Toespraak staatssecretaris Boswijk bij afsluiting van Next Gen Conference in Den Haag
De toespraak werd gehouden in het Engels.
You are the most resilient audience I have ever seen. Look at the weather outside. You are all still here. And I know why, because you know what’s at stake.
I’ll keep it short. In fact, I only want to leave you with 2 lessons.
The first is well-known in the military: ‘If we fight the next war like we fought the last one, we will lose.’ History proves this again and again.
At Agincourt, heavily armoured French knights charged forward with confidence only to be cut down by faster and more flexible English archers.
At the start of the First World War, cavalry units rode proudly towards the enemy bright uniforms, sabres in the air straight into rapid-fire machine guns.
And in the Winter War of 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland with overwhelming force.
Moscow expected a quick victory. Instead, Finnish soldiers appeared out of the snow on skis, struck fast, disappeared again, and even turned bottles into weapons that the world still knows today as Molotov-cocktails.
The lesson is simple: the biggest army does not always win. The army that adapts fastest usually does. And that is exactly what’s at stake today.
As State Secretary for Defence, my job is not to rebuild the Cold War military of the past. My job is to prepare the Netherlands for the next war.
That means investing in a scalable Armed Forces. A strong professional core, backed by reservists. Young people doing service years. Citizens joining resilience programmes. Close cooperation with industry. And a society that understands security is no longer someone else’s responsibility.
Because modern war no longer starts at the border. It starts online. In supply chains. In our energy grids. In our ports. And sometimes even in our own streets.
Which brings me to the second lesson: ‘When in doubt, look at Finland.’ Because Finland understands something many countries forgot. Security is not just about tanks, fighter jets or ammunition. It is about society.
Last year I’ve seen it with my own eyes in Ukraine. Civilians building drones that helped the armed forces destroy columns of tanks worth millions. David fighting Goliath — with innovation instead of size.
That same mindset exists in Finland. They call it sisu: the ability to keep going when circumstances seem impossible. 1 in 3 Finnish adults is a reservist. Companies train for crises. Citizens prepare for emergencies. They have a culture of readiness. But perhaps most importantly: people trust each other.
In the north of Finland, people know help may take hours to arrive. So neighbours help neighbours. Communities stay strong. And that social strength turns out to be just as important as military strength.
That is why Finland matters. And that is also why I am especially honoured that the man who has done so much to put this way of thinking on Europe’s agenda is with us today. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö recently wrote what I would call THE report on Europe’s preparedness and resilience. And I am very pleased that he has accepted our invitation to be here.
Thank you very much.