AFCENT in the mining region

This thesis endeavors to document the first fifteen years of AFCENT, a NATO headquarters commanding forces in the central region of Western Europe, when it was moved from France to the former mining-town of Brunssum in Limburg, a province in the southern tip of the Netherlands. The thesis investigates the public debate in anticipation of AFCENT’s arrival, and the subsequent physical (including economic) and social consequences, thereby helping to gain a better understanding of what kind of influences a NATO military base has on its surrounding community. Due to a dearth of secondary material about this base the thesis is very heavily slanted towards the use of primary sources, particularly newspapers from the research period, backed up by municipal archive material and interviews. By means of framing theory and oral history the author seeks to map out the public debate, perceptions and bias surrounding AFCENT, through analysis of framing in the media and during interviews. Many of the interviewees, both Dutch and Americans, used to be employed at the base, and were old enough to have consciously experienced its arrival, and these interviews were supplemented with shorter conversations with locals in Brunssum. Primarily by means of newspapers two opposing sides are identified vying to control the public debate. On the one hand communists, assorted left-wing groups and students protested against the base and NATO in general, while on the other a conservative and catholic press and public was generally supportive of the base, with a clear eye to its potential for job creation. The next section investigates the physical and economic consequences of the base, juxtapositioning the economic injection with rising housing prices caused by the presence of base personnel, the transfer of municipal and community resources to accommodate the base, and the strains on municipal budgets. Archival material plays a role in particular here. The final section, guided by the interviews, documents much of the socio-cultural impact of AFCENT, through the base and its personnel’s participation in local social life, transfers of foreign festivities and sports, the role of race, and the base’s impact on local identity. All of these influences radiated outwards, particularly the markers of American culture. Throughout this study is highlighted the importance of the regional mining history to the narrative of AFCENT. The mining industry was the economic lifeblood of the region, as well as a cornerstone of the local collective identity, but the mines were closing just before AFCENT arrived, and so the base partially filled that void through its economic and socio-cultural footprint, as well as helping Brunssum to recast its identity as international and metropolitan instead of as a mining-town. The backdrop of the mine closures is the determinative factor of how AFCENT influenced the local community in most respects.