It's Time for the Dutch to Man Up

It's Time for the Dutch to Man Up

As the tragedy of flight MH17 sinks in and the search for the guilty seems to lead indirectly or even directly to Putin’s Russia, it remains to be seen how much this will change the Dutch government’s seemingly compliant attitude toward Putin’s blatant disregard for Dutch sensibilities. One of the effects of globalization is surely that the Dutch have realized that they are of tiny importance on the world stage. Dutch hectoring about human rights all over the globe in the past is now seen by many in Holland mostly as a form of narrow-minded self righteousness. But perhaps it is not; after all, we are also part of the united front of the West, of NATO, and of the civilized world. When the issue is no longer the mistreatment of Russian gays and local human right activists but the loss of almost 200 Dutch lives in a conflict that has been cynically fueled by our friend of 400 years, this kind of self-abasing relativism, which has become the dominant strain in our relations with Russia, will be of no use whatsoever.

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