The position and role of the military have been changing dramatically as territorial defence replaces interventionism as its main purpose in the Netherlands and many other European countries. The changing global landscape and the military’s new role raise questions about the re-orientation of defence policy, changing civil-military relations, and the societal and academic contexts in which these developments unfold and are debated. We aim at stimulating this debate with a series of talks and discussions at the VU, EUR and RU.
This event series is organized by the NWO-funded Armed Forces & Society project, a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, and Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. Read more about the project here.
Our next event
"Studying the Civil-Military Nexus"
with contributions from: Rasa Smaliuniekė (Military Academy of Lithuania), Huib Zijderveld (Dutch Defense Academy), and Wolfgang Wagner (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Date: 21 January 2026
Time: 09.30-13.30
Location: Agora 3, Main Building
Program:
- 09:30 – 10:00 Coffee and Welcome
- 10:00 – 10:15 Opening Remarks – Bas Rietjens, Jori Kalkman & Kees Boersma
- 10:15 – 10:45 Majoor Huib Zijderveld. The Force of Last Resort: Organizing and Legitimizing the Role of the Armed Forces in Domestic Crisis Management.
- 10:45 – 11:15 Break
- 11:15 – 11:45 Prof. dr. Wolfgang Wagner. From Liberal Interventionism back to territorial defence: Civil-military relations in post-heroic societies.
- 11:45 – 12:15 Prof. dr. Rasa Smaliuniekė. The migration crisis artificially created by the Belarusian regime: a case study of military engagement in Lithuania.
No signup needed.
Previous events
2 December 2025: "The changing role of the armed forces in society" with Jori Kalkman, Associate Professor at the Netherlands Defence Academy & Wageningen University