In the Netherlands, there have been many discussions about whether or not to establish a European Defence Organisation. However, due to the political party D66 (Democrats '66), this discussion has been revived in 2006 to such an extent that it really had an impact on political agendas of the Dutch political …

The author compares Israeli and Hezbollah land warfare with the principles stipulated for this in Dutch Army doctrine. It reveals the difficulty any western regular army would have when faced with an adversary partially employing irregular war fighting methods. This asymmetry includes some more structural …

The Afghan government is the subject of this contribution, which investigates how it has developed over time, what the efforts of recent years to build it up have resulted in, and – its actual objective– what it means for foreign militaries, such as the Dutch in Uruzgan at present, to have a weak …

On 2 February 2006, after earlier Dutch contributions in Afghanistan, a large parliamentary majority approved the Cabinet decision to deploy a mission to Uruzgan. On 3 February 2006 the decision was confirmed in the meeting of the Cabinet. This brought to a close the political decision making process …

Because of the high-risk deployments into Afghanistan, soldiers’ parents have become more important in public opinion as well as in activities of family support groups. Although their voice is heard louder than ever before, research into parents’ experiences in the course of deployment is sparse. This …

In this article the author homes in on the tension inherent in the mission in Afghanistan: finding the balance in conducting reconstruction operations while also providing security including the application of considerable force, if necessary. He analyses the effectiveness and efficiency of Dutch land …

The Dutch society of today is a very mixed one. Different cultures from all over the world come together in one small country. One of the reasons that the Dutch society contains so many different cultures is because of its colonial history. The Surinamese population is one of the many ethnical minorities …

In the 1960s, Jacques van Doorn started teaching (military) sociology as a formal, scientific discipline at the Netherlands Military Academy. Since then, the way military sociology was taught at the academy has seen a great number of developments; the philosophy of education at the academy changed into …

Analysis of the Dutch defense expenditure from 1990-2005. In 1990 this still amounted to 2.7% of the Gross National Product (GNP), whereas in 2005 it had dropped morethan a full per cent. In terms of their tasking, size and composition the Netherlands armed forces have changed drastically over the past …

The Dutch Armed forces have seen an enormous change during the last fifteen years. Peace keeping and enforcing have become the major tasks. The amount of troops and equipment has dwindled, so did the yearly budget. The decline of military means is defended by the thesis that quality is more important …