ONE GOAL: FASTER, STRONGER TROOPS

Unsurprisingly for a lieutenant general, Michiel van der Laan has detailed maps on his office walls of the places where his personnel operate. But if any confirmation were needed that he is no armchair general commanding from the comfort of Brussels, a red Mozambican soccer scarf is pinned above one of them. Given to him by Mozambique’s Chief of Defence, van der Laan’s visit to the southern African country was just one of many since taking up his post four months ago.

He has been to see EU military training missions from Mali to Central African Republic and Somalia. Still, he says, he almost never misses a political meeting in Brussels either, whether it be among his fellow military or at the ambassadorial level.

“I hear what the Member States say in Brussels, and I also hear what our trainers and personnel say in the field. I can try to bring the two together so that no one is working in isolation,” van der Laan says.

Despite his double-hatted role, he has one ambition: to develop stronger and faster troops. Van der Laan is also quick to clarify that in fact, he himself has no troops. “I do not own forces, and the capabilities are owned by the Member States,” he says. “I work with what Member States provide me.” Like the European Defence Agency (EDA), Ministries of Defence and EU institutions, the EU Military Staff’s (EUMS) goal is a European defence fit for purpose. For him, that means, in military parlance: readiness. “Stronger means we need more and broader capabilities. Faster has everything to do with availability of forces.”

A highway revisited

As EDA and EUMS present the 2023 Capability Development Plan, van der Laan can see the formal military advice he gave to the process reflected in the 22 priorities. (See EDM pages 20-25)

For starters, the reduction in the number of priorities is positive, he says. “Integrated air missile defence is something that should be a priority. Strategic lift too, and also capabilities related to intelligence and surveillance.” Command and control is also crucial. “It’s especially in those sorts of things that we can focus on the survivability of our forces, but also protect critical infrastructure.”

Beyond the EU missions and the CDP, much of his work is guided by the EU’s Strategic Compass, agreed in 2022. For van der Laan, that involves work at the sharper end of the Compass, including: 

• Establishing a strong EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC) of up to 5,000 troops for different types of crises
• Strengthening the Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC)
• Conducting regular live exercises on land and at sea

“We are in the middle of operationalisation of the Strategic Compass,” van der Laan asserts. Made up of land, sea and air components that could be swapped in and out of any standing force, the RDC aims to build on the EU Battlegroups that have never been used but are kept at the ready on a rotational basis.

Indeed, the United States has urged Europeans to invest in deployable troops and U.S. President Joe Biden has said such moves would be complementary to NATO. More than two decades after EU leaders sought to set up a 50,000-60,000-strong force – the Helsinki Headline Goal – the Strategic Compass is the most concrete EU effort to create a standalone military force that does not rely on U.S. assets.

“We currently have a rotation model with the EU Battlegroups where a 1,500-strong force is on standby for half a year. And we are changing that now into a standby of one year, which is more efficient,” van der Laan says. “Of course, the best operation is no operation. I compare it to fire insurance for your house. You hope you never have to use it,” he says.

Van der Laan adds: “But I think that in the future, the chance that we will use the Rapid Deployment Capacity is much greater than before.”

Common training effort

When it comes to EU decision-making, van der Laan points to the European Union Military Assistance Mission Ukraine (EUMAM) as an example where the EU has been able to act decisively.

With 32,000 troops now trained, the goal remains to reach 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained next year. “This is a good example where things moved quickly. There was very fast political decision-making,” van der Laan says. Poland and Germany offered headquarters and other Member States have contributed. It’s a common effort.”

Van der Laan underlines that there are other military training efforts for Ukraine taking place in countries such as Spain, Italy, France, and that they are directly reporting to the Military Planning and Conduct Capability.

How does he judge EUMAM’s success? Van der Laan is sanguine. “European Union trainers are never going to go to the frontline in Ukraine to examine whether Ukrainian soldiers are correctly putting into practice what they have learned. But the feedback from the general staff in Kyiv is positive”, he says.

In from the cold - and out again

Was he surprised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? As a young soldier who started his career in the final years of the Cold War, van der Laan says he remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall and the positive surprise he felt then. Three decades later, he says it was more a sense of shock at the Russian invasion of February 2022. “In the months before, many people saw it coming, but no-one knew for sure. I don’t think everyone can say they expected that the Russians would actually invade Ukraine.”

Russia’s potential to be a long-term adversary, instability in the wider neighbourhood and the EU’s role in the world mean that there are many demands on Member States. A general such as van der Laan must be able to staff and run missions and operations, ensure the EU has the right capabilities, support Ukraine and be ready for the next crisis. And that’s just for the EU.

“There is that old mantra that ‘we only have a single set of forces’,” he says. “Member States will always try to develop capabilities they can use for NATO’s collective defence and make limited contributions to, say, the Rapid Deployment Capacity.”

So is some kind of European Defence Union realistic? To that question, van der Laan has two phrases: industrial capacity and political vision.

“If we want to collaborate on defence, to compensate what Member States donated to Ukraine and to have new and more capabilities – and NATO says we should – and we want to have spare parts too, and a certain level of troop readiness, we cannot do this without industry,” van der Laan says.

Of course it is a bit of a ‘chicken-and-egg’ scenario, he says. Who goes first? Industry or governments with firm orders? “I think what’s clear is that overall, we should be doing more. I think we are still working with a peacetime approach.”

Dutch-German inspiration?

And lastly, to political vision in EU defence. “I think that most European armed forces would like to do as much as possible together. But to do so, you need political will, a high level of trust, a firm legal basis, goals, and the willingness of industry.

For inspiration, Van der Laan points to his early involvement in the German-Netherlands Corps.

Since 1995, the two armed forces have been working together. As of March 2023, the two countries have three integrated divisions. Firstly, in 2014, the Dutch 11 Airmobile Brigade integrated with the German Division Schnelle Kräfte. Two years later, the 43 Mechanised Brigade was combined with the German 1st Panzerdivision. In 2023, the Dutch 13 Light Armoured Brigade and the German 10th Panzerdivision completed their integration.

“So, I think the Dutch-German example shows that the EU has huge potential to do more together,” van der Laan says. “But you need all the elements. All of this is something we have to work on.”

European Union Military Staff at a glance

• EUMS was established in 2001
• EUMS acts under the direction of the EU Military Committee (EUMC)
• EUMS oversees EU operations from Bosnia to the Indian Ocean

Military Planning and Conduct Capability at a glance

• MPCC was established in 2017
• MPCC is the headquarters of EU military training missions
• MPCC oversees a clearing house cell, channeling military aid to Ukraine