American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia

The authors of this book challenge the view that was current among many people in the Netherlands during the period 1945-1949 that the American government and its foreign policymakers unequivocally backed the Indonesian Republic's struggle for independence. The same myth of America's political endorsement of Indonesians' quest for independence continues to reverberate in the United States itself. In fact, ex-President Clinton repeated the story as recently as 1995 when he wrote to ex-President Suharto that in the post-World War II era, President Truman and the U.S. Congress had actively supported Indonesia 'as the nation was being born'. On the basis of research in American, Indonesian, Dutch, and Australian diplomatic records and in the archives of the United Nations, Gouda and Brocades Zaalberg describe and analyze American visions of the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia from the 1920s to December 1949, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands relinquished its sovereignty over the archipelago in southeast Asia to the United States fo Indonesia. Their historical analysis suggests that the American diplomatic establishment was not as ignorant of conditions in the Indonesian archipelago as many Dutch people assumed, both before and after World War II. They also chronicle the unfolding of America's steady but tactic backing of its faithful Dutch ally in northern Europe until early 1949, when U.S. assessments of the regions in the world where the Cold War might ignite into a 'Hot War' began to incorporate the anti-colonial, nationalist struggles in Indonesia and Vietnam.De auteurs van 'American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia bestrijden de idee dat de Amerikaanse regering en haar buitenlandse beleidsmakers onvoorwaardelijk steun verleenden aan de onafhankelijkheidsstrijd van de Indonesische Republiek, zoals vele Nederlandse geloofden gedurende de periode 1945-1949. Ook in de Verenigde Staten zelf leeft de mythe over Amerika's politieke steun aan de vrijheidheidsstrijd in Indonesie voort. Nog in 1995 zelfs, herhaalde ex-president Clinton het verhaal toen hij ex-president Soeharto schreef dat president Truman en het Amerikaans Congres in de periode na WO II actief hun steun hadden betuigd aan Indonesië als 'een natie die geboren werd'. Op basis van onderzoek in Amerikaanse, Indonesische, Nederlandse en Australische diplomatieke archieven, als ook in de archieven van de Verenigde Naties, beschrijven en analyseren Gouda en Brocades Zaalberg de Amerikaanse visies op Nederlands Indië/Indonesië vanaf de twintiger jaren van de vorige eeuw tot december 1949 toen het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden haar gezag over de archipel in zuidoost Azië overdroeg aan de Verenigde Republiek van Indonesië. De historische analyse die hier gepresenteerd wordt, suggereert dat het Amerikaanse corps diplomatique niet zo onbekend was met de situatie op de Indonesische eilanden als vele Nederlanders zowel voor als na de Tweede Wereldoorlog veronderstelden. De auteurs boekstaven eveneens de ontwikkeling van Amerika's doorlopende maar stille steun aan de trouwe Hollandse bondgenoot in noord-Europa tot aan het begin van 1949 toen de Amerikaanse aandacht voor die gebieden in de wereld waar de Koude Oorlog zou kunnen uitmonden in een 'Hete Oorlog' zich verder uitbreidde naar de de anti-koloniale, nationalistische strijd in Indonesië en Vietnam

Soldiers and Civil Power: Supporting or Substituting Civil Authorities in Modern Peace Operations

Peace operations became the core focus of many Western armed forces after the Cold War. The wish amongst political and military leaders during the 1990s to hold on to the classical identity of the armed forces as an instrument of force made them pursue a strict separation between military operations and the civilian aspects of peacekeeping, such as policing, administrative functions, and political and societal reconstruction. In his book Soldiers and Civil Power, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg argues that this policy failed to match up to reality. Supporting civil authorities, and at times even substituting them (de facto military governance), became the key to reaching any level of success in Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. As a result of the false segregation between the civilian and the military domain, this was accomplished mostly by improvisation and creativity of commanders who probed for the limiting boundaries of their original mandate by reaching ever further into the civilian sphere

