A force of presence rather than a stabilizing force
This commitment is more like a force of presence than a real stabilizing action. The European soldiers rarely leave the camp to patrol .... Too dangerous. The essential part of the action seems to be to clean the impeccable barracks to receive their visitors, and to make selfies in a warlike posture, which scares no one except the recipients of these selfies and are, without any risk, since 'They are taken ... inside the base, ironizes a military specialist.
Says who? Source? Evidence?
overprotected
The achievement of these blue helmets is to have, with the bulldozers of the engineers, worked to reinforce the protection of the camp to avoid any incursion of the rebels or any action by improvised explosive (IED). A very effective super-protection ... but expensive for their neighbors. Bangalis (for example) or Malian troops, much less protected, are regularly attacked by rebels, who thus are easier preys.
This just goes to show that those measures work to protect your force. Forgoing them costs lives, as the troops from Bangladesh (Bengali) and local troops found out. One can't blame the Dutch or German military for the failure of another country to take such measures for their troops (one should blame the commanders of those troops and/or their departments of defence).
Intelligence without intelligence vectors
On the Dutch side, the presence does not seem to have been much more effective. Officially, the Batavians came to make intelligence on behalf of the United Nations. The only problem is that they have very few Francophones in their ranks. So to make human intelligence, to say that it is rather difficult ... On the electronic side, one can not say that the city of Gao is a high place of the global connection. So to spend their time, they map the places ...
Our troops are representative of our people.
Languages spoken in the Netherlands: learned (not native)
- Dutch 97.5%: 3.26%
- English 38.46%: 37.31% (mostly learned)
- German 28.26%: 26.62% (mostly learned)
- French 15.57%: 15.07% (mostly learned)
- Spanish 3.24%: 2.89% (mostly learned)
- Italian 0.94%: 0.94% (all learned)
- Turkish 0.9%: 0.42%
- Portuguese 0.6%: 0.31%
- Arabic 0.57%: 0.48% (mostly learned)
- Swedish 0.44%: 0.29% (mostly learned)
- Croatian 0.31%: 0.14%
- Polish 0.28%: 0.21% (mostly learned)
- Greek 0.22%: 0.22% (all learned)
- Chinese 0.2%: 0.13% (mostly learned)
- Hindi 0.18%: 0.12% (mostly learned)
- Bulgarian 0.17%: 0%
- Hungarian 0.15%: 0.08%
- Slovenian 0.1%: 0.1% (all learned)
- Czech 0.1%: 0%
- Catalan 0.09%: 0%
- Russian 0.04%:0.04% (all learned)
> 0% but < 0.04%
- Romanian, Welsh, Urdu, Slovak, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Finnish, Estonian, Danish, Basque, Galician, Japanese, Luxembourgish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Korean, Maltese
http://languageknowledge.eu/countries/netherlands
Languages spoken in Germany: learned (not native)
- German 94.17%: 7.12%
- English 31.93%: 29.77% (mostly learned)
- French 8.81%: 8.36% (mostly learned)
- Russian 7.64%: 0.34%
- Turkish 2.67%: 0.34%
- Polish 2.6%: 0.56%
- Spanish 2.5%: 2.37%
- Italian 2.19%: 1.76% (mostly learned)
- Dutch 1.12%: 0.96% (mostly learned)
- Danish 0.66%: 0.44% (mostly learned)
- Romanian 0.6%: 0.16%
- Czech 0.47%: 0.36% (mostly learned)
- Arabic 0.45%: 0.41% (mostly learned)
- Chinese 0.32%: 0.11%
- Swedish 0.31%: 0.31% (all learned)
- Portuguese 0.22%: 0.06%
- Greek 0.21%: 0.17% (mostly learned)
- Hungarian 0.2%: 0.04%
- Slovenian 0.17%: 0%
- Estonian 0.12%: 0.12% (all learned)
- Bulgarian 0.08%: 0.08% (all learned)
- Latvian 0.06% : 0.06% (all learned)
- Croatian 0.04%: 0.04% (all learned)
http://languageknowledge.eu/countries/germany
Among people from Bangladesh (not exactly French speakers), besides local languages, English is prevalent (as second language).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Bangladesh
In Mali, besides French and local languages, other important languages are Arabic (Classical) and ... English (surprise!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mali
With easily 1 in 3 of both Dutch and Germans speaking English and between 1 in 6 and 1 in 11 speaking French, and assuming only partial overlap between nbon-native English and French speakers, I think gathering intelligence can be managed.
Draw up well-known maps
This is - as the Dutch Ministry of Defense specifies - "gathering information" for Dutch ground support units. Objective: to draw up maps of places, strategic locations (wells, etc.). That is to say, in fact, to do the work, already done by the French troops that have surveyed these different places on several occasions in the last few decades. But apparently the Dutch did not seem to be aware of the existence of these maps.
