Page 237 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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Civilians as a centre of gravity. Dutch security assistance
operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

ArThUr TEN CATE

In the new world order of the post-Cold War, in a world in which the international com-
munity increasingly battles with de-stabilizing extremist ideologies of nationalist or religious
origin for the maintenance of global peace and security, civilians have become a main focus
- one of the centres of gravity - of military operations. Examples of this development include
the ‘next generation’ peacekeeping and peace building operations and humanitarian interven-
tions of the 1990s (and after) on the one hand, as well as the counter-insurgency, counter-
guerrilla and counter-terrorist warfare operations of more recent times in the context of the
Global War on Terror on the other. The armed forces of the Netherlands have experienced
first hand – in the Balkans, in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq, and then again in Afghanistan
- that modern international operations, regardless of their nature, have in common that they
can be characterized more and more as being population-centric. Meaning that, for reasons of
perceived strategic necessity, both security assistance operations in the sphere of peacekeep-
ing or peace-building and stability, security or counter-insurgency operations in the sphere of
warfare, are nowadays centred on the control by persuasion of the local population.

then and now
In many ways, the current population-focused approach to operations shows resemblance
to military practices from, for example, colonial times, or even further back. Targeting the
population has always been part of military history (and certainly of insurgency and counter-
insurgency). It was the customary way of finding an opponent’s weak spot, by attacking his
strategic support base, work force, pool of conscription and moral ‘back bone’, and thus
trying to diminish his will to continue a fight. This was usually done in a violent and indis-
criminate way, with populations falling victim to burn and plunder, or it was done through
propaganda. Also, civilians in for example occupation situations have been terrorized into
submission for centuries to be able to control and exploit them, their territory or resources.
The campaigns of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the age of nationalism go even further than that, and
th
can – together with the strategic bombing campaigns of the 20 century - be regarded as a
most inhuman form of population-centric warfare.
Compared to these past experiences, one of the main and obvious differences for armies
from democratic countries in modern military operations today is, of course, that civilians
have to be controlled in a less violent, more persuasive and ‘positive’ manner. Humanitarian
considerations, a general adherence to human rights (incorporated into national and interna-
tional law) and, last but not least, an ever-present professional media control mechanism in a
globally connected and technological advanced world arena, place constraints on the options
available to our military forces for controlling civilians. Most democracies, certainly Euro-