It is crunch-time for European defense establishments. Faced with a rapidly changing world and budgetary constraints, military planners must find innovative solutions to prepare for the future.
Anticipating the strategic choices ahead, the Royal Netherlands Air Force commissioned a HCSS study entitled Taking the High Ground – Airpower in the Netherlands: a vision of the future 2015-2025. To provide a venue for analyzing the future role of airpower and exploring the options for multinational cooperation the Institute for European Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel together with HCSS organized a Policy Forum on 13 February 2014. The Policy Forum consisted of two sessions, one looking at cooperation of European air forces from the context of the HCSS report, the other looking at it from the context of the Belgian and Dutch air force commanders.