It is an unsubtantiated allegation that the Dutch are not aware of the existance of French maps (soucre?). One might just as easily claim that the French have failed to provide those maps to the Dutch. But, clearly, this overlooks another possibility.
Recall that Mali is for the most part desert: desert or semi-desert covers about 65 percent of Mali's area. The Niger River creates a large and fertile inland delta as it arcs northeast through Mali from Guinea before turning south and eventually emptying into the Gulf of Guinea. Indeed, Gao is one of two North-Eastern most desert regions. The town Gao sits along the Niger.
Natural hazards in Mali include:
- Desert sandstorms in the north
- Dust-laden harmattan wind is common during dry seasons, bringing a dust haze which may ground aircraft and damage computers and sensitive electronics and machines, as well as aggravating respiratory diseases.
- Recurring droughts
- Bushfires in the south
- Occasional floods, for example in July 2007.
- Tropical thunderstorms in the south, which may bring wind and lightning damage as well as flash floods.
- Occasional Niger River flooding
- No harm to wild animals, but for humans in the forests of Mali.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Mali
Reality is that the above affect the desert and desert terrain is shifting terrain (features change, and therefor opponent use of terrain shifts). This is why terrain maps may need frequent updating. Activity maps even more so.
Desert warfare is combat in deserts. In desert warfare the elements can sometimes be more dangerous than the actual enemy. The desert terrain is the second most inhospitable to troops following a cold environment. The low humidity, extremes of heat/cold, and lack of obstacles and wild-life allows the increased use of electronic devices and unmanned aircraft for surveillance and attacks.
The barrenness of the desert makes the capture of key cities essential to ensure the ability to maintain control over important resources (primarily clean water) and being able to keep a military well supplied. As such in conventional warfare this makes sieges a more frequent occurrence as the defender often prepares entrenched positions to protect the cities that they are supplied from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_warfare
We see this reflected in the positioning in GAO
The grounds troops are part of the special forces unit
Korps Commandotroepen. One of the unit’s jobs is to gather intelligence on the country’s northern militias, and hunt for weapons stockpiles.
Combat helicopters ... for glory
As for the four Apache helicopters, who have now returned home, they were supposed to do intelligence and deterrence, notably by assuring a fighting posture. According to our information, they went out once in a year on a real action! A bit pricey for a poor result.
What information? Again there is no source. I can claim all sorts of things, quoting unknown (and hence unverifiable) 'sources'.
I don't see anybody bitching about Indonesia withdrawing its helicopters....
http://www.janes.com/article/64976/indonesia-withdraws-helicopters-from-un-mission-in-mali
Germany will deploy replacement heli's
http://ewn.co.za/2017/01/12/germany-to-deploy-helicopters-more-soldiers-to-un-mission-in-mali
Please explain why it is a BAD thing that they were used little (assuming for a sec that's true). If their mere presence already deterred certain opfor activities, than that's a good thing. In short, one needs to show, first, few fights and, second, need for higher activity rate and, third, (lack of) effectiveness or presence and activity.
The German-Dutch commitment
Berlin had promised it to Paris after the attacks of November 2015. They kept their word, strengthening their commitment as they went along. The renewed authorization by the Bundestag in january 2017 allows 1000 soldiers, as well as NH-90 transport helicopters - including medical evacuations - and Tiger attack helicopters to replace the Dutch. The German contingent also includes a reinforced mixed reconnaissance company, equipped with drones and Fennek reconnaissance vehicles.
For the Netherlands, it is rather an international commitment, part of the campaign to secure a place in the Security Council, and a personal commitment of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bert Koenders, who was the head of MINUSMA. Moreover, the Dutch commitment declined significantly in 2017. The number of troops was reduced to 300 and 25 police officers. The 4 Apache attack helicopters (reconnaissance) returned to the country in 2016, along with the three Chinook helicopters, replaced by German helicopters.
You can't economize on the military and at the same time expect them to continue to function properly (with no spares, equipment wearing out and failing due to maintenance lagging etc) . I.e. the Dutch military need more money. NATO wants the Netherlands to invest more in additional personnel, equipment, training, supplies and support services.
http://nltimes.nl/2016/03/24/nato-harshly-criticizes-weak-netherlands-defense-spending
Subsequently, last year March, Defense Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called for an extra 2 billion euros for the Defense budget to get the Dutch spending up to NATO standards.
For those that don't know, we had national elections Wednesday 15 March and are now in the process of formating a new government. This will decide on any changes in defence policy and funding levels. One just has to be patient.
Meanwhile ....
I'm not too impressed by this drivel from
www.bruxelles2.eu
Google: Dutch Mali
Select images
... yeah, sure all taken within the confines of basecamp
