Historiography of Dutch peacekeeping in national and foreign research

The definition of "Dutch peacekeeping" or "Dutch peacekeepers" occurs very rarely in the Russian literature. It is first of all associated with the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina in July, 1995, when the Dutchbat could not prevent the tragedy and mass people killings, which will later be called the fall of Srebrenica. In the given article the author tries to follow the development of Dutch peacekeeping as a historical process in international relations based on the foreign and Russian scholars' works. The analysis of the Dutch foreign policy plays a significant role in considering the issue. The papers of Dutch researchers represent the major part in foreign historiography. The Dutch policy think tanks asserted a main influence to study the above-mentioned question. Among them are the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, as well as the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) created in 1979. The latter consults the Dutch Government and Parliament on the issues of foreign policy, human rights, peace and security, cooperation in the field of development and European integration. One of the most significant works is a research which the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies prepared in 1996-2002 at the request of the Dutch government after many countries, e.g., France and Canada, refused to take part in investigating the causes of the Srebrenica tragedy in 1995. In 2002, the scholars of the Institute published a report "Srebrenica - A 'safe' area. Reconstruction, background, consequences and analyses of the fall of a Safe Area". In Russian historiography the Dutch peacekeeping can be examined as an object only as part of the Dutch foreign policy works and conduct of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the international arena as a small country. At present, the study of Dutch peacekeeping is an exclusive prerogative for foreign researchers and think tanks, in the first place, it concerns the Dutch ones. If until mid-1990s peacekeeping was examined as a historical process in international relations, since 1995 and in the 2000s the authors implemented new methods: gender studies, anthropology, psychological analysis; they also used the results of medical investigations. Dutch public opinion, relations between the executive and the legislative powers, influence of internal political factors on the decision-making process of how and when to deploy military forces in peacekeeping operations are considered. To sum up, research of Dutch peacekeeping by foreign authors covers many aspects, while there are only a few Russian papers: Soviet and, later, Russian scholars consider the issue of the Dutch participation in peacekeeping operations barely in the context of studying the history and foreign policy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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