Wim van Eekelen lecture 2026 (full text)

 

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You Have to Know What You Want

Wim van Eekelen Lecture 2026 – by Bart Groothuis

8 April 2026, Stroe

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My first introduction to the namesake of this lecture, former Defence Minister Wim van Eekelen, took place twenty years ago at the Clingendael Institute. During an EU negotiation simulation, Van Eekelen taught us his most important lesson about the European Union. He said: "What you will see in this game is that the European Commission is the Netherlands' best friend, because it does not only listen to the interests of the large countries like Germany and France, but specifically stands up for smaller countries like the Netherlands. But," he added, "you must then know exactly what you want".

And that is the subject of this first Wim van Eekelen lecture: Knowing what you want. That is, in fact, harder than you might think, especially as a European.

The Netherlands always knew exactly what it wanted: Transatlantic cooperation within NATO without room for Europe going alone. European investments that could even give the impression that Europe could manage without the Americans were fiercely fended off, not least by Dutch diplomats and politicians.

Although Wim van Eekelen held strong European convictions—which, incidentally, I just as strongly share—he also sharply articulated the most painful conclusion: Europe has too little will, too little political will. According to Van Eekelen, it wasn’t even so much a lack of collective capabilities, but rather the lack of political will that maintained Europe's dependence on American leadership.

Wim van Eekelen was also a systems thinker. Our defence system was—forgive me an analogy close to my own heart—a computer with an American motherboard. European armed forces could "plug in" their own combat components onto that American motherboard to achieve the desired striking power. EU member states could thus act complementary to NATO by purchasing weapon systems in the US and plugging them into a largely American motherboard. The military strategic capability that resulted from this defeated communism and proved unsurpassed.

That deterrent military strategic capability of NATO is also the only thing currently keeping Russia in check. Because, before we forget: Putin's Will is the only constant in this rapidly changing world. Russian revanchism remains highly relevant; in fact, we can expect a renewed resurgence of it. Moscow is, in a sense, the greatest victim of the rise of Trump. For the past 109 years, since 1917, Russians have convinced generation after generation that all the misery in their country is secretly caused by Uncle Sam (and particularly the CIA). Secret American operations were supposedly sabotaging the Russians and keeping them down on purpose. That is how the Russians think.

But now that the Second Cold War seems to be gloriously won by Moscow, and the former arch-enemy America has increasingly become an ally, the Russians will immediately blame someone else for Russia's problems. In other words, they need a new external enemy, and you and I already know who it will be: Europe.

We must therefore prepare ourselves. This is also evident from the fact that the Russian military is mass-producing weapons it does not need in Ukraine, but rather for a strategic confrontation with a so-called "near peer" adversary: the West.

What the Russians want has been clarified for now, but what do the Americans actually want? Going by a formal reading of Pentagon strategist Elbridge Colby’s words, the US primarily wants to prevent Chinese hegemony over Asia. In his view, a prosperous Europe must largely look after its own military needs and hold its ground against an aggressive Russia, so that the US can concentrate on preventing a Chinese takeover of Asia, starting with Taiwan. That, at least, is the official version.

The reality, of course, is different. The day before yesterday, on Easter Monday, President Trump said that NATO is now merely a paper tiger, that he still wants to attack Denmark, and to emphasise this, he grinned teasingly at the Europeans and waved: "bye bye". In other words: the days are over when the Polish former MEP Sikorski could get a laugh in Brussels by saying that the Warsaw Pact was the only military alliance whose members attacked each other. Sikorski will think twice before making such jokes now that he is the Polish Foreign Minister visiting Denmark or Canada.

It is therefore crystal-clear what Europe should want: To stand on its own military feet with less America—much less America, even. You heard correctly: not without America. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as Finnish President Stubb said this week; there is much to cherish in a historical and military sense. But mark my words: politicians in Europe must light the way out of this current disastrous situation.

However, we must not work toward a balanced military relationship with the US solely for military reasons. European politicians should also want "less America" because, for example, JD Vance threatened that the US would withdraw from NATO if EU legislation regarding digital gatekeeping or digital services were enforced. Also, because Americans unilaterally issue trade tariffs against European products, and Ursula von der Leyen cannot find the courage to issue countermeasures because of Europe's excessive security dependence on the US. Or because of American export controls that the US enforces in our jurisdiction. We allow this to happen because of... that military dependence. And in May, Europe will introduce a legislative package regarding a European Cloud and technological sovereignty. If you don’t want to be blackmailed when promoting a European cloud at the expense of American cloud companies, you must work toward a European defence and more equal military relations.

