Dutch success story in Afghanistan

Globe & Mail:

...

The Dutch went into Uruzgan expecting the same kind of bloody welcome that Canadians have found in Kandahar. Both provinces are considered volatile strongholds of the Taliban insurgency. Special forces operating in Uruzgan encountered daily attacks this summer. So the 1,400 Dutch troops that began arriving in early August came prepared for battle.

But the bloodbath never happened. This past week, the first four-month rotation of Dutch troops started to leave Uruzgan after having completed 400 patrols, established two forward bases and started the slow work of building roads, bridges, schools, and clinics — all without a single soldier killed in action, and just two injuries from hostile forces.

There have been just seven ambushes and 18 roadside bombs in four months; Canadian troops have suffered worse in a single week.

The success is fragile, Dutch commanders caution, and might be partly the result of luck, insurgents focusing on battles elsewhere or the cautious pace of their arrival. But the early results in Uruzgan also suggest that something these commanders call the “Dutch philosophy” is worth a hard look. It's a strategy focused on supporting the local government rather than killing its supposed enemies, talking with the Taliban instead of fighting them, and treading carefully with an understanding of how little any foreigner knows about this untamed country.

...

In the first months after the Canadians' arrival in Kandahar, commanders sent convoys to the furthest corners of the province. These wide-ranging trips were described as a way of asserting the Canadians' presence, and sometimes resulted in gun battles.

By contrast, the Dutch have moved with extreme caution. Only about 15 kilometres north of Kamp Holland lies the entrance to the Balochi Valley, the scene of many battles between insurgents and pro-government forces, and a zone where foreign troops expected to sustain regular attacks. Rather than pushing in, the Dutch sent a delegation to a village near the mouth of the valley and asked whether they're willing to negotiate.

The elders seemed frightened but willing, so Lieutenant-Colonel Piet Van der Sar, the battle group commander, flew in by helicopter for a meeting. “We spread a rumour up the valley, that we're trying to come in without fighting,” he said.

The tactic worked, he said. Listening to the radio frequencies often used by insurgents, the Dutch interpreters heard locals discussing the new type of foreigner that was replacing the U.S. troops. “They said, ‘Those Dutch aren't here to fight, they're here to talk,' ” Lt.-Col. Van der Sar said.

The talks include not only village elders, but also the Taliban themselves. It's a subject the Dutch are reluctant to discuss in detail, as the idea of negotiating with terrorists remains a subject of debate among NATO allies. In a PowerPoint briefing for a visiting reporter, Lt.-Col. Tak moved quickly past a slide titled “Talking to the Dark Side.”

Lt.-Col. Tak said that while nobody under his command talks directly with the insurgents, he works closely with the provincial governor who does make contact with the Taliban.

“Talking to the Taliban is essential,” Lt.-Col. Tak said.

Perhaps 98 per cent of the insurgents in Uruzgan are people originally from this province, the commander said. The number of hardcore Taliban is often exaggerated, he added: Arabs, Pakistanis and even Chechens are fighting against the government, he said, but they're a tiny minority compared with those Taliban members who joined the movement simply because it was the most powerful faction in the mid-1990s.

“If you indicate that you're willing to talk with them, it's surprising what you get,” he said.

“What do you get?” he was asked.

“A response, sometimes,” Lt.-Col. Tak said. “But you have to indicate — and this takes months — you have to show in everything that you do and say, that you are genuinely trying to understand their conflict.”

...

It sounds like counter insurgency warfare to me. Fortunately they have found a successful spot to implement it. But the enemy also has a vote on whether this type of operation will be a success. Just being nice is not always going to work. It is also not clear at this time whether the operations in the Canadian and US sectors may have made the people in the Dutch sector more ready to get along.