Through personal actions in 2010 and 2014, Prime Minister Mark Rutte contributed to defense cuts that gave the armed forces “the final blow” after decades of short cuts. This is evident from a reconstruction of thirty years of defense cutbacks, based in part on conversations with senior military officials, senior officials and politicians, including all living ministers of defense since the Cold War.
In 2010, shortly after Rutte’s first cabinet took office, Minister of Defense Hans Hillen (CDA, 2010-2012) planned to water down cuts from the coalition agreement (which amounted to 1 billion euros) in a letter to the House of Representatives. Hillen says he received an angry phone call from the prime minister. “’Send that letter to the queen!’ Rutte shouted, ‘I will not accept this’,” Hillen remembers. After the intervention of their officials and a difficult Torentjes consultation, Hillen and Rutte concluded an armed peace after all. Rutte gave Hillen “no choice” but to implement the cuts, says Hillen: “I was under stricter supervision.”
Also read the big story with this news item: Rutte personally forced Defense to receive ‘the final blow’
Rutte does not want to comment on the episode, but emphasizes that “the serious financial crisis” forced cuts “in all areas, including defense spending”. These defense cuts turned out to be disastrous. “This was the final blow,” says David van Weel, then a top official in the Defense Department, now assistant secretary general of NATO. “With Rutte I’s billion, a limit has been crossed,” says Jeanine Hennis (VVD), Hillen’s successor in 2012. “The combat power of the army was eroded,” says Tom Middendorp, Commander of the Armed Forces (CdS) at the time.
Rutte is also accused of not acting after a 2014 NATO summit in Wales – shortly after the downing of MH17 and the occupation of Crimea – reaffirmed that NATO member states would “move their defense spending towards 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)” in 2024. The Netherlands was then at 1.2 percent of GDP.
But after his signing of the final communiqué, civil servants and politicians noticed that this did not change anything, according to Rutte. Ank Bijleveld (CDA), Minister of Defense in 2017-2021, says that when she took office she saw “that Mark’s signature was under ‘Wales’, but the budget had not been increased”. The effect was that defense spending fell to 1.1 percent of GDP in 2015 – the lowest point since World War II. Hennis outlined the seriousness of the situation in letters to Parliament; there were plenty of defects and shortages in the armed forces. Middendorp: “You can bet that Putin feasted on those letters.”
Rutte emphasizes that his fourth cabinet will still meet the NATO standard of 2 percent of GDP in 2024 through financial injections at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022. According to the expenditure plan, the Netherlands will fall below that again after 2025.
Defense Weekend 16-19
A version of this article also appeared in the December 31, 2022 newspaper