NATO Deployment to the South of Afghanistan, Nick Grono

Opening statement to the Standing Committees of Foreign Affairs and Defence,
House of Representatives of the Dutch Parliament

30 January 2006

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on such an important issue.

My organisation, the International Crisis Group, works to prevent and resolve conflicts around the world. Crisis Group has been working on Afghanistan and the region since 2001. We have teams stationed in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Central Asia. Our analysts carry out the field based research on which our reports are based. We also have staff travelling to Afghanistan on a regular basis. I was there last week, my third trip in the last 14 months.

We have consistently argued that ISAF needs to expand throughout Afghanistan to bring security and stability to the whole of the country. The peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan has seen too few troops on the ground and, until now, the troops that are there are have tended to be based in the safest areas of the country rather than where they are needed most.  For this reason we strongly support ISAF’s planned move to the south.

As ISAF expands into Helmand, Uruzgan and Kandahar, it will face threats from a number of quarters. It will be challenged by drug cultivators and traffickers, warlords and commanders, local insurgents and cross border terrorists The threats posed by each of these groups are different, although they all seek to undermine stability and often work together in fluid alliances. But they do not have widespread support among the Afghan people. Recent surveys have shown that Afghans, by a large majority, oppose the Taliban, al Qaeda, warlords and drug traffickers. In the past fortnight we have seen big protests against the recent spate of suicide bombings. Surveys have also shown widespread support for efforts by the international community to bring security to Afghanistan. When you talk with the people of Afghanistan the request is most often for more foreign troops, not fewer.

In the south there is the added challenge of understanding tribal rivalries – and unwitting foreigners can be drawn into these tribal conflicts. There is also a belated realisation that the Afghan and American policy of co-opting warlords and commanders over the last four years has resulted in a false stability. Good governance and security are mutually reinforcing. Corrupt local administrations and security forces in the regions are all too often a source of instability rather than protection against it. For these reasons it is essential that as ISAF moves south it has senior civilian political advisors on issues of governance and it closely analyses who it is that troops are working with.

With trustworthy Afghan counterparts in office, NATO troops also have a role in strengthening Afghan army and police forces. It is only with such security in place that central government legitimacy will be extended and reconstruction can truly take off.  Realistically this will take many years.

Of course it’s one thing to agree on the need for security in the south, and it’s quite another to say that the Dutch must be part of that security effort. That is obviously a decision for the Dutch government and parliament, but we commend you for having the courage to conduct a public and transparent debate on the issue. You have already made a significant contribution with your PRT in Baghlan, the F16s and Apache helicopters, the additional troops during the elections and in many other ways. What I can say on that issue is that if Dutch troops do not take part in the Stage 3 expansion of ISAF, that expansion will almost certainly be delayed, and if and when it does proceed it will may well be far less effective than currently envisaged. It will also provide a moral victory to those seeking to undermine the Afghan state.

If our efforts in Afghanistan falter, then we will once again have a failed state, which will not only bring instability to its neighbours – many of which could be significantly threatened by a dysfunctional Afghanistan – but will again export terror and ever increasing amounts of drugs to the West. It will also condemn the people of Afghanistan to many more years of conflict.

Peacekeeping and peacebuilding are often dangerous and difficult. Afghanistan is not the only country in which the international community is facing the prospect of casualties as it seeks to rebuild failed states. Right now in the Congo and Haiti, to take just two examples, troop contributing countries are suffering significant casualties as they seek to rebuild these shattered states.

These efforts do make a difference. The Human Security Report published last year has documented that in the past 15 years we have seen a 40% reduction in the number of armed conflicts in the world. There is also been a significant fall in the number of battle deaths from conflict. And much of this reduction in conflict and violence is a direct result of international peacekeeping efforts such as that taking place now in Afghanistan.

If the international community is to succeed in Afghanistan, it will require countries such as the Netherlands and the UK and Canada and Australia, with their highly capable troops, to assist Afghans in rebuilding their country. The objective of a stable and secure Afghanistan has received repeated endorsement from the United Nations, the European Union and the North Atlantic Council. The international community is about to renew its commitment to Afghanistan in the form of the Afghanistan Compact, to be unveiled in London tomorrow.  I strongly hope that the Netherlands will continue to play a leading role in this effort by committing troops to Uruzgan.
Thank you.