Commemorating Defeats · 24 February 2008, 13:50 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Odd as it may seem that the battle of Kosovo of 1389, during which a ‘Serbian’ army was defeated by an army led by Ottoman Sultan Murad on the Kosovo Polje, plays such prominent a role in the Serbian, ethnic tradition, it is not a unique phenomenon. In his ‘Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity’ Anthony D. Smith (Oxford and New York 2003, page 222) lines up three, similar examples of defeats that are treated as defining moments by the defeated ethnic or religious groups in question instead of being smuggled away as something to be ashamed of:
Smith also provides us with an explanation for this phenomenon: ’(...) [D]efeats and, we might add, exile impose obligations more than victories. As important, they provide models for the interpretation of later defeats and persecutions.’
anthony d. smith,
avarayr,
battle of kosovo,
chosen peoples,
ethnic tradition,
karbala,
kosovo,
kosovo polje,
serbia
The Dutch Army Oversea - On Numbers and Budgets · 4 January 2008, 17:57 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Currently I’m reading some literature on the decolonization of the former Dutch East Indies / Indonesia and what strikes me is the number of soldiers that the Dutch were able to field outside of the Netherlands, in Sumatra and Java. In his ‘Afscheid van Indië. De val van het Nederlandse imperium in Azië’ (Amsterdam 2000) historian H.W. van den Doel lists the numbers involved on the eve of the first Dutch major military offensive against the Indonesian insurgents on 20 July 1947. (page 201) According to Van den Doel the Dutch army comprised about 5,000 marines, 44,000 soldiers of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (Dutch: ‘Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger’, or in short: ‘KNIL’) and 70,000 soldiers of the Royal Netherlands Army (Dutch: ‘Koninklijke Landmacht’, in short ‘KL’). The KL constitutes the land forces element of the military of the Netherlands and, at the time, included a considerable amount of conscripts. (Stef Scagliola, ‘Last van de Oorlog’ (Amsterdam 2002), pages 50-52] The KNIL was the colonial army of the Dutch East Indies, of which the main purpose was to suppress revolts and which consisted of both ‘Indonesians’ and Dutchmen, of whom many had an ‘Indonesian’ (‘Indische’) look. [Scagliola, ‘Last van de Oorlog’, page 38] Altogether the Dutch were able to field 119,000 soldiers more than 10,000 kilometers away from the motherland.
Let’s put this number in perspective. According to Wikipedia the United States army was able to send 250,000 soldiers to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq at the start of the Second Gulf War. This means that the amount of U.S. soldiers which were directly involved in the invasion of Iraq is only more than twice the amount of Dutch soldiers deployed on Sumatra and Java in 1947. ‘Only’, because the population size of the Netherlands amounted to about 9,000,000 people during the mid-forties of the 20th century [‘De Grote Geïllustreerde Bosatlas’ (Groningen 1983) page 75 and CBS Statline], whereas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the United States amounted to 282,909,885 in 2003. This means that the U.S. population was more than 31 times bigger in 2003 than the Dutch population around 1945. Considering the fact that, as stated above, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army also consisted of indigenous men, my calculation is incorrect, however. Unfortunationaly, I don’t have the resources at my disposal to determine which part of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army drew on the indigenous population and how many soldiers were Dutch. Therefore, let us make another calculation based only on the amount of marines and Royal Netherlands Army soldiers.
Together the number of Dutch marines and the Royal Netherlands Army soldiers which were available on Sumatra and Java in 1947 amounted to 75,000 men. This means that the U.S. army that invaded in Iraq in 2003 was almost 3 and half times bigger than the Dutch army on Sumatra and Java in 1947. This still means, however, that the Dutch army was relatively much bigger than the U.S. invasion force of 2003. That is, only 0.088% of the U.S. population was sent to Iraq in 2003 whereas 0.83% of the Dutch population was sent to Java and Sumatra. If the U.S. had sent the same percentage of its population to Iraq the invading army would have amounted to 2,348,152 soldiers! But what about the ability of today’s Dutch military to project power overseas?
