The Ministry of Defense was delighted in December when it became clear that the Dutch armed forces would receive a structural additional 3 billion euros a year from the new cabinet.
Less than three months later, the world suddenly looks very different because of the war in Ukraine. And the call in Dutch politics is getting louder and louder to invest even more money in our security.
Bundeswehr gets 100 billion
The Netherlands is certainly not alone in this. Germany pulls 100 billion euros extra for its own armed forces, a historic turnaround for the neglected Bundeswehr. The speech in which the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the investment in the German parliament on Sunday will go down in history. The Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called the Russian threat “an incentive to invest more in defense than we’ve ever done” and received thunderous applause.
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“That is the shock of now,” says Frans Osinga, professor by special appointment of War Studies at Leiden University. “It is striking how quickly this reversal has gone. These are things that were unthinkable ten days ago.”
According to Osinga, this is largely understandable. “European leaders were shocked and shocked by Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, but they themselves were emerging from an economic crisis. The political priority was not security. But the invasion of an entire country is something else. Hence the shock. .”
The several extra billions for defense are good news for the industry, explains Frederieke Hegger in the video below:
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NATO standard
De Franse president Macron hammered far before the invasion of Ukraine on more money for European defense. He even wants a European flash force to intervene in conflicts himself. France made it in 2020 for the first time the so-called NATO standard: whereby a country spends at least 2 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence.
In comparison: with current investments, the Netherlands will increase to 1.85 percent of GDP in 2024, which is also the EU average. Larger European countries such as Italy and Spain are also still below standard† Much to the disappointment of the US, which feels it has to pay a disproportionate amount to NATO, which is funded by contributions from its 30 members.
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make a good turn
“We will do well in politics if we commit ourselves to the NATO standard,” says defense expert Ko Colijn. “The Americans will like that.” He is also impressed by the German cover. “That one-time 100 billion alone is one and a half times as much as Germany or Russia now structurally spend per year, so it means a lot.”
However, it will be a while before we notice anything. Investments in defense have an above-average lead time, says emeritus professor of international relations Colijn. “We won’t see much of it in terms of major weapon systems before 2030, I think. In that sense, we’re way too late.”
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‘At the back of the row’
Although there are differences between countries. Colijn: “Germany can immediately buy ammunition, planes and ships. The waiting times are shorter there than in the Netherlands, which, except for the shipbuilding sector, hardly has its own arms industry. The Netherlands has to order everything abroad and is in principle behind the list. queue.”
Invest in new tanks, frigates and aircraft? It would mean a striking change of course for the Netherlands army, which in 2015 still had such a shortage of ammunition that the soldiers themselves had to yell ‘bang-bang’ during exercises.
The defense is in a miserable state due to years of severe budget cuts. Cutbacks that have not nearly delivered as intended, research showed last year of the Court of Audit.
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Commander of the Armed Forces Onno Eichelsheim has repeatedly pointed out that in addition to equipment, investments must also be made in attracting people. This shortage, like the shortage of resources, supplies and support, is also indicated in so-called Defense 2035which states what threats the armed forces expects.
“This shows that 3 billion is actually not enough to actually obtain the capacity expansion that is needed in view of the new security policy context,” says Professor Osinga. “Certainly if we want to seriously work on NATO’s deterrence strategy in the Netherlands. It is no longer about peace operations such as in Afghanistan and Mail. We really live in a different era.”
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