Classical liberals didn't have to deal with air forces, nuclear weapons, and ICBM's. They did have their analogues, however: at the time it was warships that were the major tool of international power projection, a role served today by aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, and the Constitution certainly did provide for a permanent Navy.
Switzerland would never survive a modern war with a country that had these things and a trained, professional infantry. I don't think their current policy would be at all sustainable without the de-facto protection of the U.S. and Europe.
Switzerland couldn't win an open war, but the intent of their army is not to win an external war, but to prevent an invasion. In other words, make an invasion as hard (and expensive) as possible.
"Switzerland would never survive a modern war with a country that had these things and a trained, professional infantry."
...which is strange, because both the Afghanis and the Iraqis seemed to have made out just fine against Uncle Sam.
I'd posit that, while very flashy, your advanced weapons don't really do much for taking and holding territory. Indeed, in the modern age of commerce, those weapons so useful in an absolute war become a liability when deployed against an opponent whose riches you seek to seize.
When our country is so rich that it is economically non-viable to wage war on us using these weapons, we then ought shift back away from the military-industrial complex, because we have no need of them.
> ...which is strange, because both the Afghanis and the Iraqis seemed to have made out just fine against Uncle Sam.
Despite the protestations to the contrary from the liberals, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was faced against the U.S. in total war, and even what little attention the U.S. has paid to those conflicts have resulted in relative disaster for the peoples of both nations.
It is true that defeating a dug-in insurgency is no easy task, but there are examples of it being done in history. Unfortunately the methods required are brutal, far worse than anything the U.S. is likely to stomach doing again.
It's kind of apropos you mention economic dominance though; to the extent that resource rights enter into economic stature, a strong military is essential to stopping wars of conquest before they start.
There's a reason China is building up their military so much, once they are strong enough to engage in 'power projection' of their own then little international laws like UNCLOS will be no impediment to them extracting exclusive resource exploitation rights, and probably without much bloodshed (as long as it remains a regional-only conflict, at least).
Switzerland would never survive a modern war with a country that had these things and a trained, professional infantry. I don't think their current policy would be at all sustainable without the de-facto protection of the U.S. and Europe.