In 2007, according to CBS Statline, the Dutch popupulation amounted to 16,358,000 people. If the Netherlands would send 0.83% of its population on a military mission oversea this expeditionary force would comprise 135,771 soldiers. Currently, as a NATO member, the Dutch army is involved in the ISAF-operation in Afghanistan. To be more precisely, in Uruzgan. Hence the name of the operation ‘Task Force Uruzgan’, TFU in short. TFU, which officially started in March 2006, is considered to be a major operation by the Dutch. As such Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad terms TFU the biggest military expedition for the Netherlands since the above mentioned war in the former Dutch East Indies / Indonesia [Mark Kranenburg, ‘Eindelijk groen licht, na half jaar denken. Kamer stemt in met verlenging Nederlandse missie in Uruzgan’, NRC Handelsblad, 19 december]. But to what extent is the Dutch military preoccupied by TFU? Originally the Dutch Ministry of Defence estimated that two years in Afghanistan would cost 340 milion euro. In May 2007, however, it was estimated that the whole operation would cost 580 milion euro. [Maarten van der Schaaf, ‘Het ‘naïeve’ budget voor de Uruzgan-missie’, NRC Handelsblad, 25 mei 2007] NRC Handelsblad reported that the budget for TFU implied an enormous burden for the Dutch military, as a result of which it is forced to shrink the rest of its army, by selling armoured fighting vehicles (tanks, ‘pantserhouwitsers’) and F-16’s and cutting manpower (1,000 of its 70,000 jobs). [Steven Derix en Jaus Müller, ‘Defensie krimpt drastisch om in Uruzgan te blijven’, NRC Handelsblad, July 2, 2007] But how many soldiers are involved in TFU?
Originally, the Dutch army sent 1,200 to 1,400 soldiers to Uruzgan, but in April 2006 the government deemed it necessary to send another 200 soldiers. On November 30 2007 the Dutch government decided to stay another two year period in Uruzgan, but now with 1,400 soldiers. (Jaus Müller, ‘Belangrijke gebeurtenissen rond de Nederlandse missie in Uruzgan’, NRC Handelsblad, December 17, 2007] The difference with 1947 is staggering. Instead of deploying 0.83% of its population in Afghanistan the Dutch deployed only 0.00978% in 2007. No doubt this calculation isn’t very accurate. Nonetheless, the difference remains staggering. Especially considering the fact that in 1947 World War II was barely over and the process of recovery of the Dutch economy had only just started (European Recovery Program / Marshall Plan, July 1947).
Off course, there’s nothing new here, but for the Dutch it’s good to be aware of. In Newsweek’s recently issued ‘year-end Special Edition’ Minxin Pei, ‘director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’, states in an article entitled ‘An Unlikely New Ally’ that a group of Chinese thinkers are concerned about ‘the recent decline in U.S. prestige and leadership’. (pages 22-23) This group, ‘made up of the most cosmopolitan elites’, acknowledges the role of the United States as keeper of ‘some sort of stable order’ and provider of ‘public goods (...) as free trade, safe sea lanes, technological innovation and regional stability’. The Dutch should be concerned too about a U.S. decline in power. For it might very well lead to a world, in which a much more active and assertive role for European Union countries is required for the maintaince of a stable world order and the protection of their strategic interests. And such a would might very well require a considerable increase of their defence budgets and a significant increase in military manpower.
afghanistan,
decolonization,
dutch army,
dutch east indies,
indonesia,
isaf,
java,
knil,
koninklijke landmacht,
minxin pei,
netherlands,
sumatra,
task force uruzgan,
tfu,
u.s. military,
uruzgan
Headscarf and Miniskirt · 28 November 2007, 22:13 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Being an inhabitant of Rotterdam, a city in the Netherlands with large Moroccan and Turkish muslim communities, it is hard for me to perceive the headscarf simply as an expression of piety or chastity, as young Rotterdam muslimahs often combine their hijabs with make-up and fashionable, tight jeans by which they reduce them to not much more than a religio-ethnic marker and a fashion item. Nonetheless, I was a little surprised by the outfit of a young woman which I saw in the Rotterdam metro this morning. Although on balance it didn’t looked trashy at all the length of her skirt, which she combined with black, transparent tights, seemed fairly at odds with the fact that she was wearing a headscarf. As it ended at least 10 centimeters above her knees and as she measured about 1.65 m one could easily call it miniskirt. However, I don’t think I’ve witnessed a harbinger of a cultural revolution this morning. Because when she left the carriage she desperately tried to pull her skirt towards her knees and as such she seemed very uncomfortable with it. It wouldn’t surprise me, therefore, if it ended up as cleaning-rag.
ethnic marker,
headscarf,
hijab,
islam,
miniskirt,
moroccan,
muslim,
muslimah,
netherlands,
rotterdam,
turkish
Seymour Hersh on 'the Madness of King George' · 3 November 2007, 07:27 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Last week Seymour Hersh visited Groningen, the Netherlands, to deliver a lecture at the Van der Leeuw-lezing (Van der Leeuw Lecture). Click here to read his complete lecture on, among other things, ‘the Madness of King George’ and its corrupting effect on U.S. societey.
