'Direct Dutch interest': the Netherlands is the lone EU country supporting the Yemen attacks
Why the Dutch are pro-USA
Dutch involvement in the recent US/UK attacks on Houthi military targets in Yemen has been typically Dutch—modest. They sent literally one guy. Formally, “indirect support of one staff officer at the maritime headquarters in Bahrain.”
Most other countries aren’t getting involved. Even though a coalition of twenty states already participate in Operation Prosperity Guardian (as Felix Biederman said, “you might as well call it Operation Amazon Prime”), “a protective umbrella” for commercial ships continuing to navigate the Red Sea. Of these twenty countries, only the Netherlands, Australia, Bahrain, and Canada participated in the US/UK attacks.
Why have the Dutch chosen to participate, even in this low-key, one non-operational officer, symbolic kind of way?
The quick background: the Houthis, who control the west of Yemen and the Red Sea coastline, have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea since shortly after the start of the Gaza war. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says that their goal for these attacks is to damage Israel and “confirm our continued solidarity with the wronged Palestinian people.” On January 9 they carried out their biggest attack yet, “a ‘complex attack’ including bomb-carrying drones, anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile.” The joint US/UK attacks on Houthi military targets in Yemen started two days later.
The Dutch have a lot of justifications participating: economic dependence on the shipping industry, an eagerness to demonstrate loyalty to America, and outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s bid to become head of NATO. I’ll get into all of this below.
But let’s pause for a second to note how bizarre it is that the US and UK are bombing a foreign country in defense of global trade.
It’s not that the bombings themselves are unusual. The US and UK go to war over trade all the time. But container ships are not required to navigate the Red Sea. It’s not the only way to go; the alternative is to sail around South Africa. This just takes longer, and costs more. So the coalition is bombing a foreign country to protect… profit margins. Efficiency. And that is weird, considering that a potential genocide is playing out upriver. Yet somehow that does not merit military intervention.
Anyway, here’s what the Dutch are up to.
America as BFF!
The Dutch love to show that they are in lockstep with the Americans on military action and trade. Like, the Dutch abstention from the UN Gaza ceasefire vote. And as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the Dutch agreed to revoke export licenses for two ASML (the largest Dutch company by market cap, which manufactures supercomplex lithography machines) products at the request of the Biden administration.
But even in this context, contributing even one non-operational officer to a military operation is a choice not a lot of other countries are making. Spain and Italy would rather promote peace. France is afraid of losing leverage in Israel.
The Netherlands has a different perspective on international relations, focusing on the defense of international law, rather than negative consequences of what they might do. I spoke to an expert in diplomacy from Leiden University who explained:
The Netherlands generally wants strong US leadership in transatlantic relations as a way to balance off larger European powers such as France and Germany, and also to keep Eastern European partners in line as much as possible.
Becoming the only European country to support the Yemen attacks is a way for the Dutch to demonstrate its loyalty to America, and also to contribute what it can, however symbolically, to reinforce its military actions.
As Mark Rutte told Bloomberg at Davos last week:
For the Netherlands, we are, after the United Kingdom, the most transatlantic country in Europe. We are one of the biggest trading nations in the world. So that relationship for us with the US is crucial.
The Dutch Economy
In a letter to Dutch parliament explaining their participation in the US/UK attacks, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Hanke Bruins Slot and Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren wrote:
[The Houthi attacks] threaten maritime safety and the unhindered transport of goods as well as the principle of free and safe shipping. The Red Sea is a crucial shipping route between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. Safe passage through the Red Sea is therefore a direct Dutch interest.
When ships reroute around South Africa around it can add up to twelve days and $16 million in costs to the journey. And the Port of Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe, and responsible for 3.2% of the Dutch economy.
Bart Kuipers, Port Economist for the Erasmus Centre for Urban, Port, and Transfer Economics, told me that the increased costs caused by delays in shipping times could have a small effect on the Dutch economy, in the form of a minor increase in inflation, scheduling problems, or increased warehouse costs. But all of this does not make for very serious economic impact “because the costs of ocean transport are a very small part of the turnover of products.”
The economic impact of shipping in the Netherlands goes deeper than imports and domestic economic activity around the ports. The Netherlands is also the fifth largest exporter in the world, in terms of the trade in goods, ahead of France, South Korea and the United Kingdom. How this works:
Re-export is when a container, such as a cargo of electronics from China, is imported in the Netherlands and stored in a distribution centre. At this stage the products are still generic, but they can be quickly modified at the distribution centre to meet the requirements of, say, the Austrian market: German language software is programmed, manuals and marketing materials in German are added and the modified product is then shipped to Austria. This export model has become a cornerstone of the Dutch economy.1
So the Red Sea blockade itself is not a serious threat. Rather, as the Netherlands has become a “distribution country,” justification involvement in the Yemen attacks could be seen as a protective move regarding the container shipping industry as a whole, which has become of major strategic importance to the Dutch economy.
Mark Rutte needs a job
Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has made it no secret he’s interested in becoming the new leader of NATO after Jens Stoltenberg, the current secretary general, steps down next year.
Alas, Rutte has an ugly gap in his resume. NATO has a defense spending target of two percent of GDP for member countries—the Netherlands fell short of this target for years while Rutte was prime minister.
This, while one of Rutte's competitors for the NATO job, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, raised her country's defense spending to three percent of GDP for 2024 - 2027.
Supporting the military action of another NATO member state certainly won’t hurt Rutte’s chances to get the job.
The Point
In the end, modest Dutch involvement in Yemen is not incredibly consequential. But I think the affair illustrates how economically dependent the Netherlands is on the global order, and why the Dutch are so invested in a deeper alliance with the United States than other European countries tend to be.
🔥 Hot Linkjes
The Dutch royal family might have to start paying taxes! A new proposal in parliament would have the family, which has never paid taxes despite having an estimated net worth of 1.3 billion goddamn euros (!!), start paying their fair share. So to speak. (Diederik Baazil and April Roach / Bloomberg)
Great reporting on the conditions the Netherlands that have given rise to the far right, and how this may play out in Europe this year. “Rather than far-right parties being pulled to the center, the center may veer to the right.” (Raf Casert / AP)
Speaking of the far right, in an interview at Davos Defense Minister Kasja Ollongren spoke about her confidence in our institutions, and our coalition government system. (YouTube / CNBC)
The Netherlands was the first country in Europe to see large-scale farmers protests—now they’ve arrived in Germany. (Ajit Niranjan / Guardian)
Half of Dutch adults are overweight, the same percentage as 2018, when the government pledged to lower the amount to 38 percent of adults with its “National Prevention Plan.” It will be interesting to see how weight loss drugs impact these figures over the next few years. (Alessandro Ford / Politico)
🥳 Leuke Dingetjes
In honor of Davos being held last week, it’s a good time to resurface this video from 2019, of Dutch historian Rutger Bregman taking billionaires to task.
And if you like this video, you’ll love this one of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson absolutely losing his shit at Bregman in an interview.
A new track from Meis
This chill indie track brings Eefje de Visser to mind. Meis is the granddaughter of 60’s era superstar Boudewijn de Groot.
*all typos in this post are on purpose
The Container: The Best Invention of the Past Century, wwww.carucontainers.com