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In the period 1900-1940 the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland reacted in divergent ways to the same foreign military threats. This volume argues that their internal politics and politico-military strategic culture are vital keys to understanding those differences.

Defending Neutrality analyses the broad spectrum of war preparation of a small neutral state, The Netherlands, before, during and after the First World War. It deals with the role of neutral states close to the front and with the internal technological, military and societal developments within that state to ensure its survival.

Wat kan het vakgebied van de militaire geschiedenis bijdragen over een land met een non-militair zelfbeeld en zeer weinig gevechtservaring (als het om landsverdediging in Europa gaat)? Deze vraag staat centraal tijdens de oratie van Wim Klinkert. Hij stelt onder andere dat we moeten zoeken naar de militaire identiteit die er wél is in de Nederlandse geschiedenis maar naar de achtergrond wordt gedrukt door het dominante non-militaire zelfbeeld. Daarnaast is het belangrijk om zichtbaar te maken dat Nederland in zijn militaire voorbereidingen op oorlog en zijn handelen in crisisperioden (zoals de Eerste Wereldoorlogen) niet anders handelt dan andere Europese landen. Klinkert pleit tot slot voor een internationaal vergelijkende/cultuurhistorische aanpak om de vermeende uniekheid van Nederland te relativeren of te verklaren.

The aerosphere is utilized by billions of birds, moving for different reasons and from short to great distances spanning tens of thousands of kilometres. The aerosphere, however, is also utilized by aviation which leads to increasing conflicts in and around airfields as well as en‐route. Collisions between birds and aircraft cost billions of euros annually and, in some cases, result in the loss of human lives. Simultaneously, aviation has diverse negative impacts on wildlife. During avian migration, due to the sheer numbers of birds in the air, the risk of bird strikes becomes particularly acute for low‐flying aircraft, especially during military training flights. Over the last few decades, air forces across Europe and the Middle East have been developing solutions that integrate ecological research and aviation policy to reduce mutual negative interactions between birds and aircraft. In this paper we 1) provide a brief overview of the systems currently used in military aviation to monitor bird migration movements in the aerosphere, 2) provide a brief overview of the impact of bird strikes on military low‐level operations, and 3) estimate the effectiveness of migration monitoring systems in bird strike avoidance. We compare systems from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Israel, which are all areas that Palearctic migrants cross twice a year in huge numbers. We show that the en‐route bird strikes have decreased considerably in countries where avoidance systems have been implemented, and that consequently bird strikes are on average 45% less frequent in countries with implemented avoidance systems in place. We conclude by showing the roles of operational weather radar networks, forecast models and international and interdisciplinary collaboration to create safer skies for aviation and birds.

In War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795), Pepijn Brandon provides a sweeping new interpretation of the rise and fall of the Dutch Republic, focusing on the interaction between state and capital in the organisation of warfare.

This article examines the conditions under which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) gain access to defence administrations when campaigning for transparency around the use of military force. We theorise that gaining access in this traditionally secluded domain is a matter of supply and demand. NGOs can gain access through technical and political information, yet not without demand for these resources, dependent on the politicisation of concerns about the use of force. We focus on the activities of Airwars, an international NGO, and its campaign in the Netherlands (2015–20) to foster transparency about civilian casualties caused by Dutch airstrikes. Our analysis shows that their credible information about air strikes led to access to the defence administration and allowed them to effectively advocate for transparency, mediated by the politicisation of the issue through parliamentary and media attention. Our findings contribute both to the literature on NGO advocacy and to the field of civil-military relations.

This collection is a unique joint venture of teachers in, and practitioners of military ethics.Representatives of each branch of the Armed Forces, i.e.the Navy, the Army, the Air Force and the Military Police, discuss their branch-specific experiences with moral questions and dilemma's.

A detailed analysis of the response to the Yugoslav crisis by one of America's key allies in NATO. The author focuses on the question of how a Western bureaucracy faced up to the most complex foreign policy challenge of the 1990s. The Netherlands, as a 'pocket-sized medium power', is an interesting case study. While the margins for Dutch foreign policy are limited, fate had it that the Netherlands occupied the European presidency during the second half of 1991, when the recognition issue divided the West and the parameters for the subsequent international intervention in the Balkans were set. By July 1995, the involvement of the Netherlands had deepened to the extent that Dutch troops who found themselves trapped in the UN safe area of Srebrenica together with the local Muslim population were unable to prevent the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War.

I revisit the 1918–20 pandemic and ask whether it led to a reversal in the rise of trade and financial globalization that preceded it. Using annual data for 17 countries for the 1870–1928 period, a variety of tests and techniques are used to draw some robust conclusions. Overall, the pandemic a century ago interrupted, but did not put an end, to the first globalization of the twentieth century. However, two blocs consisting of combatant and non-combatant countries, experienced significantly different consequences. Globalization was sharply curtailed for the combatant countries while there were few, if any, consequences for globalization in the non-combatant group of countries. That said, there was considerable resilience especially in trade openness among several of the combatant economies. Perhaps changes in the make-up of economic blocs, post-pandemic, is a fallout from shocks of this kind. While there are lessons for the ongoing COVID pandemics differences between the 1920s and today also play a role.

Each year the Dutch authorities categorize scores of people as being “out of procedure” (uitgeprocedeerd). These are mostly “failed asylum seekers” who have exhausted all legal appeals in search of regularizing their status in the Netherlands. Out-of-procedure subjects, or OOPSs, have no formal rights and receive no state provision. They must leave the country voluntarily within one month or risk deportation. Many OOPSs who spent weeks or even months in Dutch detention centers are eventually released onto the streets, as the authorities cannot manage to deport them. This article interrogates the production and treatment of OOPSs as nonexistent human beings who are no longer considered by the state as “aliens” but merely as illegalized bodies. This intriguing case of the state deserting certain people within its sovereign territory is realized through a process of derecording OOPSs and formally pretending that they are not part of the governed population.