NATO Lacks a Promising and Coordinated Strategy to Win in Afghanistan

The Netherlands have tried to apply an ‘ink blot’ strategy in the Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, i.e. they focused on weaning the local population from supporting the Taliban, de-escalation and gradual expansion of a zone of security within which reconstruction can take place.

One of the reasons the Netherlands seem to be gradually abandoning the strategy is that the Dutch can’t draw up a strategy in isolation. “The Netherlands can’t drive a wedge between the local population and the Taliban with 1,400 troops in Uruzgan when 20 to 30 thousand other troops are antagonising people of the same ethnic group in the surrounding provinces,” argues Nanne Zwagerman in a guest blog post on Atlantic Review: A Shared Mission in Afghanistan?

He concludes: “If the European allies in NATO do not get to determine the mission on equal footing, they should leave the US to fight it alone.”