As one of NATO’s founding members and provider of no less than four NATO Secretary-Generals, the Netherlands has generally been considered “one of NATO’s most loyal allies”, with the alliance as the cornerstone of its foreign policy and a consistently Atlanticist outlook.[1] The Dutch pro-American outlook tallied with its consistently staunch anti-communism. As small country, occupied during World War II, the Dutch shift from neutrality to allegiance with NATO seems to make sense, seeking American protection in the bipolar Cold War order.

At first sight this seems a continuum right up to the present day: the Netherlands were among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022, often taking a very proactive stance within NATO. It is therefore no surprise that the then Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, became its current Secretary-General in 2024.

During the last decade of the Cold War Dutch allegiance to NATO came, however, under such pressure that the British-Israeli historian Walter Laqueur called the Netherlands “one of the weakest links in the Western alliance” in a landmark article in August 1981. His remarks mainly concerned the Dutch reluctance to position 48 cruise missiles on Dutch ground after NATO’s dual track decision in December 1979. Under this decision it was agreed that 572 cruise missiles would be placed in NATO countries by 1983 in response to the Soviet SS20 missiles, while simultaneously negotiating with the Soviet Union on arms reduction. It took successive Dutch governments until November 1985 to finally reach a decision, making the Netherlands the last NATO-country to decide on the placement of cruise missiles. Laqueur even accused the Netherlands of “neutralism” and coined the phrase “Hollanditis” for the “disease” that held the Dutch in their grip.[2] This begs the question whether Dutch loyalty to NATO was really at stake during this period.

Popular protests versus NATO-loyalty

The biggest popular protests in Dutch contemporary history concerned the cruise missiles, with approximately 400.000 people protesting in November 1981 and 550.000 people in October 1983 in an attempt to put pressure on parliament to decide against placement. The protests were fuelled by ethical objections and the fear of nuclear annihilation, and the Dutch churches played a pivotal role in spearheading them. In the wake of the Netherlands some of the other countries where cruise missiles were to be placed also faced massive protests, such as Italy, West-Germany, and Belgium. The Dutch delayed the issue longer than other NATO-allies and the Dutch wavering was particularly problematic compared to its usual loyalty. Far from putting the protesters off, Laqueur’s thesis actually seemed to inspire them. In the protests in Amsterdam in 1981 banners appeared with the text: “The Dutch disease is better for peace”.[3]

The protests also reverberated in Dutch parliament, where successive governments led by the Christian Democratic Prime Minister Van Agt in principle supported NATO’s dual track decision, but kept delaying the placement of the missiles between 1979-1982. Although the Christian Democratic party was internally split on the issue, the party committee in charge called the idea to banish nuclear weapons “a profound illusion and dangerous self-deceit”.[4] Meanwhile, the Dutch delay was viewed with increasing concern within NATO. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Rogers, considered “solidarity within the alliance” at stake in February 1982.[5] The Dutch NATO-Secretary General, Joseph Luns, voiced his criticism still more strongly: in an interview in August 1982 he emphasised that the consequences of a potential Dutch decision not to place cruise missiles reached much further “than the enormous blow to the credibility of the Netherlands as NATO ally”. He suggested that if the Dutch were the only ones not to place them, the Soviets “might begin for example with smashing Rotterdam to pieces” – which was a particular strong threat considering the massive German bombardment on Rotterdam in World War II.[6]

At the political level Dutch loyalty to NATO eventually seemed to gain the upper hand. Although the Labour Party (PvdA) had won the elections in 1982, it failed to form a government because of its principled opposition to the placement of cruise missiles. This intransigence was unacceptable to Ruud Lubbers, the new leader of the Christian Democratic Party, the second largest party, since he wanted to keep all options open. Lubbers accordingly formed a coalition in November 1982 with the centre-right VVD, which was in favour of placing the missiles. Although the Christian Democrats remained internally split, the minister for Foreign Affairs, Hans Van den Broek, was, like most of his predecessors and successors, a firm Atlanticist. He was strongly in favour of placement, and wanted to avoid playing into the hands of the Soviet Union during the Arms Reduction negotiations in Geneva at all costs. His unwavering support for the Americans was such, that he was even called “Washington’s ventriloquist”.[7]

Demonstration against cruise missiles, The Hague, 1983 (Wikimedia Commons)

Lubbers’ creative solution

According to Lubbers a meeting with American president Ronald Reagan in early 1983 proved decisive for his thinking. Reagan told him that, contrary to conventional wisdom, he did not “like” nuclear weapons “at all”, but he needed Lubbers’ support in “letting the Soviets sweat first” in order to “get rid of nuclear weapons altogether”. Realising that no-one would believe that Reagan, considered a hawk, was actually a dove, Lubbers did not even tell his own foreign minister about this conversation, but he kept it at the back of his mind all along. Van den Broek, meanwhile, worried about “how to explain” the Dutch delaying tactics to NATO.[8] The Americans indeed grew impatient with the Dutch procrastination. The American deputy secretary of state, Eagleburger, firmly told a Dutch parliamentary delegation in September 1983 that a decision against placement would “harm Dutch-American relations, the Western negotiating position in Geneva and the unity of NATO”.[9]