Not without America, but much less America. That, then, should be the Will of Europe. A Transatlantic relationship, not a Transatlantic dependency. As John F. Kennedy said in his famous speech in Paris: The European pillar in NATO must be equal to the Transatlantic one.

The first conclusion must then be that NATO is by no means dead, as some in the media claim. The buildings in Brussels, communication systems, consultation structures, military culture, standards, and history will not disappear and remain useful. In other words: our weapon systems still need a motherboard, and NATO is the only one that can provide it. The same currently applies to the nuclear umbrella.

NATO Secretary General Rutte, who is trying to keep things together, therefore deserves praise. Together with his right-hand man Geoffrey van Leeuwen, he is working to preserve what can still be saved. They know: Abandoning NATO now will cost lives in Europe because we have become too dependent on the American motherboard for our striking power. They know that tough talk toward Trump only ultimately encourages Putin to do something stupid. The weight of this heavy responsibility translates into "appeasing Daddy". This necessary form of geopolitical survival was recently aptly called "doublethink" by Beatrice de Graaf in NRC. A new reality for which Rutte might never—or only much later—receive credit. But he deserves it.

However, as Europeans, we can never take Rutte’s "reality show" seriously in the sense that it represents the full reality. There is something seriously wrong with the American president's values, his reliability, his judgement, his goodwill, and his loyalty. At least, that is what voters in Europe think. 73% of Europeans believe we are already on our own when it comes to defence, with remarkably little variation between member states. 63% of the European population supports armed resistance against American aggression toward the Kingdom of Denmark. 64% see the US as a coloniser and aggressor; half see them as an enemy.

So, the voter also wants to stand on their own feet as quickly as possible. But the fact that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, on 26 January at the heart of European politics in the European Parliament in Brussels, told lawmakers that we will be tied to the US for at least another twenty years and essentially projected that we shouldn't whine about Trump, is simply surreal and unacceptable.

It is also largely nonsense, as Americans themselves say. Recently, I was with European Defence Commissioner Kubilius in a discussion with the American think tank CSIS, which has written an excellent report with the telling title Defending Europe with Less America (highly recommended); According to the Americans, Europe could indeed take 20 years to decouple militarily from the US, but it could also be done in 3 months—look at what happened in Ukraine. Between those extremes lie all sorts of degrees of maturing. Dig a few levels deeper and the progress that is already possible becomes visible, according to the Americans in that conversation.

Analysis

Let’s dig a few spades deeper. First, the analysis.

Despite a collective defence budget of nearly 400 billion euros in Europe, none of the member states is capable of defending its own or allied territory without American help. The core problem is the lack of military capabilities that transform individual armed forces into an integrated, effective European power. National armed forces are often too small individually to design and acquire the required strategic weapon systems and enablers. Because these connecting elements—enablers—are missing, the collective striking power in Europe is far, far less than the sum of its parts. Without these enablers, European forces can fight—but they cannot win. And it is precisely these capabilities that Europe has left to the United States for seventy-five years.

There is work to be done, then, to replace these American enablers with European ones. No-one is asking to merge your entire armed forces into a European army, but it is required to bring European enablers under joint authority, because otherwise you are defenceless.

I’ll make this point personal. On the mourning card that Wim van Eekelen's next of kin sent to family and loved ones, it was not for nothing that Wim’s motto as Minister of Defence was printed: "We cannot do it alone". He believed that deeply. Acting together means collectively investing in enablers and joint authority.

Strategic Enablers

You can learn a lot from former defence ministers. From Frits Bolkestein, I learned that if you want to do something well, you shouldn't look at where things are going poorly and improve that, but look at where things are going well and expand upon that.

In Europe, we already have a well-functioning model for the joint deployment of enablers, namely with the NATO AWACS—the radar aircraft for our ballistic missile defence. Too expensive to develop or buy individually, so we do it together. That naturally leaves one wanting more. Building joint units that are absolutely necessary but too expensive for individual member states. I am thinking of EW, corps/divisional artillery, strategic air defence, air-to-air refuelling, air transport, corps/division logistics units, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, ELINT aircraft (RIVETJOINT equivalent), anti-ship missile batteries, long-range long-loiter recce drones, etc.

