Playing to Your Strengths: A Different Perspective on Future Capabilities for the Royal Netherlands Army

This report contains the results from a research project aimed at identifying new capabilities for the future Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA). Rather than sketch a full future force profile, it concentrates on promising new, or to be renewed capabilities. The results are intended to feed ongoing transformation efforts within the RNLA and inform the Army leadership in anticipation of the Defense Review 2020 [de Herijkingsnota].

In the context of the changing character of conflict on the one hand, and the burgeoning costs of traditional military platforms on the other, force providers should actively explore new capabilities for their armed forces that play to their strengths.

For small and medium sized force providers, their agility puts them in a relatively propitious position to pursue innovative concepts and capabilities, instead of trying to merely be smaller versions of the great powers’ militaries.

This report presents six themes, each suggesting a diverse set of new or to be renewed capabilities for the RNLA.

1. Rethinking Phase Zero: Shaping the Human Domain;

2. Multi-Domain, Multi-Level Operations;

3. AI in the OODA Loop;

4. Robotic and Autonomous Systems;

5. Mosaic Warfare: Distributed and Networked Capabilities;

6. Empowering the Agents of Resilience

This report offers a concise description of each of these themes, examines relevant developments for the Army, and identifies promising and typically underexplored capabilities or lines of capability development that the RLNA can pursue in conjunction with a particular theme. This is summarized in Table 3 on page 53.

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