Toespraak staatssecretaris Boswijk bij EuroISME-conferentie 2026
Deze toespraak is alleen beschikbaar in het Engels.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The first time I visited Ukraine, I visited a rehabilitation centre for wounded soldiers near Kyiv. At the time, I was still a member of parliament. I remember vividly how I stood there together with several parliamentarians from Scandinavia and the Baltic States, in silence, forming a semi-circle around a group of Ukrainian soldiers who had lost multiple limbs.
Many had lost both legs and were sitting on the floor, creating a painful physical distance between us as we spoke with them. While they talked openly, almost matter-of-factly, about their rehabilitation, we slowly lowered ourselves into a squat, trying to reduce the distance between us.
I remember how uncomfortable I felt.
In front of us sat people who had made huge sacrifices for the defence of their country, and for the defence of our shared values. And we stood there as spectators, encouraging them, but knowing that in a few hours we would board a train and return to the safety of Western Europe.
At one point, I asked one of the soldiers whether there was anything we could do to help. I was thinking about rehabilitation support - perhaps fitness equipment or medical assistance.
His answer was immediate:
“More weapons. More ammunition. And much faster.”
The interpreter, a Ukrainian civilian, translated his words without blinking.
That moment has stayed with me ever since.
Because it captured something essential about the world we now live in: there are people today who are fighting, suffering, and sacrificing for values that many in Europe have long taken for granted. And we must ask ourselves not only whether we admire their courage, but whether we are prepared to act with the urgency that courage demands.
That is my core message today: if we ever have to defend our own territory or that of our NATO allies, we can only do it together, not just with the armed forces but with the whole of society. This requires a belief that cannot be bought or ordered, but must be earned: the belief that freedom concerns everyone, and that everyone has a part to play.
Let me tell you where I’m coming from. As State Secretary for Defence of the Netherlands, I am responsible for personnel - including reservists - and for the relationship between the armed forces and society. Before that, I was a reserve officer who watched the peace dividend being spent, saw the armed forces being hollowed out, and spent years in parliament trying to reverse that trend. Now we are finally closing the financial gaps, not because of my efforts, but because of Russia’s aggression.
I have come here to listen and to learn. But the gap between what is discussed in rooms like this and what is decided in ministry buildings is real. And closing that gap matters.
So here is how I see it. Societies that defend themselves successfully share 3 things.
- The will to serve – and fight: the belief in what they are defending.
- The resilience to endure: the strength to withstand external threats and shocks - together.
- And the capability to keep functioning if confronted with danger.
The will, the resilience, and the capability. All three rest on the same foundation. That foundation is ethics.
I. The will to serve – and fight
Let me start with a question that military ethicists have wrestled with for centuries, but that has particular urgency now: why do people serve? Why, in a free society, do men and women choose to put on a uniform, train for war, and stand ready to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of their country?
I saw it when I was a reserve officer. And I see it now as State Secretary for Defence. Most of the people who are prepared to fight are not primarily driven by pay or adventure. They do it because they feel they owe something - to their country, to their community and to the generations before them who built what they now enjoy. And to the generations to come, in my case, my daughters. They are prepared to fight because they feel a moral obligation to do so.
Last year, the Inspector General of the Armed Forces completed a major study on the moral component of our armed forces - interviews with soldiers, reservists, and their families about what drives them. Vice Admiral Boots presented his findings here yesterday.
One sentence stayed with me. A soldier, describing why he serves, said: "I fight for the good. For people."
It is a conviction rooted in values - and according to our own doctrine, the foundation of military effectiveness.
In Dutch defence doctrine, fighting power rests on 3 components.
The physical: equipment, platforms, firepower.
The conceptual: doctrine, training, tactics.
And the moral: the will to fight - the inner conviction that holds a unit together when things get hard.
You cannot buy the moral component. And if you build a military that treats ethics as an obstacle, you undermine the very thing that makes soldiers fight.
That is why I push back against the view - one you have probably heard before - that ethics in defence is a constraint. That in a dangerous world, militaries need speed, lethality, and decisiveness, not careful deliberation. That view now has been put into words, words you will have heard from across the Atlantic: ‘maximum lethality, not tepid legality.’
I argue that the opposite is true, both morally and strategically: morally because values are what we are defending, and strategically because ethics is what holds an armed forces together.
The moral component is not unconnected to effectiveness. On the contrary, it is a source of effectiveness. Strip ethics from military culture - dismantle oversight, shut down civilian protection expertise, cut universities out of the defence ecosystem - and what remains is a culture that is fragile: good at striking, poor at winning.
