The Restrained Dutch Soldiers

Color me not surprised by yesterday's NYT report on the respectful and restrained Dutch military contingent to the NATO Forces in Afghanistan. It's a given that the Dutch are exceedingly nice people. Unfortunately, as a defining attribute, niceness is somewhat out of place in a war.

[I]n Uruzgan Province, where the Taliban operate openly, a Dutch-led task force has mostly shunned combat. Its counterinsurgency tactics emphasize efforts to improve Afghan living conditions and self-governance, rather than hunting the Taliban's fighters. Bloodshed is out. Reconstruction, mentoring and diplomacy are in.

American military officials have expressed unease about the Dutch method, warning that if the Taliban are not kept under military pressure in Uruzgan, they will use the province as a haven and project their insurgency into neighboring provinces.

In response, the Dutch say their soldiers attempt to lure people away from the Taliban by working on reconstruction projects and by being civic-minded. In doing so, Dutch soldiers avoid going to hostile areas where they might be shot and, when attacked, they immediately retreat. The overall philosophy encourages respect and restraint, they say.

However, an Afghan interpreter working with the Dutch soldiers took issue with the passive approach.

“The Dutch, if the fight starts, they run inside their vehicles every time," said the interpreter, who asked that his name be withheld because he risked losing his job. "They say, 'We came for peace, not to fight.' And I say, 'If you don't fight, you cannot have peace in Afghanistan.' "

Frankly, I am not the first to question the viability of Marshall Plan tactics in a shooting war which appears to be exactly what the Dutch soldiers provide. Furthermore, their restrained approach gives the Dutch a reputation, attested to by headline coverage in the NYT, of possibly being the least desirable reinforcements to a unit in combat.

It's arguable but I would suggest that the Dutch soldiers and commanders possess an ingrained cultural passiveness held by the majority of the population of The Netherlands. Over the years, they have allowed a number of radical campaigns to succeed unchallenged. Initiatives for widespread drug usage, unlimited sexual behaviors and the adoption of appallingly brutal fourth-trimester abortions (Groningen Protocol) saw virtually no confrontation nor protest by the citizenry. And, now the country is being subjected to intense pressure from the Islamists while the voters exhibit respect and restraint. Consequently, it's no surprise that the Dutch soldiers attached to NATO would want to get along. Being non-confrontational appears to be genetic.

While recognizing the absolute necessity of helping rebuild worn-torn nations, it's customarily not the job of soldiers in the middle of a war. The first priority should be to defeat the enemy. That means returning fire when attacked as opposed to running away.


[Update 6:00 PM]

Additional clarification on the role and performance of Dutch troops has been provided from the Webmaster of the Uruzgan weblog, a Dutch-language source. Based upon the input, my familiarity with the subject is not complete. As a consequence, my contention that the Dutch are a generally passive population is not directly translatable to the attitudes of their military, although I continue to believe the contention is valid.

With due respect, both the NYT article and the additional comments on this particular site give a one-sided picture of the activities of the Dutch NATO forces in Uruzgan and elsewhere in Afghanistan. There's no mention of the use of Dutch heavy artillery, Apache attack helicopters or F-16 fighter-bombers, in support of Afghan, Dutch, British, Canadian or American troops.

There's also no mention of the activities of Dutch Special Forces (for some footage, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnzA_8Juw94). Strangely enough, the New York Times reporter in question also fails to mention a fierce fire-fight he personally witnessed between the Dutch and the Taliban on April 4th in the location of Surkh-murghab, NE of Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital and home to the main Dutch base and US FOB Ripley.

And to put things in perspective, the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team in Uruzgan consists of 50-60 specialists; the remainder of the 1900+ 'Task Force Uruzgan' consists of a sizable Battle Group; an equally sizable Air Task Force; and some 200 additional personnel at ISAF's Regional Command South, including Major General Ton van Loon, who currently commands all NATO troops (including US units) in the six southern provinces.

The original NYTimes article failed to discuss the full scope of involvement and effectiveness of Dutch military in Afghanistan, thereby leaving the reader with an incomplete and unbalanced picture.