As with other Western navies, it showed that the Royal Netherlands Navy keeps getting fewer ships at its disposal. What it did not show was that, in line with other Western navies, total displacement of the fleet remained about the same.
This Friday the Dutch MoD will anounce the consequences of the €1 billion cuts, on a current budget of €8.5 billion. So expect even less vessels and a decline in displacement.
Which service branches will be affected?
All of them, because 10,000 jobs will be cut.
But looking at what equipment will be axed the main question to be answered is: what kind of operations will the Netherlands be doing the next 10 years?
Without giving a specific answer to that question, I think there are three things will stand out. The first is that the Netherlands will do operations where speed is important. The second is that the Netherlands will carry out operations where having enough transport capability is important. The third type are long-term commitments without any footprint in another country's territory.
What the Dutch will do a lot less, are protracted operations with many ground troops.
Given the desire for speed, the Air Force should be spared from cuts, just as the Defence Helicopter Command.
Given the desire regarding transportation and footprint, the Navy should be spared from cuts.
To me, it seems logical that the bulk of the cuts will affect the Army. The army units that focus on speed (Air Assault) should, however, be spared.
But Dutch politicians are renowned for not choosing, so there will probably be proportional cuts over all branches.
Consequences for the Navy
But what if the Navy is not spared, where will the cuts be?
To answer that question you must ask a different question than you initially might think. Don't ask: what could be cut? The question is: What cannot be cut?
I think it's this:
- Mine countermeasure
- Zeven Provincien class
- Helicopters
- Submarines
The latest signs are that the submarines will be spared (a very expensive part of the navy) and that they will at least lose some MCM vessels and 2 of the Holland class OPV's that have to be build. A more logical choice would be the M-class frigates, because that would mean a 4-4 force instead of a 4-2-2 which is more expensive to maintain. But that's problematic because of agreements with other countries that have M-class frigates, in particular Belgium.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands
This "Kingdom's interests" I mentioned above, is also something most politicians forget. The armed forces are to defend the Kingdom's interests and not just the Dutch interests. And part of that Kingdom (and nowadays some of the Netherlands' municipalities too) is on the other side of the Atlantic. There the direct (war) threat is much greater. And if you want to defend (the interests of) the Kingdom of the Netherlands over there (should it ever be necessary), then you'll want to act fast and with a lot of equipment.
And so we came back to my first question about what kind of operations the Netherlands will be doing in the future and the assets needed to do that.
Foreign Affairs
The Netherlands is the 16th economy in the world and has the 8th largest financial sector. That's why they are always trying to get invited for G20 summits, although they are not an official member. They always succeeded, until the decision was made to draw down from Afghanistan. And now they are going back, they suddenly are back at the G20 table.
That's how it works in the real world. If you want to be taken seriously in the international arena, you'll have to back up your economic might with military power. So the Dutch better be prepared to become less relevant and all those in Parliament had better realise this (and I'm sure they don't want to acknowledge it, even if they do realise it) and downgrade their international ambitions.
Wrong choices
All this of course on the premesis that there WILL be savings, because in the current world where the Armed Forces are increasingly being deployed both domestically as well as abroad, the defence budget should be raised significantly, as well as the Homogeneous Budget for International Cooperation (HGIS), which pays for most of the deployments of the Armed Forces.
Moreover, the Dutch have a saying: to prevent is better than to cure. In today's world that implies a frequent deployment of the military in order to support other countries before it is too late. Soft power deployments, like Africa Partnership Station.
Conclusion
But an increase in budget will not happen, because that would jeopardise Parliamentary seats in the next elections, and personal interests of politicians are always more important than the interests of the Kingdom.
It reminded me of this quote (attributed to Jefferson, Churchill or Lincoln depending on the source) that was in the latest magazine of the (Dutch) Royal Society of Navy Officers:
A statesman thinks about the future generation, a politician thinks about the next election.Unfortunately the Netherlands lacks statesmen.
I have to admit that, somewhere, I hope the time comes the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs will have to tell Parliament: "There will be no humanitarian mission, because the capabilities that are needed have been cut" or even better "We can not evacuate Dutch citizens, because we do not have the proper assets to do that anymore."
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