| Military branches | Royal Netherlands Army, Royal Netherlands Navy (includes Naval Air Service and Marine Corps), Royal Netherlands Air Force, Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (Military Constabulary) (2021) note: the Netherlands Coast Guard and the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard are civilian in nature, but managed by the Royal Netherlands Navy |
| Military service age and obligation | 17 years of age for an all-volunteer force; conscription abolished in 1996 (2019) |
| Military expenditures - percent of GDP | 1.49% of GDP (2020 est.) 1.35% of GDP (2019) 1.22% of GDP (2018) 1.15% of GDP (2017) 1.16% of GDP (2016) |
| Military and security service personnel strengths | the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces have approximately 35,000 active duty personnel (15,000 Army; 7,500 Navy; 6,500 Air Force; 6,000 Constabulary) (2020) |
| Military equipment inventories and acquisitions | the inventory of the Netherlands Armed Forces consists of a mix of domestically-produced and modern European- and US-sourced equipment; since 2010, the US is the leading supplier of weapons systems to the Netherlands, followed by several European countries; the Netherlands has an advanced domestic defense industry that focuses on armored vehicles, naval ships, and air defense systems; it also participates with the US and other European countries on joint development and production of advanced weapons systems (2020) |
| Military deployments | 270 Lithuania (NATO) (2021) |
| Military - note | the Netherlands is a member of NATO and was one of the original 12 countries to sign the North Atlantic Treaty (also known as the Washington Treaty) in 1949 in 2018, the Defense Ministers of Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the creation of a Composite Special Operations Component Command (C-SOCC); the C-SOCC was declared operational in December 2020 |
Source: CIA World Factbook
This page was last updated on September 18, 2021