American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920-1949

The authors of this book challenge the view that was current among many people in the Netherlands during the period 1945-1949 that the American government and its foreign policymakers unequivocally backed the Indonesian Republic's struggle for independence. The same myth of America's political endorsement of Indonesians' quest for independence continues to reverberate in the United States itself. In fact, ex-President Clinton repeated the story as recently as 1995 when he wrote to ex-President Suharto that in the post-World War II era, President Truman and the U.S. Congress had actively supported Indonesia 'as the nation was being born'. On the basis of research in American, Indonesian, Dutch, and Australian diplomatic records and in the archives of the United Nations, Gouda and Brocades Zaalberg describe and analyze American visions of the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia from the 1920s to December 1949, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands relinquished its sovereignty over the archipelago in southeast Asia to the United States fo Indonesia. Their historical analysis suggests that the American diplomatic establishment was not as ignorant of conditions in the Indonesian archipelago as many Dutch people assumed, both before and after World War II. They also chronicle the unfolding of America's steady but tactic backing of its faithful Dutch ally in northern Europe until early 1949, when U.S. assessments of the regions in the world where the Cold War might ignite into a 'Hot War' began to incorporate the anti-colonial, nationalist struggles in Indonesia and Vietnam

A Gentle Occupation

A Gentle Occupation analyses Dutch military operations in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion in Iraq. It raises the question why, in contrast to most allied troops elsewhere in Iraq, Dutch forces in Al Muthanna province met with little resistance and left Iraq self-confident of their ability to deal with this type of stabilisation operation

De nasleep van Somalië, Rwanda en Srebrenica: overeenkomsten en verschillen

Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2) The Aftermath of Somalia, Rwanda and Srebrenica: Parallels and Differences Christ Klep has written an impressive and highly accessible thesis on the aftermath of three unsuccessful peace operations. By using a bold comparative approach and an ambitious tone of enquiry he places the traumatic Dutch Srebrenica experience in the context of two broadly similar processes of finger-pointing and evading responsibility in Canada and Belgium following their respective interventions in Somalia and Rwanda. He thus exposes many fascinating parallels, yet the historian Klep pays little attention to the differences between his case studies. This is regrettable, as this would have strengthened rather than weakened his otherwise compelling argument.   The Somali case in particular differs from ‘Srebrenica’ and ‘Rwanda’, since the murders perpetrated by Canadian soldiers – horrific as they may have been – and the subsequent cover-up in no way constituted a defining moment in the collapsing international mission as a whole. Unlike the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica the death of the two Somalis was the result of a purely national Canadian failure, which helps explain why the Somalia Inquiry could identify guilty compatriots far more decisively than, for example, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in its Srebrenica report.   This review is part of the discussion forum 'Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica' (Christ Klep)

De nasleep van Somalië, Rwanda en Srebrenica: overeenkomsten en verschillen

Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)The Aftermath of Somalia, Rwanda and Srebrenica: Parallels and DifferencesChrist Klep has written an impressive and highly accessible thesis on the aftermath of three unsuccessful peace operations. By using a bold comparative approach and an ambitious tone of enquiry he places the traumatic Dutch Srebrenica experience in the context of two broadly similar processes of finger-pointing and evading responsibility in Canada and Belgium following their respective interventions in Somalia and Rwanda. He thus exposes many fascinating parallels, yet the historian Klep pays little attention to the differences between his case studies. This is regrettable, as this would have strengthened rather than weakened his otherwise compelling argument. The Somali case in particular differs from ‘Srebrenica’ and ‘Rwanda’, since the murders perpetrated by Canadian soldiers – horrific as they may have been – and the subsequent cover-up in no way constituted a defining moment in the collapsing international mission as a whole. Unlike the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica the death of the two Somalis was the result of a purely national Canadian failure, which helps explain why the Somalia Inquiry could identify guilty compatriots far more decisively than, for example, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in its Srebrenica report

