The Civil–Military Gap in the Netherlands

Abstract

Civil–military clashes that result from tensions or even a ‘gap’ between the military organisation and civil society are rather seldom. However, from time to time the headlines of the newspapers report of ‘scandals’, ‘abuses’ or ‘wrongs’ that result from civil–military tensions. Sometimes those wrongs came out in the open after some delay. This happened in respect to a coup-attempt by General Kruls shortly after World War II (Hoogenboezem, 2004). Evaluation of and reappraisal of the war against Indonesian freedom fighters in 1946–1947, euphemistically called ‘police actions’, led to large-scale public discussions 20 years later. In the 1970s, the Dutch citizens acknowledged that these police actions actually were deeds of war and the legitimacy of this war was intensely discussed as were the war crimes committed during the anti-guerrilla operations (Doorn & Hendrix, 1970). In the 1980s, the soldiers’ union published a black book on hazing practises in the armed forces that made it into the headlines. It led to research (Stoppelenburg, 1990) and attempts to stop these practices that often stemmed from the conscripts themselves. Union work and societal forces in favour of democratisation considerably contributed to civilianisation of the armed forces. The one-liner ‘as military as necessary, as civilian as possible’ became factual accepted policy. In the early 1990s, the suspension of conscription, the most important decision of defence restructuring, barely raised societal discussion (Joana et al., 2005; Moelker, Olsthoorn, Bos-Bakx, & Soeters, 2005), but the mishap in Srebrenica in 1995 certainly did! Peacekeeping gradually was seen and socially accepted as core business and when it became evident that keeping the peace in Bosnia was not without risks and when genocidal events befell the refugees in Srebrenica, the civil–military gap was clearly revealed and became the main issue of public debate. It led to discussion on the right of freedom of speech for civil servants when armed forces functionaries overtly expressed themselves in the newspapers (Kreemers, 2002). But the humanitarian debacle also led to a parliamentary inquiry (Parlementaire Enquête commissie, 2003) that, in 2003, caused government to fall. Parliamentary decision-making procedures regarding peacekeeping missions have been improved since. Article 100 of the Constitution states that parliament must be informed on peacekeeping operations unless there are very serious considerations not to do so. Government informs parliament by use of the ‘toetsingskader’ (Moelker, 2004). This is a list of criteria that is used to provide a checklist for informing parliament and to improve the quality of the decision-making. The ‘toetsingskader’ acknowledges that decision-making is an intertwined and convergent process that improves quality by inputs from civilian stakeholders and civilian and military experts. It enables a priori parliamentary control. A list for use by parliamentarians in other countries is given by Born (2003, p. 125).

Citation

Moelker, R. (2007), "The Civil–Military Gap in the Netherlands", Caforio, G. (Ed.) Cultural Differences between the Military and Parent Society in Democratic Countries (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 267-273. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(07)04015-5