I recite this list quickly on purpose, as I did four years ago when I was a guest here at the Kooy symposium. We must develop or purchase these enablers collectively in Europe, even if the Americans are already doing so. We can easily place such capabilities under the command of SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe), even when SACEUR becomes a European general, and we can do so without caveats and with pre-authorisation for deployment within certain frameworks. We are already accustomed to this in the AWACS model.

And the same should apply to as many of our national manoeuvre units as possible. In this regard, I would like to recall how political will—the theme of this lecture—must ultimately be the deciding factor. Completely against the advice of the defence staff, Dutch and German cavalry units were merged into the first Netherlands-German Army Corps by former Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis and her German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen. Today, that merger is celebrated as a great success, but at the time, it took strong political will to overrule the negative advice of the defence staff. An excellent example of clarity, foresight, and courage.

Now it is time to take that several steps further. Let’s take the example of that Netherlands-German Army Corps further. Now that the American motherboard is no longer a given, courage is needed to ask difficult questions about this Dutch-German (and thus European) success story. For instance, will the Netherlands-German Army Corps actually reach the eastern flank when push comes to shove? Is the logistics in order, and is there "sensor to shooter" intelligence the unit can work with? ISR, C4ISR? Can they intercept incoming Russian cruise missiles without American help? Is the unit capable of addressing jamming and EW without an American motherboard? In some places, surely, but I highly doubt everything is in order. It is exactly those gaps we should be filling now. I will return to how we should map that out.

What does the Netherlands want, what does NATO want, what does the EU want?

We cannot do it alone. We must therefore formulate our needs and requirement specs together in Europe. But who should do that?

Currently, the answer is that NATO does. In the last NATO summit in June 2025, ministers agreed to follow the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP). This has functioned for decades on the assumption that the United States would always be present to provide critical strategic enablers and fill gaps. The NDPP addresses a long list of shortcomings, many of which are useful, but the deepest shortcoming was never included: namely, the lack of a European capability to plan and operate independently. In other words, anyone who spends significant money on what NATO prescribes is buying weapon systems but not strategic autonomy. If European military planners want to get serious about autonomy, they should not take the NATO document as a starting point, but as a mirror: it shows what Europe has outsourced to America for decades and what we must now start doing ourselves. The question is no longer whether Europe must be able to do this itself—Washington has already answered that question. The question is how fast.

NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) and the European Union

This brings us to another institution that could be capable of formulating the requirements for those enablers: the EU. But if you ask the European Commission how quickly Europe can start looking after its own military affairs, you are embarrassing them. The European Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius, valued as he may be, does not have access to the NDPP. It is a secret document that NATO does not share with the EU. You heard that correctly.

Improper and untenable, from my perspective. It would reflect well on NATO leadership if energy were spent on opening up this dialogue.

The EU can, however, play a beneficial role in this matter. Let’s go back to the computer and keyboard analogy. The EU is a typical system integrator, but not a motherboard. It can bring different elements together so they work together. The EU is therefore an ideal platform where member states can develop or purchase enablers together.

Unfortunately, Brussels often fails to demonstrate this. It pains me deeply that the European Commission recently excluded the UK from EU defence funds. With Turkey, major political issues interfere with defence cooperation. This hinders military system integration. In Brussels, there is always a political issue at play that clouds the matter. Taboos prevent the EU from reaching a balanced set of requirements.

More importantly: there is no military strategic culture at the EU that has the capacity to fulfil the requirement process. To give you a sense: about 150 people at the EU would be pitted against the 9,000 at SHAPE.

Real Needs

The current cabinet in The Hague also sees the struggle both the EU and NATO are going through, and in the coalition agreement, it sticks to the NATO Defence Planning Process. Leading the defence buildup in the Netherlands are therefore NATO's plans—outdated, assuming American backup, and not in consultation with the EU. I am also a politician and understand well where such a thing comes from: you need a rationalisation to justify the NATO norm of 3.5% of GDP spending, as agreed during the historic summit in The Hague. It is justifiable based on the threat, and there must be a concrete plan underneath it, which is the NDPP. Politically, there is then a basis to work with in the  The Hague reality. And for the time being, I understand that. But as I said, the NDPP has little to do with the reality you would want to see addressed. So, what are we doing?

