In WW2 the likes of Spain, Portugal and Switzerland remained neutral, how could these countries stay neutral?
What stopped the Axis powers from invading these countries to add to their countries?
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> What stopped the Axis powers from invading these countries to add to their countries?
Their interest, it didn’t have much to do with neutrality… Neutrality just means the state doesn’t pick a side to support, it doesn’t mean ‘I won’t let a side invade me’. That’s why Germany happily invaded Belgium in WW1 and the whole of the Benelux in WW2. The reason they didn’t invade Switzerland was that it wouldn’t help them much, and Spain was more or less an ally anyway (their government being helped into power with Germany’s support, look up The Guernica for example).
I think one aspect overlooked in the other replies about countries like The Netherlands is that they thanked their existence to the 1814-15 Congress of Vienna, which also determined these states to be neutral. Thus it wasn’t just that they ‘could afford’ to be neutral, is that they were expected to be.
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