De nasleep van Somalië, Rwanda en Srebrenica: overeenkomsten en verschillen

Klep, Christ, Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica. De nasleep van drie ontspoorde vredesmissies (Dissertatie Utrecht 2008; Amsterdam: Boom, 2008, 385 blz., ISBN 978 90 8506 668 2)The Aftermath of Somalia, Rwanda and Srebrenica: Parallels and DifferencesChrist Klep has written an impressive and highly accessible thesis on the aftermath of three unsuccessful peace operations. By using a bold comparative approach and an ambitious tone of enquiry he places the traumatic Dutch Srebrenica experience in the context of two broadly similar processes of finger-pointing and evading responsibility in Canada and Belgium following their respective interventions in Somalia and Rwanda. He thus exposes many fascinating parallels, yet the historian Klep pays little attention to the differences between his case studies. This is regrettable, as this would have strengthened rather than weakened his otherwise compelling argument. The Somali case in particular differs from ‘Srebrenica’ and ‘Rwanda’, since the murders perpetrated by Canadian soldiers – horrific as they may have been – and the subsequent cover-up in no way constituted a defining moment in the collapsing international mission as a whole. Unlike the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica the death of the two Somalis was the result of a purely national Canadian failure, which helps explain why the Somalia Inquiry could identify guilty compatriots far more decisively than, for example, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) in its Srebrenica report. This review is part of the discussion forum 'Somalië, Rwanda, Srebrenica' (Christ Klep).</p

The Civil and Military Dimensions of Dutch Counter-Insurgency on Java, 1947-49

Despite its seemingly overwhelming military superiority, the Netherlands never came close to defeating the increasingly effective nationalist insurgency on Java in the late 1940s. This article argues that the desperate state of the Dutch counter-insurgency campaign—which tends to be overlooked for the crucial years 1947-1948—is best demonstrated by focussing on the failure of the colonial power to integrate the civilian and military efforts and on its inability to govern reoccupied territory during the ‘pacification phase’

Soldiers and Civil Power : Supporting or Substituting Civil Authorities in Modern Peace Operations

Vredesoperaties werden na de Koude Oorlog de hoofdtaak van de Nederlandse en veel andere westerse krijgsmachten. De wens om de klassieke identiteit van de krijgsmacht als geweldsorganisatie in stand te houden zorgde er in de jaren negentig voor dat politieke en militaire leiders een strikte scheiding nastreefden tussen enerzijds de militaire operatie en anderzijds de civiele aspecten van een vredesmissie, zoals politieoptreden, bestuurlijke verantwoordelijkheden, en politiek-maatschappelijke wederopbouw. Thijs Brocades Zaalberg beargumenteert in zijn boek Soldiers and Civil Power dat dit beleid niet strookte met de realiteit. Het ondersteunen en soms zelfs het vervangen van civiele autoriteiten (de facto militair gezag) door militairen werd de sleutel tot het behalen van enige mate van succes in vredesoperaties in Cambodja, Somalië, Bosnië en Kosovo. Als gevolg van de valse scheiding tussen het civiele en het militaire domein was dit succes meestal afhankelijk van improvisatie en durf van commandanten die de uiterste grenzen van hun mandaat verkenden en daarbij steeds verder de civiele sfeer betraden. 'Het betreft hier een indrukwekkend werk, zowel door zijn zeer gedegen vraagstelling, als door zijn gedurfde comparatieve benadering, door het enorme en veelzijdige onderzoek (in archieven in alle hoeken van de wereld) dat eraan ten grondslag ligt én door zijn heldere, verhalende stijl (met oog voor de juiste anekdotiek en met een rake typering van personen).' Marnix Beyen, Universiteit Leuven Thijs Brocades Zaalberg is geïnterviewd in de Groene Amsterdammer: kijk op "http://www.groene.nl">www.groene.n