Andorra: Another Berlin

WAR NARROWLY AVOIDED, screamed a French newspaper last week. Where? In a landlocked, feudal principality that has no airport, railroad, currency, income tax or national debt—and has only seven men under arms.

Perched in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Andorra is a tiny (191 sq. mi.), tetchy nation of shepherds and smugglers that dates its sovereignty to Charlemagne—a fact that none of Andorra's 8,000 citizens ever seem to forget.

Since 1278, Andorra has been jointly ruled by two princes, Spain's Bishop of Urgel—known as "the Mitre"—and the King of France, who nowadays...