Article 5 Exercise

"So much criticism, Groothuis—what should we do then instead? How do we arrive at sensible needs and requirements without taboos?" Which enablers specifically are we talking about? And in what order, at what cost?

Let me start by saying that the best way to kill it all is to first overthink and debate everything to death. In that case decoupling from the US is guaranteed to take those 20 years Rutte referred to. First endlessly talking about governance issues, Eurobonds, Brexit, the status of Canada, and whether there are rules before we have even started with what needs to happen with great urgency. My experience after six years in the European Parliament is: that , talking and debating about the most complex issues is the quickest way of killing any good idea in Brussels.

Fortunately, we Dutch are pragmatists. We do business with everyone and build bridges. We are not lawyers like the Germans, not philosophers like the French, and we harbour no unnecessary distrust of continental Europe like the British. The Netherlands dances with whoever is on the dance floor.

If you want to arrive at concrete requirements, initiate a large-scale NATO exercise on the eastern flank of NATO territory without the Americans. Operating without the Americans provides practical insight into what is needed. Yet, it has never been done on that scale without the US. Position units in a multi-domain exercise, practise an Article 5 scenario, and see where it breaks down in practice. Record practical problems meticulously and analyse which enabler is lacking each time. Then use the lessons and make plans with a group of countries that want to—a coalition of the willing. In my view, the emphasis is more on "willing" than on "coalition". We should not pin ourselves down to institutional games beforehand. Whatever works, including financially. We look for countries that see the threat and want to invest capital, without free-rider behaviour. The current cabinet already made an excellent move by establishing a fund with Finland and the UK to buy enablers together. Let other willing countries by all means join in.

Make a list of the 20 most essential capabilities that the US currently provides and we do not yet have, and sit down to develop them together. And politicians: explain to your voters that these are massive investments and they aren't sexy, but they are the best bang for the buck for our collective security. And to the Americans, we explain: we are not doing this to distance ourselves from you, but so that you can pursue your strategic priorities in Asia.

We need such an exercise to arrive at a statement of requirements. "Knowing what you want" is the theme of the lecture. NATO, the EU, or the current political consensus offer insufficient hope for this, so let us act pragmatically.

Taking leadership ourselves to gain insight to know what you want—that is the mission. Europe must start formulating its own will, and we are not used to that. Konrad Adenauer once said that Americans are the best Europeans (because they integrate Europe). But that can be bypassed by taking pragmatic steps.

The Importance of Ukraine

A Herculean task lies before us. But no matter how well we set up our systems, and no matter how strong our deterrence becomes, ultimately what happens in Ukraine will determine how Europe is tested. I say to my own profession, the politicians: stop being so satisfied with everything we have achieved for Ukraine. The only thing that matters is whether it is enough. We can endlessly debate to what extent we continue to need the US for our own defence, but the best way to prevent that defence from being necessary at all is to prevent the Russians from winning in Ukraine.

In Conclusion

Wim van Eekelen was clear about sovereignty and defence: it is not something static. It is not about having everything in your own hands, but about optimal self-determination and the capacity to act. The Netherlands has more influence on the fate of our nation within Europe than alone.

For six years, my team in Brussels has included the following sentence in every report, every resolution, and every contribution to the debate: "to develop or purchase those enablers and strategic weapon systems themselves that the Americans currently provide in Europe".

Knowing what you want begins with being able to formulate what you want in one or two sentences.

Europe has a tradition of wanting to think everything through too well first and then being negligent in the implementation; that is the axe to the root of progress. The Dutch know better: "start before you ponder," and start with that large-scale exercise on the eastern border. Without the Americans. Not to distance them from us, but to bring them closer to us if things were to go wrong.

Be glad and recognise that it is beneficial that American leadership now provides strategic clarity. Misunderstandings that European defence investments would lead to competition with NATO are now out of the way. What is needed is a down-to-earth and consistent approach: quickly bring more balance to the relationship with the United States and reduce our dependencies, without neglecting the transatlantic bond.

Van Eekelen said that sovereignty regarding defence is not an absolute concept. The question is not whether you are dependent, but on whom, and under what conditions. That issue does not end with our basic security but also touches on technological sovereignty and trade relations with the US.

I hope that the political will of Wim van Eekelen and his memory will live on in our actions for a long time to come.