Is the Netherlands doing enough to meet its NATO obligations? Now that a war is raging in Europe – the biggest since 1945 – that question is on the table life-sized. The latest signals from the armed forces are not reassuring. Yes, additional investments are being made, which means that the Netherlands meets the NATO standard for the first time that 2 percent of national income must be spent on defence. But the money mainly goes to ‘stuff’ (artillery, logistics, medical facilities) and not to bringing combat brigades up to strength in terms of manpower, as NATO expects.
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Lieutenant Colonel Niels van Woensel, chairman of the Dutch Officers Association, warns NRC for “serious shortcomings, with no plans to address them in the near future”. In the NRC podcast The hour former Lieutenant General Mart de Kruif is equally concerned. “We do not have any grand strategyeven as a small country. Where do we want to go? What do we want to be?” NATO would like to see the Netherlands bring its 13th brigade in Oirschot and 43rd brigade in Havelte to full strength. They are now running at half power. A brigade usually consists of four battalions (units of 600 to 800 soldiers), but in Oirschot they have two and in Havelte two and a half, often too lightly armed. The Netherlands no longer has its own tanks – they are leased from Germany, where Dutch soldiers are housed in a tank battalion.
The Ministry of Defense sees more potential in high-tech defense equipment, which puts its own soldiers at less risk. During the long-running NATO mission in Lithuania, the Netherlands was the first Western country to test combat robots under operational conditions in recent months. Remote-controlled, armed tracked vehicles. This is also seen as a solution for the personnel shortage at Defense (9,000 vacancies).
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The problem is that in Ukraine every day shows how much the classic ground war still belongs to the military repertoire, with an important role for combat units and tanks. In Eastern European countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, they seem to understand this better and have been using heavy equipment for some time, with the associated personnel. The Dutch strategy is in stark contrast to that, says Van Woensel rightly. “You cannot do the high-tech things yourself and ask the countries in Eastern Europe to bear the burden and risks of a ground war.” Recruiting staff is indeed very difficult, but that should not be an argument to leave it alone. Doing your best means not just buying stuff, but showing that you’re willing to stick your neck out with military manpower.
That this does not happen feels like a repetition of history. After the fall of communism, ‘deterrence’ as a military concept was ‘thrown away’, according to De Kruif. Without a concrete threat of war, defense became the closing item of the budget. Even then, experts often sounded the alarm, in numerous cases reports, but the government and the House of Representatives are continuing the demolition. It took a war to stop that process, but what is taking its place now inspires little confidence. The fear of Dutch deaths on a battlefield is understandable, but getting NATO’s combat power in order should actually lead to no war. The Netherlands must play a full role in this, and not hide behind robots.
A version of this article also appeared in the December 5, 2022 newspaper