International Committee of the Red Cross the Assembly. While the rest of the Red Cross Movement may be multi-national, the Committee believes that its mono-national nature is an asset because the nationality in question is Swiss. Thanks to permanent Swiss neutrality, conflicting parties can be sure that no one from "the enemy" will be setting policy in Geneva. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 showed that even Red Cross actors (in this case National Societies) can be so bound by nationalism that they are unable to sustain neutral humanitarianism. Furthermore, the Assembly elects a five-member Assembly Council that constitutes an especially active core of the Assembly. The
International Committee of the Red Cross bringing the total staff under the authority of the ICRC to roughly 15,000. Delegations also often work closely with the National Red Cross Societies of the countries where they are based, and thus can call on the volunteers of the National Red Cross to assist in some of the ICRC's operations. The organizational structure of the ICRC is not well understood by outsiders. This is partly because of organizational secrecy, but also because the structure itself has been prone to frequent change. The Assembly and Presidency are two long-standing institutions, but the Assembly Council and Directorate were created only in