In December 2024 the Dutch military intelligence agency (MIVD) director, Rear Admiral Reesink, stated that ‘despite heavy Russian losses in Ukraine, Russia’s weapons and munitions supplies grow faster than compared to NATO and added that Moscow can be ready for an armed conflict with NATO before 2030, which is one of the scenarios he takes into consideration. Addressing the issue of limited European regeneration efforts as part of NATO, the EU drafted a White Paper Rearm Europe Plan, Defence Readiness 2030 in March 2025. This alert argues that this plan lacks sufficient attention to which shorter-term military AI-strategy should be an integral part of expanding Europe’s military capabilities. This alert is meant to inform Dutch and European policy makers and military experts.
Before addressing a shorter-term AI strategy that would better support European military capability development, this article will first outline what the Rearm Europe Plan and the White Paper intends to achieve. This section will also shortly discuss how military AI does – or does not fit – in the White Paper’s claim on the importance of AI in military capability development. Secondly, it will propose a division in the military application on Artificial Intelligence. Is AI automatically a disruptive innovation or technology as the White Paper suggests, or can it be understood in other ways too? The insights from these paragraphs will then be compared to contemporary AI-strategies of Ukraine and China. This article will conclude with recommendations on a viable, short- term AI strategy for Defence Readiness 2030.
About the Author
Erik Stijnman is an Army Lieutenant Colonel in active Dutch Service and has been seconded to Clingendael as Senior Research Fellow with Clingendael’s Security Unit.