at the moment, find so much common narration about the Ukraine war in Western media?" How come there's so much agreement on the causes of this war if you look at major newspapers? Then they ask this to different people, and you get different answers. This is also where we get into the issue of myths in society and narratives. One of the things I've come to understand is that we have several problems in international relations. Ultimately, on the one hand, I think I'm a bit of a historian. On the other hand, I do international relations. But my main issue is I would like to understand how we work. There are some fundamentals important to recognize. First, we are an 8 billion-person planet—8 billion people on a little marble cruising through outer space—and we have to self-organize. This is, okay, I assert this. I mean, as a theologian, you might disagree. I mean, if there is a God and God gave us principles, then we don't self-organize. Then we organize according to the principles. But if we conceptualize ourselves as independent from a first universal principle other than the natural principles that we have to adhere to, like gravity and maybe evolution and so on, we have to self-organize as a species. And for some reason, the species starts killing itself, especially the larger the groups get. And this is a scary thing to do, because ultimately, I don't know a lot of species that do that, that massively kill their own. I mean, even lions occasionally kill each other, but they usually do so over rivalries and territory, and then it's fine. But we do this massively, and we've developed the technological capacity to kill all of us. We have today the means that if a few people push a few buttons, we will all die. And that is a stupid thing to do for a species. That's really just a dumb thing, even from an evolutionary point of -- 3 of 10 -- view. That's fascinating. This must be an emergent property that comes out of the complexity of the system. Now, understanding the system, I think, is what international relations is supposed to do, to study us on the very big macro level. And one... This is a long story to come to my tiny little topic. One of these phenomena of how groups work and how we self-organize is that when we find conflict, there's never a conflict in which everybody's on one side and everybody on the other. There's always third parties. And these third parties ought to be studied. And that is what this neutrality study is about. And when I start with saying I have these two lives, it's like the YouTube channel is not only about neutrality and neutrality studies. The YouTube channel is also mostly about geopolitical analysis studies, especially of people who I agree with, because I choose them, right? So I do bias my channel, and a lot of comments on my channel are often, oh, but this is not neutral at all. It's like, yeah, but I don't claim to be neutral. I claim to study neutrality. I have never met a cancer researcher who's a cancer. I've never met a biologist who's himself a plant, okay? So I study this phenomenon. I'm not neutral; I'm a neutralist. I do think that the phenomenon of neutrality in third- party politics has something to contribute not only to the way the system works, but if we use these tools correctly, then maybe we can influence this eight-billion-person system that we set up in a productive way, or in a way that maybe runs on less violence. That's the overall hope of the thing. And I can talk more about this YouTube channel and how it helps me, because it helps me in many, many different ways and has been very beneficial so far. But when it comes to the concrete issue that I would like to inject into academic discourse and also global discourse, it's something that bothers me, and it goes together with something that maybe we will have time to talk about later. It goes into this propaganda issue. It's the way that neutrality is being perceived or the stereotypes of neutrality. They don't bother me necessarily because I'm Swiss. They bother me now because I understand that the Swiss understanding, or the understanding of neutrality as being what the Swiss do, is part of the problem. And it's a problem becau