There is a tension here that I think is at the heart of this conference. Geopolitical realism tells us to move fast, build diligently, spend more. Professional military ethics tells us to do all that responsibly, in line with the high standards we’ve set for the military profession. And to ask who decides, on what basis, and who bears the consequences.
These are not opposites. But the pressure to treat them as opposites is real - and growing. The most effective soldiers are those who have internalised the essential link between rules and values. Rules set the boundary. Values hold it together.
Imagine 2 soldiers. Both follow the rule: do not harm civilians. The first does it because they are ordered to. The second does it because they understand why it matters. The second soldier is more reliable. More resilient against battlefield pressures to disregard the rules for what seems to be a military advantage. More effective - especially when the rules are unclear and the commander is absent.
The inspectorate's study also found that moral legitimacy - the belief that Defence stands for what is right and just – is strong and essential to the moral component. But moral legitimacy is not immutable. It weakens when soldiers do not believe in the justness of the war. It weakens when the political climate becomes more polarised. It weakens when soldiers feel their mission is not understood by the people back home. It weakens when the connection between the armed forces and society erodes.
There is an additional challenge that I want to name directly. Dutch units almost never operate alone. We function within alliances. And when partners operate from a fundamentally different, or amoral, framework, the moral integrity of the Dutch soldier is immediately at stake. We train our people in ethical decision-making and moral professionalism.
That training is not just for show. It is the foundation of their professional identity. We owe it to them to be honest about the rules, honest about violations of those rules, and honest about the operations we ask them to take part in.
This is not an abstract concern. It is a direct responsibility owed to the men and women we send out in the name of our democracy. We must guard against deploying our soldiers to military operations whose legitimacy is heavily contested. Not because we can afford to be naïve about our security or our dependencies. We cannot.
But because the integrity of the military profession depends on it. And because a soldier who is asked to act against the values he was trained to uphold is a soldier we have already failed.
This may not be easy in this age of political realism. But it is a crucial responsibility we have together, as a country - politicians, society, armed forces.
This feeling of shared responsibility is essential. Support from the people back home is important. And strengthening the connection between the armed forces and society matters.
In the Netherlands, we see that those bonds are strengthening. Last year, 1.150 young people chose to participate in a voluntary service year in the armed forces. This year we are aiming for 1.500 participants.
More than 6.000 people applied to become reservists.
40 institutions are now part of our national resilience training programme - introducing students to crisis preparedness, civil-military cooperation, and what it means to contribute to national security - with at least 11.000 participants.
And our Crown Princess Amalia is participating in the Defensity College programme for students. Not as a symbolic gesture, but as a signal that defence is everyone's business - including those who will one day lead this country.
These numbers mean something. They are a signal. People are taking on responsibility. The will to serve – and to fight - is there. Our job is to meet it - and to deserve it by upholding our values, deploying our soldiers for just causes, and by maintaining professional conduct even in the most challenging circumstances. Because an army that has lost the trust of the society it is protecting has already lost something it cannot replace on the battlefield. That is what leads me to my second point.
II. The resilience to endure - together
I have been to Ukraine, 30 kilometres from the front of that gruesome war. There, I saw start-up style projects: volunteers building drones in workshops, liaising directly with military units, testing what works and what does not. No procurement rules, no approval cycles, no bureaucracy. That is why their innovation moves so fast.
It also raises a question many of you are familiar with: when civilians build the weapons that decide battles, the line between combatant and non-combatant blurs. That demands answers - legal, ethical, and moral answers. Answers we do not yet have.
The numbers tell the story. In 2022, around 20% of casualties in Ukraine were caused by drones. Last year that figure had risen to around 90%. Mastering the use of drones has become central to modern warfare, and the innovation driving that development comes from workshops, not weapons factories. Effective. Fast. And raising ethical questions that demand answers.
This is whole-of-society defence in its most direct, urgent form: soldiers and civilians are fighting side by side, while we support them with weapons, training, funding, and political will. Phillips Payson O’Brien argues in his book War and Power that since 1942 the United States has rarely been defeated tactically on the battlefield. Yet from Vietnam to Afghanistan, it still failed to achieve strategic victory. He writes:
“From Vietnam through Afghanistan, the United States has not been defeated in direct engagement, but it has suffered defeat because, no matter how many forces it has deployed - or how much technological dominance it could exert - it could not stop its enemies from constantly generating enough new forces to keep the war going.”
That observation matters. Because it shows that wars are not won by military superiority alone. They are also won - or lost - through societal resilience, political legitimacy, and the ability of a society to sustain a conflict over time.
And as we prepare for a world that may demand more of us than it has in eighty years, the question I keep returning to is this: do our societies have that same backbone? Is the connection between civilian life and military purpose strong enough to bear the very real weight of a war?
