The professionalisation of the Netherlands armed force

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War led in 1991 to the decision to gradually reduce and restructure the Netherlands armed forces. It was process consisting of dozens of reorganisations. The idea was that the reorganisation and reduction would go hand in hand, not only operationally but also financially. Firstly, only one in three men were actually still called up in order to fulfil conscription duties lasting more or less a year. There was one more condition for the transformation: no increase in the personnel budget was permitted. The recruitment results were good for the first few years. As of 1996 the economic boom began. Recruitment came under pressure and the results started to decrease. The first crucial success factor concerning recruitment is the image of the armed forces. In view of the difficult labour market, salary, accommodation, training facilities and career opportunities must be competitive. Experience has shown that manning the armed forces depends on the position of the Defence on the labour market. This means that the armed forces need to learn to work together and to interact with other players on the labour market and to adapt to the labour market dynamics. This also means that the entire organisation needs to be adapted to this new position