Lubbers was walking a tight-rope between the concerns of the Dutch protesters and the duties towards NATO. His creative solution was a conditional placement of cruise missiles on Dutch territory, which was accepted by Dutch parliament in June 1984. The Dutch would place the missiles unless the Soviets did not expand the number of SS-20 missiles beyond the 378 they held at the time by 1 November 1985. In his attempt to directly influence the Soviet arms reduction Lubbers even initiated a top secret correspondence with Mikhael Gorbachev, who had recently become the new Soviet leader, in the summer of 1985. In his first letter on 12 July he reminded Gorbachev of the condition not to increase the number of SS20 missiles and appealed “to the spirit of forty years liberation” after World War II, thus attempting to diffuse the Cold War antagonism. Gorbachev replied that he too wanted to break “the vicious circle of the arms race on the European continent”, but blamed the United States for ignoring Soviet initiatives on that score. He put the ball back in Lubbers’ court by saying much depended “on which position the Netherlands will take in the cardinal questions of European security”.[10]

NATO Secretary Joseph Luns with prime minister Ruud Lubbers, 1985 (Wikimedia Commons)

‘Don’t rush it’

The Dutch prime minister made one final attempt to win Gorbachev over shortly before the 1 November deadline. Using his Indian colleague Rajiv Ghandi, who happened to be summoned to Moscow while visiting the Netherlands, as go-between, he asked him to convey to Gorbachev that he would like to “witness the annihilation of nuclear weapons on both sides”, but that the 1 November deadline was still in place. During Ghandi’s visit to Moscow, Lubbers was confronted with a petition against placement, signed by almost four million people. Since the Soviets had increased the number of SS20 missiles, the Dutch government nevertheless decided in favour of the placement of the cruise missiles on 1 November 1985.

In the meantime, Ghandi reported back to Lubbers that Gorbachev had replied that “he would publicly vilify Lubbers” if he decided on placement, but that he wanted to let him know personally “not to rush the placement, since I expect that Reagan and I will agree within a year about the removal of all intermediate nuclear forces”. When a greatly concerned British prime minister Margaret Thatcher phoned Lubbers during the Soviet-American negotiations on Intermediate-Range Nuclear ForcLubbers es (INF), she could therefore count on little support. Her warning that “Ron is giving in to the commies” fell on deaf ears.[11]

Lubbers proved right in trusting both Reagan and Gorbachev in their professed zeal to get rid of nuclear weapons. On 8 December 1987 they signed the INF Treaty, which banned all nuclear and conventional ground-based missiles with a range between 500-5500 km, including cruise missiles. The placement of the cruise missiles in the Netherlands, which was scheduled for 1988, therefore never took place, and the Dutch delaying tactics were vindicated. However heated the debates and protests against cruise missiles were in the early 1980s, NATO-membership itself was never seriously stake. As Lubbers put it during the parliamentary debates about the final decision on placement in November 1985, “the alliance is the corner stone of Dutch security policy and it has to remain that way”.[12] Indeed, another forty years later loyalty to NATO has remained a remarkably consistent factor in Dutch politics, despite an extremely wide range of successive governments.

All notes and references can be found at: https://www.atlcom.nl/magazine/most-loyal-ally-or-weakest-link-the-netherlands-and-nato-in-the-1980s

[1] NATO – Declassified: Netherlands and NATO – 1949 See also: Alfred van Staden, ‘De rol van Nederland in het Atlantisch Bondgenootschap. Wat veranderde en wat uiteindelijk bleef’, in: Niek van Sas (ed.) De kracht van Nederland. Internationale positie en buitenlands beleid in historisch perspectief (Bloemendaal, 1991), p. 219.

[2] Hollanditis: A New Stage in European Neutralism – Commentary Magazine Walter Z. Laqueur, ‘Hollanditis. A New Stage in European Neutralism’, Commentary (August 1981), p. 19-26.

[3] File:Overzicht op Museumplein met spandoek The Dutch disease is better for peace o, Bestanddeelnr 253-8627.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

[4] Cited in Jan Willem Brouwer, Mari Smits en Bart Stol, ‘Grote woorden, kleine stappen. De evolutie van de buitenlandse politiek’, in: Carla van Baalen en Anne Bos (eds), Grote idealen, smalle marges. Een parlementaire geschiedenis van de lange jaren zeventig, 1971-1982 (Amsterdam 2022), p. 623-716, 704.

[5] “Nederland bedreigt Atlantische eenheid”, interview with Rogers, Elseviers Magazine, 27 February 1982.

[6] Secretaris-generaal mr. Luns: ‘Atoomvrij Europa werkt oorlogsbevorderend’, De Telegraaf, 28 August 1982.

[7] Jos Klaassen, ‘De poortwachter voor Oost-Europa’, De Volkskrant, 19 July 1997.

[8] Lubbers’ stille strijd voor ontwapening

[9] “Eagleburger waarschuwt parlementaire delegatie. Weigeren kruisraketten schaadt eenheid NAVO”, NRC Handelsblad, 13 september 1983.

[10] Gorbatsjovs geheime briefwisseling over kruisraketten met Lubbers – NRC

[11] Lubbers’ stille strijd voor ontwapening

[12] Digibron.nl, Kamermeerderheid voor plaatsing kruisraketten