The Dutch Army Oversea - On Numbers and Budgets · 4 January 2008, 18:57 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
'We have a tiny, tiny force in Afghanistan' · 7 July 2007, 10:57 CET by Charles Vermeulen
While the knuckels of Dutch Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop were rapped by a majority in parliament this week after he had stated that the Dutch goverment intended to keep an army in Afghanistan after August 2008, retired Canadian major-general Lewis MacKenzie calls upon the NATO members to double its military presence on the ground in the country.
afghanistan,
mackenzie,
nato,
netherlands,
van middelkoop
Detainees Captured by the Dutch in Afghanistan · 6 January 2007, 17:59 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In the previous posting I wrote about Dutch joint responsibility for human rights violations committed by the Americans. I mentioned the fact that sending Dutch troops to Afghanistan enabled the U.S. to continue to wage its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the support of non-U.S. troops in the ‘War on Terror’ provided the latter with some legitimacy. But off course there’s also the issue of prisoners of war (POWs), which might be captured by Dutch troops. Preceding the sending of the troops the Dutch government has decided that captured POWs will be handed over to the Afghan authorities. Furthermore, in a Memorandum of Understanding the Dutch government and the government of Hamid Karzai have agreed upon that those POWs, thereupon, won’t be handed over by the Afghan authorities to third parties, that is to the U.S. (source: NRC Handelsblad, ‘Wel skibril in Uruzgan, maar geen dwang’, 21/11/2006) But what if the Afghan authorities decide to officially release a POW and directly thereafter some obscure militia, secretely affiliated to the authorities, kidnaps the released POW to torture and / or kill him / her? Or to hand over the POW to the U.S.? Or that U.S. secret agents waylay the released POW at the prison’s gate? Technically the Dutch don’t need to violate their own agreements then to bring a POW in danger. Furthermore, it’s doubtful whether POWs are better of with their kinsmen than with the Americans. In Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (‘Wel skibril in Uruzgan’, 21/11/2006) Human Rights Watch’s Asia research director Sam Zarifi said that prisoners who are assumed to be Taliban are detained by the NDS, the Afghan secret service, which beats them up and gives them electric shocks. Considering all this it seems hard to avoid that in the end the human rights of POWs captured by the Dutch won’t be violated.
afghanistan,
human rights,
karzai,
taliban,
uruzgan,
war on terror
Van Bommel Tendentious on Uruzgan Mission · 5 January 2007, 11:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
The legitimicy of the presence of Dutch troops in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, has provoked only modest debate in the Netherlands. Harry van Bommel, a prominent MP of the Dutch Socialist Party, therefore rightly keeps the subject on the agenda. The way he deals with it, however, is in my opinion rather questionable and tendentious. In an interview in this weeks edition of Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland (page 14-18) he expounds his views.
On the one hand his line of thought seems an accurate one. In its ‘War on Terror’ the U.S. has committed several kinds of human rights violations including torture. Referring to among others the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay Van Bommel therefore coins this war a ‘dirty war’. Nonetheless, the Dutch government supports the U.S. in this ‘dirty war’ by sending troops to Afghanistan. Because of this the MP denominates the Dutch government a ‘subcontractor’ of the U.S. Although this is somewhat populistic, in my opinion the Dutch government has indeed become jointly responsible for human rights violations committed by the U.S. Firstly, by sending its soldiers the Netherlands helps the U.S. to continue to wage its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, of which especially the latter seems to have stretched the U.S. military capacity to the breaking point. Secondly, the sending of troops by U.S. allies provides the ‘War on Terror’ with some legitimacy, because it turns the ‘War on Terror’ into a more or less international effort.
On the other hand, Van Bommel easily puts aside some very good reasons for the ousting of the Taliban from Afghanistan. He acknowledges that the Taliban ‘ruled Afghanistan by means of violence’ and ‘unpleasant things happened during their rule with respect to the suppression of women and jurisdiction’, but ‘the situation isn’t all that simple’. (...) ‘Uruzgan is in fact a Taliban-province. The Pashtuns which live there are inclined to support the Taliban-warriors.’ According to Van Bommel this implies that ‘we are, in fact, waging a war against the local population’.
What strikes here, firstly, is that the MP uses a far more detached language to describe the crimes of the Taliban than to describe those commited by the U.S. Compare for example ‘unpleasant things happened during their rule with respect to the suppression of women and jurisdiction’ with ‘torture’ and ‘dirty war’. As a result of this the impression arises that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan was in fact worse than the violent Taliban have been for the country. Secondly, it might be true the Pashtun in Uruzgan are inclined to support the Taliban, but that doesn’t imply that the Taliban plan to confine their rule to the area of their supporters. Afterall, preceding the U.S. invasion their rule confined almost the whole of Afghanistan. Thirdly, by stating that Dutch troops are waging a war against the local population because they’re fighting the Taliban is really manipulative, for it suggests that Dutch troops deliberately and systematicly shoot at or throw bombs on civilians in Uruzgan. And last but not least: let’s not forget that the Taliban harboured Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda, which are responsible for thousands of deaths.
afghanistan,
al-qaeda,
harry van bommel,
sp,
taliban,
uruzgan,
van bommel
Dutch Special Forces Grow Beards in Uruzgan · 21 November 2006, 07:29 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Yesterday night I watched ‘09.11 Zulu. Onze commando’s aan het werk in Uruzgan’ (‘09.11 Zulu. Our commando’s at work in Uruzgan’) a documentary by Vik Franke on the (fighting) missions of Dutch commando’s in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. Franke joined them as an ‘embedded’ journalist on some of these missions. What caught the eye was that image of the well-groomed western soldier didn’t quite apply. Many of the Dutch commando’s wore big ferocious beards. At first I thought: no wonder, these guys stay out of their camps in the Afghan dessert for days, maybe for weeks and because of that they simply lack the possibility to shave. But on second thoughts that couldn’t be the explanation, because some of them combined their beards with perfectly cropped haircuts, while others had no beard at all and their interpreter had a neatly groomed whisker. Then I remembered Robert D. Kaplan’s ‘Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan’ (1990). In this book Kaplan described how even journalists transformed after entering the martial world of the Afghan mujahideen. Adapting to local customs they grow wild beards as a sign of masculinity and start to despice their newly arrived fellow reporters with their smoothly shaved, effeminate faces.
Update – Click here to watch the documentary (in Dutch).
09.11 zulu,
afghanistan,
commando's,
dutch special forces,
masculinity,
robert d. kaplan,
special forces,
uruzgan,
vik franke