What Do They Put In The Water in Den Haag?

Some issues are too difficult to tackle with a normal essay, polemical or otherwise. In such instances, I try satire to make it more digestible.

It is what I did here with the imbecilic statement made by the brainless Dutch MP, Nev. Werf, who’s a prime example of what we have called uneducated and uncultured Europeans ad nauseam on this blog.

The coffee shop in the Dutch parliament in Den Haag was doing the brisk business that coffee shops in parliaments everywhere do: dispensing small cups of nervous energy to people who have mistaken a microphone for a weapon.

I had come to investigate a question of national importance. No, not the housing shortage, rising unemployment, or falling living standards. Nah, it’s not the budget or the alarming number of European leaders who now speak about war as if it were a minor amendment to a minor bill.

I was here to investigate what, precisely, they put in the water in Den Haag that makes some Dutch politicians so delusional and detached from reality.

The burning question arose after I watched the D66 MP Hanneke van der Werf say on national television that Europe might, if necessary, shoot at Russian launch installations itself so that Ukraine could survive another winter of bombardment.

I wanted to find out why the small-brained MP did not learn to do what experienced politicians do: zip their mouths or dodge like Mohamed Ali in his prime to avoid embarrassing pitfalls. What makes Mevrouw Werf (that is “Wharf” in English) like to volunteer her hard-to-find-on-the-map, low and small country into the one that would turn a regional war into a continental, and potentially global one, and incinerate all of us?

The 18 million or so Dutch are a very practical people who say, without boasting, that god did not create their country; they wrestle it from the sea. They built dykes because the sea was trying to kill them, and they took a fancy to bicycles, especially the new fat bikes, because the roads were trying to kill everyone else.

One therefore assumes that, before recommending a direct attack on Russia, a Dutch parliamentarian would consult a map.

Contrary to the belief of people like MP Werf, Russia is not a troublesome municipality somewhere beyond Germany. It is the largest country on Earth, covering roughly 17 million square kilometers. The Netherlands covers about 42,000 square kilometers. Russia is therefore not merely larger than the Netherlands; it is larger in the way an ocean is larger than a puddle that has developed political opinions.

Sorry, my Dutch friends.
Russia has around nine times the Dutch population. It possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, a major air force, a large navy, long-range strike systems, a vast land frontier, and an industrial base built around the proposition that history is an argument best conducted with artillery.

Okay, okay, the Netherlands is a prosperous, highly capable NATO country with excellent air forces, serious military professionals, and a proud tradition of making the impossible possible, usually by engineering a way to keep the water out.

But there is a difference between being a capable ally and being a man who walks into a bear’s kitchen to explain that his spoon is also a weapon.

Russia’s armed forces have spent years fighting a large, grinding war. Their performance can be criticized, mocked, analyzed, and condemned. But it cannot honestly be described as lacking experience. The Dutch armed forces' operational experience is limited to coalition missions.

This distinction seems important. It is the sort of distinction that used to be taught in schools before education became a sequence of PowerPoint slides explaining that consequences are a form of negativity.

At the next table, a parliamentary coffee-shop regular was nursing his coffee with a small glass of Jenever, and a plate of stroopwafels. I threw him greetings before I asked whether he had heard of the Iskander missile. I initially pronounced it “Islander,” which seemed appropriate for a country so accustomed to thinking that every dangerous problem can be separated from the mainland by a few well-managed channels.

He had not heard of it.
I asked about Kalibr.
He thought it was a new Scandinavian furniture range.

I asked about Zircon.
He assumed it was a Dutch fintech startup.
Finally, I asked about Oreshnik, which he took to be a health-food brand that sold organic nuts in recyclable packaging.

These are not, regrettably, names from a children’s book about woodland animals.

They are associated with Russian ultra-serious strike systems. Iskander is a family of road-mobile, short-range ballistic missiles. Kalibr is a family of cruise missiles. Zircon is a maneuvering hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile. Oreshnik is a newer ballistic missile system whose range and characteristics have drawn serious analysis and considerable dispute.

One need not accept every Russian claim about these systems to understand the underlying point: a country contemplating the destruction of another country’s launch sites should first establish whether the other country has launch sites, capable air-defense, electronic warfare systems, serious ISR capability, missiles, aircraft, submarines, satellites, retaliatory plans, and a sense of humor about being attacked by a nation whose most famous military technology is the bicycle.

The Netherlands is not a continent with spare room behind the sofa; it’s compact, densely populated and economically concentrated. A direct exchange with Russia would not be a spirited episode of parliamentary solidarity; it would be a catastrophe with minutes to spare. From what we saw of the Oreshnik attack on Kiev, a few salvos would literally transform the entire Netherlands into a wasteland.

The obvious objection is that the Netherlands would not act alone. It is a NATO member and would have allies. While this is true, what is equally true is that walking into a casino with nine friends does not make Russian roulette a group activity with improved odds.

The Dutch MP’s apparent argument is that Europe must do more to defend Ukraine.

That is certainly a legitimate political and moral argument. Europe may debate weapons, air defense, training, money, sanctions, diplomacy, and the limits of escalation. It may decide that supporting Ukraine is in its security interest. It may even decide that certain strikes are necessary.

But there is a world of difference between supporting a partner and announcing that one is prepared to fire upon a nuclear-armed state directly.

The first is policy. The second is the sort of senseless verbal ejaculation made by inexperienced, unqualified, and inebriated politicians that makes military planners reach for a second coffee and insurance companies scurry to the telephone.

So what is wrong with these people? What drugs are they on?

The Dutch are famous for their cafés, and we know that not all cafés sell only coffee. Some aspiring strategists may be consuming a little too much of the potent local product before granting interviews. It is also possible that the trouble is more conventional: too many years in a parlous educational system, too few geography lessons, too much television, and an alarming shortage of adults willing to interrupt a politician and say, “Madam, Russia is not a small country.”

Since they are good with water and watery things, perhaps they put something in the water supplied to the city that many people don't know is the capital of the country (most people think that it’s Amsterdam, probably because of its Sodom and Gomorrah reputation, especially the Red Light District)

Another possibility we should not overlook in our analysis is that European politics has developed a peculiar intoxication of its own. It is the intoxication of moral certainty without military arithmetic. It produces leaders who can identify the villain, name the virtue, wave the flag, and then discover, usually after the first explosion, that the enemy has weapons, geography, aircraft, submarines, and people who are not impressed by the eloquence of a television interview.

Serious military analysts rated the Russian General Staff as unrivaled in the world, and the country as one with a history backed by artillery.

To remedy this European hubris is simple. Before granting an interview about attacking Russia, Dutch and European politicians should leave their drugs and other chemical enhancements behind. They should also leave behind the slogans, the studio lighting, the virtue-signaling, and the comforting belief that an escalatory sentence can be withdrawn as easily as a poorly worded tweet.

Before they appear on television to give interviews or join geopolitical panels on topics they know nothing about, Dutch and European politicians should drink water to sober up. They should at least learn to read a map and brush up on their geography. They should also speak to real military people. They should bone up on history and consult serious historians.

I know it’s impossible to teach people who believe they are the masters of the universe. Still, one must advise European politicians to learn the difference between solidarity and belligerence, between deterrence and provocation, and between helping an ally and volunteering one’s own postage-stamp-sized country to become a target.

And they should ask the question that no one in the coffee shop seemed able to answer: What did they put in the water in Den Haag?

Blog: https://femiakogun.substack.com