The Dutch have long considered themselves to be a builder of bridges between Europe and Washington. Europe is important but NATO is still fundamental on the Dutch strategic horizon. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen stated in 2008 that “a strong Atlantic relationship directly serves Dutch interests” [Internationale Specator, 62 (Oct 2008)] When confronted with certain issues Dutch diplomats, contrary to the Belgians, thus still have a choice to make: going Atlantic or going European.

The European project is for the Dutch and its politicians a multilateral project, a far cry from the federal utopia the Belgians are pushing for. This cooperation among states can be expanded when needed, but the independent Dutch want to keep their options open. The plebiscite about the European constitution of the first of June 2005 was a more recent example of how the Dutch are rather cool lovers of a federal Europe.

From this comparative perspective, the claim that Dutch foreign policy is guided by a dogmatic Atlantic reflex must be tempered. It is correct that the Belgians made the right decision to condemn the Iraq War, but they did not explore all options. The Dutch, by contrast, thought about their options and believed that supporting the Americans would pay off and chose the Atlantic option. In hindsight it was a wrong choice, but calling that behavior dogmatic is overstated when we compare it with the Belgian decision-making process. The spirit that guided the Dutch decision was not the Atlantic Reflex, but the lack of a European reflex. If the Dutch government had convincingly promoted the Atlantic alliance, with the vigor that characterizes Belgian adherence to European integration, than one could speak about a genuine reflex.

However what rises up out of the five hundred pages of the Davids Report is the enormous difficulty that accompanied the decision of the Dutch government. Conversely, the Belgian decision to condemn a possible invasion was a cake walk. Consequently the Dutch decision-making process in itself – isolated from its outcome – can be interpreted differently. Compared to Belgium, the Dutch thoroughly evaluated all options, and then made the wrong decision. The decision of the Dutch government was not a consequence of too much dogmatism, but too little of it. Especially when we take into account the very flexible way that international law – an idea launched by a Dutchman named Hugo Grotius and embodied by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague – was interpreted.  

Although Belgium made the right decision, it is hard to say if the European reflex will pay off in the future. Nevertheless in a new world where new powers and new economies claim their rightful place at the table, a European reflex, or even a more modest European twitch, seems to be the more successful spasm that small countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium can possess.

Frank Gerits studied history at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the University of Illinois. He is currently setting up a research project on US and Belgian public diplomacy during the Cold War.

In an article in the NRC-Handelsblad, Giles Scott-Smith points towards the decisive role of the ‘Atlantic reflex’ in Dutch foreign policy. The Dutch government considered the Iraq war to be an issue of Alliance rather than of international law. The David’s report has already received elaborate attention, but I believe that deeper insights lie in a comparison between Dutch and Belgian diplomacy. This perspective is interesting because Dutch and Belgian transatlantic relations during the Cold War were very similar. As Giles points out in his article, the Netherlands, like Belgium, did not unconditionally support the U.S. during the Cold War. The Netherlands and the U.S, like Belgium and the US, had their disagreements about Korea, about the European Defence Community, about decolonisation and about strategic missiles during the 1980s. From a historical perspective the question then becomes: so much for similarities – why the different response to the Iraq War? Belgium loudly advocated pacifism, why didn’t the Dutch do the same?

From a Belgian perspective the explanation of an Atlantic Reflex does not really succeed in its attempt to explain the Dutch decision making process. The so-called reflex looks more like a twitch, because Belgian foreign policy is pervaded by what I call the ‘European Reflex’. Simply stated, foreign policy officials attach more value to the European Union than to the Atlantic connection. As Rik Coolsaet points out, Belgium has been surrounded by big states from its birth as a nation in 1830. Caution for pressure by large countries, i.e. the United States, is in Coolsaet’s logic a subconscious component of Belgian foreign policy.

The anti-American posture in the transatlantic conflict over Iraq stemmed from this reasoning. For Belgium, large powers that disregard international law are an unstable factor in the international system. To correct this behavior the country wants to build a strong European community. For Belgium Europe is not mere strategic choice. Belgian diplomats religiously pull the European card.