Resilience is built from social cohesion. From communities that look out for each other. From people who feel connected to something larger than themselves. An adversary facing that kind of society faces a much harder calculation.
But there is an element that sometimes gets missed. Durable support requires more than urgency. It requires belonging. Defence must earn its place in society - as something people feel part of, and proud of. That means giving before asking.
And that begins with something we sometimes forget: the men and women of Defence are already part of society. They are parents dropping their children at school, they are Saturday football coaches, neighbours, volunteers. Defence has never been separate from society. It was only described in that way for too long. With more than 80.000 soldiers, reservists and civilian staff, the Netherlands armed forces are one of the largest employers in the Netherlands. That is both a capability and a responsibility.
But the relationship between defence and society is reciprocal. Our military surgeons collaborate with civilian hospitals on complex trauma care. Our officers train civilian leaders in crisis management and high-pressure decision-making. We run resilience and sports programmes with youth organisations. We cooperate with ministries, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Infrastructure, as well as local governments on scenarios that are neither purely military nor purely civilian.
We are also investing 35 million euros in defence-relevant scientific research through the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research including its applied research partner SIA. Because knowledge is part of the equation too.
But opening the door to civilian researchers also raises questions. When universities develop dual-use technology, when AI systems support targeting decisions, when the defence industry scales up faster than the ethical frameworks around it - these are concrete concerns. They are very real dilemmas. Who is responsible when an algorithm fails? How do we ensure that speed of innovation does not outrun the values that should govern it?
I cannot answer those questions from a government building alone. I need people like you, who study and experience them every day.
ReArm Europe is reshaping European defence. The word ethics does not appear once. You all know what that means. The question is what we are going to do about it.
When European armed forces with different cultures and different legal traditions operate together at greater speed and scale - who decides? Who is accountable? Those questions demand answers.
When I was a reservist, I trained alongside people from all parts of Dutch society. A farmer from the north, a software engineer from Amsterdam, a teacher from the south. They had almost nothing in common except the uniform and the task in front of them.
And yet they worked as a team. They covered for each other. They built something together that none of them could have built alone.
As State Secretary for Defence, I see it still - in our units, among our reservists, wherever people from different walks of life come together for a shared purpose.
There is a term for this in military history: the school of the nation. The idea that serving - whether as a conscript, a reservist, or a volunteer - builds something beyond military readiness. Social cohesion. A shared sense of what we are defending. Research in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands suggests that conscription strengthens the social fabric – a point I will return to.
But let me be clear about the complications. Building the whole-of-society defence we need is not held back by lack of will. It is hindered by structures - procurement rules, legal frameworks, and planning assumptions - designed for a world that no longer exists. This forces us to ask uncomfortable questions, reconsider past choices, rebalance our values, and perhaps even compromise - because technological innovation must accelerate.
Our adversaries aren’t bound by our schedules. A system that moves at peacetime speed is a gift to anyone who wishes us harm. In a security environment that changes by the month, this isn’t a minor inconvenience. It is a strategic liability.
That is the world we are preparing for. And in that world, the question is not just whether our soldiers are ready. It is whether our entire society can keep functioning when it matters most.
Wars are not won solely by armies. They are won by societies that continue to operate under pressure.
This is not a new question. But it has never been more urgent. And that brings me to my third and final point.
III. The capability to keep functioning
One topic is not discussed enough in discussions about European security. We talk about deterrence, about capabilities, about readiness. We talk about what the armed forces must be able to do. What we don’t discuss is what happens to the rest of society when deterrence fails.
If we ever have to defend our own territory, or that of our NATO allies, the question is not only whether our soldiers are ready. It is whether our society can keep functioning: whether our ports stay open, our hospitals remain operational and our supply chains hold together.
The Netherlands is a strategic node. Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe. Vlissingen, the Eemshaven and the infrastructure of the Rhine delta are economic and military assets. They are the arteries through which allied reinforcements flow into the European continent. In any serious conflict scenario, they become targets. Their protection is not purely a military task.
And the vulnerability of trade routes is real and present. The Strait of Hormuz has been under pressure since early this year. Twenty percent of the world's oil and gas used to pass through it. Energy prices are rising and supply chains are disrupted. What happens far away from home reaches our doorstep faster than we expect. The Netherlands depends on open trade routes.
In a crisis, infrastructure is both civilian and military. The same roads, railways, and waterways that carry goods in peacetime carry troops and equipment in wartime. The same logistical systems that support supermarkets support forward supply depots. The overlap can be an opportunity if we plan for it, but it is a vulnerability if we do not.
