From 2014 till 2025, the Netherlands has contributed to the military fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This evaluation investigates the effectiveness of the Netherlands’ contributions to the different missions in Iraq.

Background

In 2014, the leader of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) declared a global caliphate, and IS controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria. As a result of IS's increasing territorial gains, the internationally felt need to intervene also grew.

By the end of 2014, the Netherlands decided to contribute militarily to the anti-ISIS coalition. This initially involved special operations forces to train and assist Iraqi forces and F-16s. Dutch F-16s also operated over Syria between 2016 and 2018. The Netherlands has remained militarily active in Iraq for 10 years, both within the anti-ISIS coalition's Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) and the NATO Mission in Iraq (NMI). The Netherlands has also contributed to the civilian EU Advisory Mission in Iraq. 

The military contributions fall under the Article 100 Assessment Framework, which requires for an independent evaluation of these efforts. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense requested IOB to conduct this evaluation. The IOB evaluation will also examine contributions that do not fall within the scope of the Assessment Framework, including the deployment of individual staff officers and civilian experts. The evaluation comprises the following sections:

  1. Effectiveness of the Netherlands’ contributions to the missions in Iraq.
  2. Relevance and coherence of the Dutch deployment under the integrated approach (defence, diplomacy and development cooperation).
  3. The Netherlands’ position during military deployment within a coalition.
  4. Lessons for future deployments.

Central question

To what extent have the objectives of the Netherlands’ contributions to the missions in Iraq (2014–2025) been achieved, how can this be explained, and what lessons can be drawn for future deployments and policy?

Researchers

Process

This research is in step 2, "ToR adopted". The other steps are: 1. Exploration, 2. ToR adopted, 4. Report adopted, 5. Drafting policy response, and 6. Report to parliament.