The Dutch in Afghanistan
April 6th, 2007
By Michael van der Galien
A good, interesting article in the New York Times about Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan and about the tactics used by them to fight the Taliban:
rather than advancing for reconnaissance or to attack, the Dutch soldiers pulled back to a safer village. “We’re not here to fight the Taliban,� said the Dutch commander, Col. Hans van Griensven, at a recent staff meeting. “We’re here to make the Taliban irrelevant.�
Thousands of fresh Western troops have flowed into Afghanistan since last year, seeking to counter the resurgent Taliban before an expected spring offensive. Many American units have been conducting sweeps and raids.
But here in 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.
To which my government / military replies:
The Dutch counter that construction projects and consistent political and social support will lure the population from the Taliban, allowing the central and provincial governments to expand their authority over the long term.
The Americans can criticize all they want, but just fighting won’t do the trick. If we want to remove the Taliban completely, we have to rebuild Afghanistan / Uruzgan. Focusing on ‘just’ the fighting is understandable, but won’t be enough.
On the other hand, allowing the Taliban to re-group and to create a safe haven is not exactly an option either. As one Afghan interpreter said: “The Dutch, if the fight starts, they run inside their vehicles every time. They say, ‘We came for peace, not to fight.’ And I say, ‘If you don’t fight, you cannot have peace in Afghanistan.’”
I am not sure whether that sends the right message people. Too much fighting might be counterproductive, as Colonel van Griensven believes, but too little fighting is not exactly productive either, or so it seems to me.
Anyway, it is an interesting approach. It has worked in southern Iraq, lets hope it also works in Afghanistan.
(To be) cross posted at my own blog.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 12:09 am and is filed under Terrorism, 9/11, War On Terror, Afghanistan, Europe. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