Medicine follows the same logic. In a large-scale conflict, military medical teams operate near the front. Wounded soldiers are first treated by military doctors, then transferred to civilian hospitals for recovery. The line between military and civilian medicine does not disappear - it shifts. That shift carries ethical implications: about triage, priority setting, and decisions about whose life receives which resources when there are not enough supplies for everyone.
These are pressing questions. And some countries have started answering them.
Estonia has a war book - a detailed plan for how civilian society will function during conflict. Lithuania, where our soldiers are stationed, has rebuilt its conscript system precisely because it understands that military readiness and societal readiness are inseparable.
And then there is Finland. Finland shares a border of over 1.300 kilometres with Russia. Its history is shaped by conflict with its neighbour. And yet it consistently ranks amongst the happiest countries in the world. How? Because the Finns do not confuse comfort with security. They have a concept for it: sisu. Strength and resilience in near-impossible situations. One in three Finnish adults is a reservist. Entrepreneurs take resilience courses.
That is a culture of readiness.
But sisu is not only about military preparedness. Finland also ranks among the most socially cohesive societies in the world. In the far north of Lapland, people have long known that emergency services may be hours away. You rely on your neighbours. You look out for each other. That habit of mutual dependence - built over generations - turns out to be one of the most powerful forms of resilience there is. We could all learn from that.
Sweden has taken a different approach. Alongside a limited military conscript system, it is experimenting with a civilian variant - preparing electricians, healthcare workers, and emergency responders for their role in a crisis. The logic is simple: in a large-scale conflict, the military cannot function if the rest of society has stopped. That insight is now being translated into policy.
In the Netherlands, we are catching up, and that requires the whole of government - and the whole of society. Numerous ministries are involved, including Infrastructure and Water Management and Health. They work together with ports, logistics companies, and energy providers on mobility planning, medical surge capacity, and continuity planning.
But we are not there yet, and that is where the ethical dimension becomes concrete. Asking a society to accept the disruptions of a crisis requires three things.
First, trust. As discussed earlier, legitimacy is essential - and not only for soldiers. Society must believe the sacrifice is justified, that the purpose is clear, that the institutions doing the asking have earned the right to ask.
Second, a shared purpose: the conviction that what we are defending is worth defending together.
Third, shared responsibility: the willingness to carry the burden fairly. Who carries what? Which generations? Which communities?
These questions touch something fundamental: what the state can ask of the individual, and what the individual can expect in return.
And there are overarching questions: what if the will to fight is not enough? What if the numbers do not add up? Conscription raises ethical questions that deserve serious answers. What can a democratic state legitimately ask of its citizens? Of which groups, at what age and under what circumstances? These are questions for all of us.
Building trust, forging a shared purpose, and cultivating the willingness to carry the burden all take time - more time than we may have. That is the uncomfortable truth. We cannot manufacture civic resilience in a crisis. What we can do is move faster, invest more seriously, and be transparent with citizens about what may be asked of them.
The Advisory Council on International Affairs has called for a broader societal debate on resilience. I agree. Citizens are being asked to play a larger role in national security. They deserve a real say in what that means and what they can expect in return. The Scandinavian examples show that this is possible: defence can become something that people feel proud to be part of, not something imposed on them.
As for investment: we are spending 3.5 percent of GDP on defence. But societal resilience requires investment in the social infrastructure that makes a society worth defending.
That is what the whole-of-society model demands - both a military strategy and an ethical commitment. To uphold our shared values in challenging times. To earn the trust that effective defence requires. To give back before asking for sacrifice. To treat citizens as partners, not subjects.
And it requires your contribution as well. Stay engaged. The questions you have been exploring for the past 3 days do not end with this conference. They are being addressed right now in ministries, in procurement offices, in hospitals, in city halls, in communities across Europe. We need your thinking there.
Translate your research into language that policymakers can act on. Bring your operational experience into the rooms where policy is made. Build relationships inside ministries and in communities.
You are uniquely placed to make that connection. And to hold us to account when speed becomes an excuse for cutting corners on values.
The questions you work on sit at the heart of defence. What do we owe each other as citizens in a democracy that might one day need to defend itself? How do we share the burden of a crisis fairly? How do we defend our values without losing them in the process?
These questions are alive in classrooms and field exercises, in journals and operations. They also belong at the table where decisions are made.
What Europe needs right now is not a coalition of the willing, but a coalition of the doing. Governments that decide. Industries that deliver. Researchers and military professionals who apply their knowledge where it matters, even when it’s uncomfortable and the timelines are short.
Europe is rearming, and that is both right and necessary. But let us rearm with clear eyes and firm values.
The will to fight means nothing without a society worth serving. Let us build that society together!
Because a resilient society is ultimately our strongest deterrent.
Thank you