Liechtenstein, the tiny and, until now, insignficant Principality, which is sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland, is a hot favourite in the race to be elected to a temporary a seat on the UN Security Council, ahead of Finland and Australia.
Liechtenstein, which has previously only been famous for tax fraud and its status as the world's largest manufacturer of false teeth, is, in the eyes of many commentators, an interesting choice for the vacant Security Council seat.
Tarquin Arbuthnot, a lecturer at the London based International Institute For The Study Of Dreary International Developments, told us "UN Security Council seats are usually occupied by major nations who exercise considerable military might, such as Russia, the US, China and, at one time, the UK. Somewhat surprisingly, Liechtenstein has not maintained a military force since 1868. In fact, the last time the Principality engaged in military conflict was in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. This conflict lasted for all of seven weeks and was terminated early because Oktoberfest was fast approaching. Even during this short war, Liechtenstein fielded an Army of only eighty men, all of whom were a long way from any combat and simply kept the German troops supplied with brätwurst and sauerkraut. Being a landlocked nation, the Principality has little maritime history, other than when the Irish Navy sent a submarine there for its first, and somewhat inconclusive, sea trials."
A spokesman for the current Prince of Liechtenstein told us, "It is all very well for large countries to mock us and belittle us. The world is changing and the UN has embraced this change. Conventional and nuclear conflicts are messy affairs, which stock markets and investors, generally speaking, do not like. In Liechtenstein, we have been secretly developing our own weapons programme, whilst everybody has been worrying about the Iranians. We are almost ready to show the world our WMFDs, or Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction. In future conflicts, there will be no invasions of countries. There will be no loss of life at all, in fact. We will simply set out to destroy each others banking systems. With this objective in mind we have developed a financial weapon which will make US sub-prime mortgages look almost as troublsome as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction".
A UN spokesman asked us, "Liechtenstein? Where in the fuck is that?"
