000 0  FIGURE 4

100.000

0

 Figure 4: The arms race between East and West in $ millions (Source: The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy).

4

See figure 4 Appendix

19NATO commitment The conflict with Indonesia about the territory of New Guinea in 1962 is bilateral but most foreign missions with respect to the external war dummy are multilateral. Sacrifices in the Korean War, Operation Desert Storm, the Kosovo War and the War on Terror are all performed under NATO or UN command. Safety motivations seem to play a minor role in the determination of the Dutch military expenditures because the external war is not significant. These missions point directly to the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party, initially communist countries in Eastern Europe. The Dutch government confirmed in the cabinet meeting in 1951 the rapidly deteriorating relation between East and West. However, due to American NATO membership a direct attack by the Soviet Union seemed unlikely to the Dutch government. According to former Prime Minister Drees the political importance outweighed the military effectiveness of the alliance, which was in his view insufficiently equipped. The preservation of freedom was served best by economic and social policy. Military expenditures only negatively affected economic and social conditions (Brouwer et al,