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Neutral country

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A neutral country takes no side in a war between other parties, and in return hopes to avoid being attacked by either of them. A neutralist policy aims at neutrality in case of an armed conflict that could involve the party in question. A neutralist is an advocate of neutrality in international affairs.

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The concept of neutrality in conflicts must be distinguished from that of non-alignment, i.e. the willful desistence from military alliances in order to preserve neutrality in case of war, and perhaps with the hope of preventing a war altogether.

The concept of neutrality in war is narrowly defined and puts specific constraints on the neutral party in return for the internationally recognized right to remain neutral. A wider concept is that of nonbelligerence. The basic international law covering neutral territories is the Second Hague Convention.

A country that reserves the right to become a belligerent if attacked by a party to the war is in a condition of armed neutrality.

Current neutral countries include:

Countries claimed to have neutrality but not recognized by international affairs Past neutral countries include: Other countries may be more active on the international stage, while emphasising an intention to remain neutral in case of war close to the country. By such a declaration of intentions, the country hopes that all belligerents will count on the country's territory as off limits for the enemy, and hence unnecessary to waste resources on.

Many countries made such declarations during World War II. Most, however, became occupied, and in the end only Republic of Ireland, San Marino, Sweden and Switzerland (with Liechtenstein) remained neutral of the European countries closest to the war. Their fulfillment to the letter of the rules of neutrality have been questioned: Ireland supplied some important secret information to the Allies; for instance, the date of D-Day was decided on the basis of incoming Atlantic weather information secretly supplied to them by Ireland but kept from Germany. Sweden and Switzerland, as embedded within Nazi Germany and its associates, similarly made some concessions to Nazi requests.

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