Galactic dynamics in the era of Gaia

The recently successfully launched and now fully operational Gaia mission will, in the coming years, very likely revolutionize our view of the Milky Way and its constituents. In this talk, I will summarize Gaia's capabilities and status, and review our current understanding of the dynamics of the Galaxy. Finally I will describe how the Gaia data can be used to provide answers to important open questions in the field, for example in relation to the nature of dark matter and the assembly history of galaxies.