There have been more political ruptures around the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go issue of Uruzgan, writes Giles Scott-Smith.

NATO Secretary General Rasmussen sent a letter on 10 February formally asking the Netherlands to keep its forces in Afghanistan for another year following the current August 2010 deadline. The request seems reasonable, considering the wide response amongst the 43 nations militarily active in that country, both NATO and non-NATO, to increase their support for the war since President Obama presented the US strategy late last year.
The problems started when it became clear that there was no unanimous response from the Dutch cabinet to Rasmussen’s letter. Worse still, it turned out that such a letter from the NATO Secretary General should only be sent if a clear signal has already been given from the given government that it is going to accept the request. This way it can be avoided that NATO gets directly involved in domestic political battles – never a good idea. And while there has been plenty speculated in recent weeks about a possible classic Dutch compromise to satisfy the pro-Uruzgan faction in the Christian Democrats and the anti-Uruzgan faction in the Labour party, the deadline for the announement of the government position is not until 1 March.
So Rasmussen’s letter, sent with the best intentions, did enter a politically divided Dutch cabinet, and as a result it immediately raised questions from Labour about who had given Brussels the signal that it could be sent. Inevitably, all eyes rested on Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, the principal supporter for extending the Dutch mission. Verhagen had to attend the recent Afghanistan conference in London empty-handed while many other nations pledged allegiance to the US-led military surge, not a situation that would have made him feel very comfortable.
Did the arrival of the NATO letter indicate that he was trying to force the issue in The Hague? Not so, answered Verhagen – anything I do or say on this issue is disussed with cabinet leaders beforehand. Dutch policy towards Afghanistan is not a ‘one-person activity’. Once again, as with the Davids report on Iraq, the Christian Democrats and the Labour party rushed to accuse each other and then, after several hours (if not days) behind closed doors, declared that the crisis is over. Until the next misunderstanding.
Conclusions from this episode?
Firstly, that the Dutch image as ‘loyal ally’ in NATO is again being damaged by political in-fighting and indecision. But we’ve been through this one with the Atlantic reflex and Iraq – if loyalty means collectively nodding and saying ‘yes boss’, the results don’t necessarily lead in the right direction. Better if the Netherlands accepts that the days of such clarity (if they ever existed) are over, and a rapidly changing world requires other responses.
Secondly, its worth picking up on what journalist Marc Chavannes said last weekend. Chavannes pointed out that the way the Davids report has been treated up to now has totally avoided the big issues such as ‘the role of the Netherlands in the world’ and ‘the continuing value of an exceptional Atlanticism as opposed to a more European-orientated politics.’
I couldn’t agree more. Chavannes goes on to say that the Lisbon treaty has introduced a new phase in the EU’s development where national affairs will to a greater degree be decided at the European level. Yet the Netherlands is absent in this process, not only due to a lack of any senior EU functionary, but also due to a lack of any meaningful political debate on the continuing processes of integration. To an extent, the ‘no’ in the referendum on the EU constitution has killed off both.
And then there is the new report by the Dutch Advice Committee on International Issues (to be released in English as well), led by former Defence Minister Joris Voorhoeve. The report, which covers the new strategic concept being prepared for NATO, expresses concern that Afghanistan has come to dominate all debate about the Organisation – indeed that it has come to represent either its future or its failure, at the expense of many other threats. Voorhoeve pleads for closer attention to the security needs of the Atlantic area – the foundation of NATO’s existence. While Afghanistan does represent a threat to NATO ountries, so in similar or different ways do other countries, and they are currenty not on NATO’s agenda. And the need to shift attention towards issues such as energy security and cyberwarfare is growing.
Both Chavannes and Voorhoeve provide valuable interventions to broaden out the debate on Dutch foreign policy, which politically is currently stuck in short-term electoral considerations. Both point towards a situation where multiple factors should decide foreign policy direction, potentially with a changing array of allies. In this sense Uruzgan is not the make-or-break issue that it is made out tobe, it is no more than the closing of a particular episode, be it in August 2010 or August 2011. It is what will happen beyond Uruzgan that is of much bigger significance.
Giles Scott-Smith is an academic based in Leiden and Middelburg. Check out the blog The Holland Bureau for more.