george bush,
groningen,
iraq,
king george,
seymour hersh,
van der leeuw lezing
Sclerotic, Old Europe: a Myth · 28 October 2007, 08:56 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In ‘Europe’s "blue card" plan. Not the ace in the pack’ a small article in this week’s The Economist the weekly explains why only ‘a paltry 1.7%’ of the EU’s workforce are highly qualified non-Europeans whereas in the US more than 3% of the employed population are highly skilled foreigners, in Canada more than 7% and in Australia even more than 10% and the blue card probably won’t fix this. First of all, because ‘many European governments’ will religiously guard their migration policies against EU attempts to harmonise them. Secondly, because European economies aren’t attractive enough. That is, ’(a)s long as those economies remain relatively undynamic, the most talented (especially English-speakers) will use their wits to look for work elsewhere’. Unfortunately the magazine underpins neither this thesis nor its diagnosis of the current state of the European economy. By ‘undynamic’, however, I assume it especially refers to the Rhinelandic, European welfare state, which it probably perceives as a drag on the EU economy.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled ‘5 Myths About Sick Old Europe’, however, Steven Hill shows that the European economy is actually doing pretty well and that its welfare state shouldn’t be conceived as an impediment to growth and dynamics, but, on the contrary, as a system that is ‘geared toward keeping everyone healthy and working’, ‘an ingenious framework in which the economy finances the social system to support families and employees in an age of globalized capitalism that threatens to turn us all into internationally disposable workers’. Click here to read how Hill pitches into this and four other ‘myths about sick old Europe’.
blue card,
china,
competitiveness,
eu,
europe,
old europe,
rhineland,
steven hill,
welfare state
The De-Baathification of Iraq: Really a Misstep? · 26 October 2007, 11:43 CET by Charles Vermeulen
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the U.S.-led occupation forces banned all members of the Baath party from the new government, as well as from public schools and colleges. By some this was considered a misstep, because it meant that dozens of experienced technocrats and other employees weren’t available anymore for the reconstruction process of Post-Saddam Iraq. Furthermore it spread anger and resentment among Iraq’s Sunni population who lost their traditional position of power. Recommendation 27 of the Iraq Study Group Report (page 45) therefore reads: ‘Political reconciliation requires the reintegration of Baathists and Arab nationalists into national life, with the leading figures of Saddam Hussein’s regime excluded. The United States should encourage the return of qualified Iraqi professionals—Sunni or Shia, nationalist or ex-Baathist, Kurd or Turkmen or Christian or Arab—into the government.’ But was it really such a bad idea to purge rigorously Iraqi society from members of the Baath party? Currently I’m reading the Dutch translation of Anna Politkovskaya’s Putin’s Russia (Pocket edition, Breda 2005) in which she discusses, among other things, the rise to power of current Russian president Vladimir Putin. According to Politkovskaya possibly more than 6,000 KGB / FSB officials followed Putin when he became President and now occupy key positions in Russia’s key institutions. This means that Russia’s new power structures ‘are chockful of citizens’ who grew up in a tradition in which repression is valued as a proper solution for governmental problems. Only a radical purge, Politkovskaya impassionedly argued, would have sufficed to prevent the current outcome, which she deeply deplored. (pages 130-131)
anna politkovskaya,
de-baathification,
fsb,
iraq,
kgb,
politkovskaya,
putin,
putin's russia,
russia
Geert Wilders's Call for a Ban on the Qur'an · 9 August 2007, 18:19 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Last Saturday Ehsan Jami, an Iran born (Mashad, 20 april 1985) Dutch PvdA politician and founder of the (Dutch) Central Comitee for Ex-Muslims, was molested by three men, probably because of his qualification of some statements of the prophet Muhammad as backward. Seemingly as a response on the assault on Jami populist frontman of the PVV (Party for Freedom) and MP Geert Wilders wrote an op-ed, which was published in yesterday’s edition of Dutch daily de Volkskrant. In this op-ed, entitled ‘Genoeg is genoeg: verbied de Koran’ (‘Enough is Enough: Ban the Qur’an’), Wilders compares the Qur’an with Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and incites (I assume his fellow MP’s and / or the Government) to ban the Qur’an. By this Wilders harms the interests of the country he says he’s vindicating. He’s pouring oil on the flames and, as such, is forcing the Netherlands to use its resources for a fight that shouldn’t be fought. It could use its resources in a far better way.
