7 - Cross-Case Analysis: A Powerful Idea Meets a Window of Opportunity

Summary

Introduction

The governing idea of the need to deploy military forces to southern Afghanistan materialised in an extremely powerful manner amongst senior civil and military decision-makers in London and The Hague. In fact, it dictated the course of events, driven by the implicit belief that a mission had to transpire and, as such, exhibited the working of a trap.

The momentum, created by the internationally agreed NATO expansion into southern Afghanistan, was captured by a like-minded group of senior military decision-makers. Their actions were supported by their political masters, who joined them in their self-enforcing logic. In this chapter, the decision paths of the senior civil and military decisionmakers in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are compared.

The Strategic Setting

The most prominent and most consistent pillars of British and Dutch foreign and security policies, i.e. the desire to be trustworthy NATO members and, at the same time, reliable partners to the United States, have clearly played a constitutive role in the motivations underlying the reasoning of the senior civil and military decision-makers of the two nations. At first glance, the desire to remain a relevant partner can best be defined as being rooted in a rationalist calculation of interest. However, taking a second look at the behaviour of both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the international arena, the rationale behind their support for NATO and the United States appears to be founded on a shared belief, at times even a habitual reflex, to do so. As such, the actions of the senior civil and military decision-makers were in line with these traditional pillars of foreign and security policy.

The foreign and security policy of both nations contained a rather normative component to provide security in the international arena, although this was more profoundly articulated in the United Kingdom when Prime Minister Blair was in office. Ever since Labour had come to power in the United Kingdom, the ‘forces for good’ became a driving force in British foreign policy. This policy manifested itself, not only through rhetoric but also in practice, as British military forces were used to bring about security in places like Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Also, the Netherlands, albeit less prominently, attained the posture of an active contributor to international stability through the deployment of military forces.