Global Insights: After Dutch Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Who's Next?

According to Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadij, the insurgent group is very happy about the Dutch military withdrawal from Afghanistan that began on Sunday. "We want to wholeheartedly congratulate the citizens and government of the Netherlands for having the courage . . . to take this independent decision," Ahmadij told the Dutch daily Volkskrant, adding that, "We hope that other countries with troops stationed in Afghanistan will follow the Netherlands' example." Ahmadij's remarks, though intended to be provocative, in fact raise key questions -- namely, how many other countries will indeed follow the Netherlands' example, and how quickly. The decision by the Netherlands to become the first NATO country to withdraw its entire military contingent from Afghanistan could plausibly increase pressure on other European governments to curtail their own unpopular military deployments there. Once Spain and the Netherlands withdrew their troops from Iraq, for example, many other countries followed suit, eventually leaving American troops as the only significant foreign military presence in the country. The same pattern could easily occur in Afghanistan in coming years. In December 2005, despite considerable opposition in the national legislature and among the Dutch public, the government in the Hague decided to send combat forces to the southern province of Uruzgan to provide security and to support the region's political and economic development. The Dutch government justified its participation in NATO's first out-of-area operation -- and the Netherlands' first combat deployment since the Korean War -- by citing alliance and transatlantic solidarity. Since the spring of 2006 until this month, the Netherlands have deployed approximately 2,000 troops in Afghanistan. Some 1,400 of these Dutch soldiers, along with a smaller number of Australians, have been in Uruzgan, a small mountainous province north of Helmand and Kandahar. Uruzgan has a strong Taliban presence and is the birthplace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It is also one of the Afghan provinces with the highest levels of opium production. The Dutch adopted a so-called "3D" strategy of defense, development, and diplomacy. The approach stressed support for Afghan-led economic initiatives through engaging community leaders in developing and implementing local projects. The defense dimension focused on protecting population centers, in a modified version of the British "ink-blot" counterinsurgency strategy, rather than seeking out opportunities to fight Taliban insurgents. Dutch forces have generally been reluctant to engage in combat operations against the Taliban and operate under rules of engagement that typically require them to use force only if attacked and to maneuver out of enemy fire instead of staying in contact. They did not regularly patrol into Taliban-controlled territory, but instead focused on building relationships with the local population, which provides useful intelligence and some degree of force protection.