Let there be no mistake about it: there’s no place in the Netherlands for people who think they have the right to use violence against people who don’t share their (religious) beliefs. People who think otherwise and act correspondingly or threaten to do so, should be dealt with by the law. Furthermore, (potential) victims, like Ehsan Jami or Geert Wilders, should be protected against them at any cost. However, by constantly proclaiming that the existence of a moderate Islam is an illusion Wilders strains reality and offends the large majority of Dutch muslims who live normal and peaceful lives. Demanding a ban on the Qur’an can only be intepreted as an attempt to change this reality and to force the moderates to choose between apostacy and extremism. As such Wilders’s way of thinking closely resembles the obtuse, primitive black-and-white way of thinking of the ones he says he’s fighting.
But also out of sheer realpolitik a less hysteric and more considered response would be welcome. The exact outcome of a ban on the Qur’an in the Netherlands will be unsure. No doubt, however, it will result in unprecedented, societal instability, no doubt Dutch (economic) interests abroad will be seriously violated and no doubt it will put Dutch lives at risk. There’s no way the Netherlands could profit from such a measure. On the contrary, it will only harm the country. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the United States decided to invade Iraq. This was a rash, badly considered decision as a result of which the country’s military capability and economy are dangerously strained, just at a time that ambitious countries as Russia, China and Iran are challenging its world-dominion. By this the Americans set a bad example. The lesson to be learned from it, however, seems to be wasted on Wilders. But as the Dutch live in the same, changing world as the Americans, they can’t afford to be dragged into a conflict that will drain all of their resources either. By renouncing Wilders’s statements, therefore, the Dutch government did the only right thing.
ban on the qur'an,
ehsan jami,
geert wilders,
jami,
netherlands,
pvda,
pvv,
qur'an,
the netherlands,
wilders
Plea for more European Cooperation · 6 August 2007, 13:39 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In an interview in M (August 2007, pages 10-13), Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad’s monthly, British politician / diplomat Paddy Ashdown states that the United States will turn into a disconcerted and inward-looking country after withdrawing from Iraq. What does this mean for Europe? Ashdown provides the opponents for more European integration in the fields of foreign policy and defence with something to chew on:
(Note that I had to translate Ashdown’s words from Dutch into English, while the Dutch version of his words is in turn a translation from English into Dutch, because, unfortunately, the Dutch version was the only version that was available to me.)
ashdown,
china,
europe,
european cooperation,
european integration,
paddy ashdown,
russia
Gideon Rachman's Optimism About a Nuclear Iran · 3 August 2007, 19:32 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In his column in the Financial Times – this time entitled ‘Nuclear apocalypse: the good news’ (July 23, 2007) – Gideon Rachman refers to a poll among foreign politics experts published last year in the Atlantic, which showed that only 14 per cent of them thought that Iran might use its nuclear weapons offensively, to prove that also a nuclear Iran will be cautious not to provoke a nuclear retaliation attack. In other words: even in the case of a nuclear Iran the doctrine of mutual assured destruction would remain applicable. Off course, assuming that the experts are right, the world would be better of with an Iran which is not willing to use bomb than an Iran that is willing to use it. Nonetheless, a nuclear Iran is far from desirable. In a previous posting I discussed Scott D. Sagan’s ‘How to Keep the Bomb From Iran’, an article in Foreign Affairs (September / October edition, 2006, page 45-59). In his article Sagan deems optimism about the risks of a nuclear Iran (‘deterence optimism’) as misplaced, among other things because possession of the bomb might embolden Iran to a more aggressive foreign policy, for example by means of Hezbollah. Click here to the read the whole posting.
atom bomb,
gideon rachman,
hezbollah,
iran,
nuclear iran,
proliferation
People's Bank of China Buys Stake in BG Group · 2 August 2007, 10:44 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Between June 15 and July 13 the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank, has purchased a 0.46% interest in UK gas giant BG Group, allegedly on behalf of a Chinese sovereign wealth fund, which will be probably named ‘China Investment Corp’ (CIC) and which is ‘being set up to manage $200 billion of China’s $1.33 trillion in foreign exchange reserves’. According to Eurasia Group this ‘CIC will almost certainly increase its very small initial investment in BG Group, raising the prospect of a potential future takeover bid’. Read more about it in ‘China buys 0.46 pct of Britain’s BG Group’, a Reuters report.
bg group,
china,
china investment corp,
cic,
pboc,
people's bank of china,
sovereign-wealth funds