Prime Minister Guy Verhofstad stated in 2002 that he wanted to work towards a new Atlantic Alliance in which a collective European defense effort would be organized that could also function as an independent unit. The ultimate goal for Belgium is a federal, autonomous Europe. This European reflex, together with domestic support, prevented the Belgian government from supporting the Iraq War. It was very receptive to the reaction of big European states such as Germany and France, founding members of the EU that also condemned the war. Although it cannot be doubted that Belgian politicians themselves were genuinely against the war, the fact that Belgium could so forcefully take an anti-American stance without fear of any real retribution was because the government knew that its critique was supported by two strong European states.

Belgium found support in Europe and as a result did not consider the Alliance to be fundamental in this decision, even though the NATO headquarters are located in Evere, near Brussels. The absence of disagreement and consequently the absence of a broad discussion within Belgian society also explains why the David’s Report has not received a lot of attention here. Conversely, Wilder’s trail has received more in depth coverage in the media and will undoubtedly fill more space in the Belgian newspapers in the coming months because the Vlaams Belang has also faced criminal charges for racism. 

The Belgian View II will be posted tomorrow…..

This article has been published online today in the NRC Handelsblad’s International Edition:

 http://www.nrc.nl/international/opinion/article2471351.ece

[Image taken from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Netherlands_USA_Locator.svg]

Giles Scott-Smith

One significant finding of the investigation into the reasoning behind the Dutch support for the US-UK invasion of Iraq, published earlier this month, was the decisive role of the ‘Atlantic reflex’. The committee chaired by former supreme court judge Willibrord Davids concluded the ministry of foreign affairs had treated the question primarily as an issue of alliance with its strongest international partner, rather than an issue to be decided on merits of international law.

The ‘Atlantic reflex’ dates from the founding of Nato in 1949, and has since become the cornerstone of Dutch security policy. From then on the global threat posed by communist ideology in general and the military power of the Soviet Union in particular justified acting alongside the principal opponent to this danger, the United States. For many Dutch Cold War Atlanticists, any movement away from this position would undermine the Western alliance and play into the hands of Moscow.

It is important to realise, however, that even during the Cold War the Netherlands never simply followed everything the United States did. Much has been written about the heavy disagreements between the two countries over the continuation of Dutch colonial rule in the Far East after the second world war, and there were other moments of conflicting interests. The Dutch government was reluctant to send troops to the Korean War in 1950, and in the Suez Crisis of 1956 the Dutch foreign minister, Joseph Luns, supported the British and the French against what he considered to be unreasonable behaviour on the part of US President Eisenhower. Luns also insisted it was ludicrous to expect that the Netherlands would send forces to support the US war in Vietnam (yet he did his best to protect the ally from growing criticism in the Dutch parliament). In the 1970s Dutch development aid under Minister Jan Pronk went directly against US interests. Protests that erupted in the Netherlands in the early 1980s to stop the placement of cruise missiles on Dutch soil were fuelled by a broad socio-political movement that refused to accept the givens of a seemingly eternal (and increasingly dangerous) confrontational Cold War policy. Five years ago CIA secret prisons and rendition flights through Dutch airports went directly against the principles of Dutch foreign minister Ben Bot.

In short, it is too easy to assume the Netherlands has always displayed knee-jerk support for the wishes of the US. Whenever the interests of the two nations have not coincided, the Netherlands has always sought its own path. This has never been at the cost of the fundamentals of the transatlantic relationship. On the contrary, by making it clear its support cannot be taken for granted, the Netherlands made sure its differing opinions were taken seriously. An alliance such as this, based on a strong adherence to democratic values, can only benefit from respecting alternative viewpoints amongst its members. The ‘Atlantic reflex’, as the Davids report clearly shows, is ultimately in no-one’s interests.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the former Nato secretary general and the Dutch foreign minister at the time of the Iraq invasion in 2003, said in a radio interview this week that the days of the taken-for-granted US-European relationship are now over. US president Obama has referred to himself as a ‘Pacific President’ and with the emergence of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) the global power system is becoming more multipolar. From oil and gas deals with the Russians to trade missions with the Chinese, Dutch foreign policy is moving with these new times. At the same time, threats can no longer be defined by a single enemy as in the Cold War. Obviously the relation with the United States will remain of vital importance – if not prima inter pares – based on common values, interests, and goals. But even De Hoop Scheffer, the man at the centre of the Atlantic reflex in 2002-2003, now recognises the changing circumstances. Global politics in the 21st century will be marked by flexibility, not dogma. It will take a little while to sort out what it means in practice, but the Davids report may well mark a post-Cold War turning point for Dutch foreign policy.