Between vigilance and reconstruction: Dutch military operations in Afghanistan

In this article the author homes in on the tension inherent in the mission in Afghanistan: finding the balance in conducting reconstruction operations while also providing security including the application of considerable force, if necessary. He analyses the effectiveness and efficiency of Dutch land forces in the Afghan province of Uruzgan by describing and comparing doctrine, planning, execution, command & control and leadership. Considering both main goals of providing security and reconstruction, this illustrates the complexity and difficulty of the operation. While Dutch forces are found to be operating at high professional standards, Van den Aker warns that the balance between efficiency and effectiveness in Dutch defence policies has been disturbed, with too much emphasis put on the former. Commanders must have the means to operate in a broad violence spectrum, which requires having more forces than actually currently deployed, also to ensure escalation dominance and the ability to provide sufficient protection to Dutch forces and partners, and, if necessary, sustain it for years. To guarantee effectiveness during actual operations the military therefore will inevitably have to sacrifice efficiency, much more so than other organisation