The Dutch armed forces are fielding a flood of volunteer recruits driven by an uncharacteristic factor for a modern NATO military: the active endorsement of its queen and heir to the throne. Since Queen Maxima and Crown Princess Amalia, Princess of Orange, enlisted as volunteer reservists—complete with camouflage training photos published worldwide—the Netherlands Defense Ministry says it has been grappling with an application wave that outstrips its capacity to equip and house new personnel. The phenomenon, dubbed the “Amalia effect” inside the ministry, has accelerated a nationwide push to grow the military from roughly 80,000 uniformed members to 120,000 by 2035, a goal that commands broad political support in The Hague.
“It’s really a thing, yes,” State Secretary for Defense Derk Boswijk told The Associated Press in an interview. “It’s very inspiring to see how members of our royal family inspired people to join our armed forces.”
The recruitment drive places the Netherlands squarely within a continent-wide reexamination of defense posture. European Union and NATO officials assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin, should he prevail in the war against Ukraine, could be prepared to launch an attack elsewhere on the continent in three to five years. In response, NATO has drawn up new defense plans requiring allies to field larger, more mobile forces capable of rapid deployment—a shift away from the expeditionary counterinsurgency missions that defined the past two decades.
The sense of urgency deepened this week when President Donald Trump suggested he could soon reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany, continuing a feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. Trump’s long-standing disenchantment with NATO, the alliance that has underwritten European security since 1949, has lent concrete political weight to warnings that Europe must provide for its own conventional defense.
Boswijk said the Netherlands currently has about 9,000 reservists and is aiming for at least 20,000 by 2030. But the popularity of the drive has created its own problems. “We have more applications than we can handle,” he said. “A lack of training capacity, a lack of housing. You have to give them all uniforms, you have to give them weapons.” He called it “a luxury problem.”
The Netherlands never formally abolished its military draft, but call-ups have been suspended since 1997, and there are no immediate plans to revive them. Instead the Defense Ministry is marketing voluntary service to a broad cross-section of society—not just traditional infantry recruits but also people with digital and technical skills suited for cyber defense. “We need all kind of skills, to keep our society, our country, our allies safe,” Boswijk said. “So, yes, we need also people wearing hoodies, having blue hair, who can game perfectly.”
Other European governments are launching parallel efforts. Germany’s parliament is weighing a plan to offer better pay, training, and flexible service lengths to attract short-term volunteers without reinstating conscription, which was suspended for men in 2011, though the plan leaves a narrow door open for limited compulsory recruitment if volunteer numbers fall short. France is preparing a voluntary service program starting in September that seeks to recruit 3,000 volunteers aged 18 to 25 for 10-month domestic terms, with a target of 50,000 per year by 2035.
In the Nordic and Baltic states, where the Russian threat is felt most acutely, conscription remains a core instrument. Finland drafts all men with a voluntary option for women, Sweden and Denmark use gender-neutral lottery systems when volunteer numbers are insufficient, and Latvia revived its draft in 2023 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On a weekend reserve exercise near Havelte in the eastern Netherlands, a corporal in the 10th Infantry Battalion Guard Security Corps National Reserve—who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of her service—described a mindset shift in the force. “When I first joined, there was almost no risk or almost no threat … and now it’s changing so we are more aware of it,” she said. Training now emphasizes “what we call ‘green things,’ infantry things,” she added, rather than the peacekeeping and security operations that long defined reservist roles. “We are here to defend our country and to make sure to keep the threat down.”
Another reservist, a private first class who also spoke anonymously because he works for a defense-related company, said the unit’s focus has pivoted since 2018 from peaceful operations to guarding vital infrastructure, including work on the massive security operation for the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague.
For some volunteers, a bitter national memory serves as motivation. Lisette den Heijer told an information evening for reservists that she remembers primary-school lessons about how German forces overran the Netherlands in five days in 1940. “I don’t want history to repeat itself,” she said.
Dutch reservists commit to 300 hours of service each year, including regular weekend exercises. Traditionally they are deployed for domestic security, critical-infrastructure protection, and emergency response—such as sandbagging during severe floods—rather than overseas combat. That domestic remit, and the royal family’s visible participation, appears to be widening the appeal of military service as Europe confronts what NATO’s leadership calls its most dangerous security environment since the Cold War.