UK Defence Journal

By Robert Clark*

29 November 2024

Source: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/time-to-unleash-the-joint-expeditionary-forces-potential/

This week saw the successful conclusion of the Joint Expeditionary Force’s (JEF) Exercise Joint Protector.

Conducted in Latvia, the 10-like minded northern and eastern European defence allies rehearsed a range of actions designed to simulate the rapid response needed in the face of security challenges in the Baltic region.

Despite celebrating its tenth anniversary this September, the JEF is still a relatively under-discussed quasi-alliance between broadly speaking very close military allies on Europe’s vulnerable eastern and northern flanks.

Each nation is a member of NATO, and bar Iceland which does not maintain a standing professional military all members are projected to spend well in excess of NATO’s 2% of GDP on defence target, whilst a third already spend in excess of 3% – or very close to it – highlighting the direction of travel of European defence spending.

Despite a growing political awareness for burden-sharing amongst these nations, and with its staff-level leadership and plans centred at the UK’s Strategic Command, and the JEF’s Operational Headquarters in Northwood, there can be much more that this increasingly relevant political and defence community can achieve in order to deter future conflict.

First, greater working relationships must be developed with Poland. As the first NATO member to beak 4% of GDP on defence in over a decade, with an aspiration to soon reach 5% and with the rapid rearmament program that the Polish military is currently undertaking, any future discussions of European security cannot afford to exclude the Poles from a central feature for future considerations. 

Poland must be involved with the JEF’s future plans for creating deployable Battle Groups to pinch points across eastern Europe.

Second, Ukraine must now be brought into the JEF’s architecture in a meaningful manner. The fact that Poland can add significant military muscle to the JEF is a point not lost on Kyiv, as defence expenditure is expected to reach 26% of GDP in 2025. Whilst this is an astronomical figure, Ukraine are fighting a multi-front, multi-domain, and now, multi-theatre war of survival against a determined and ruthless aggressor.

Whilst the prospects of NATO membership for Ukraine in the short to medium-term were already slim, the imminent arrival of President-elect Trump can likely rule out this outcome until at least 2029. 

This will not satisfy Kyiv. Despite inclusion into the JEF falling far short from the security promises that Article 5 would entail, greater involvement with JEF would at least be a starting point for a future European defence partnership for Ukraine.

Crucially it would also help create the conditions needed for Kyiv to modernise elements of its armed forces, particularly its aging systems and processes that despite being battle-tested, are still some way below NATO Corps-level in terms of plans and operations.

Interestingly Exercise Joint Protector sought to include a handful of Ukrainian observers, to participate in a ‘lessons learned cell’. 

Whilst peacetime NATO forces have little to teach Ukraine at this tactical and operational level, there is much that can be exchanged at the strategic and planning level, which JEF really should be aspiring to work to if it wishes to provide the answers that its collective membership seeks from the security challenges posed to them. 

Therefore, a Ukraine, Poland, and JEF working group should be established to maximise this potential.

Politically, all JEF members support Ukraine in its territorial defence against Russia. Permanent observer status for Kyiv should now be studiously considered by JEF nations to demonstrate that they take supporting Ukraine seriously – and, thus, European security more broadly.

Third, the JEF requires greater support from two key nations: the United States and the United Kingdom. Whilst the US is not a member, the incoming administration should help empower the JEF especially politically, for the work that it conducts in helping to stabilise the northern European corridor and Baltic region. 

Washington is increasingly turning its hard military attention away from Europe, and to the Indo-Pacific. Europe has broadly – if slowly – recognised this seismic change, with the JEF helping to demonstrate greater European political intent. However, the US should seek greater communication with the JEF, and not sideline a region which is still fundamental to the Euro-Atlantic sphere.

The JEF is a UK-led security alliance, with aspirations to providing high-readiness deployable Task Groups across the region. In order to make this aspiration a reality, greater political investment by the UK government is required to drive through and match the operational leadership already started by UK Strategic Command.

The Labour government’s general election manifesto pledged to ‘seek new bilateral agreements and close working with Joint Expeditionary Force partners’, whilst the Strategic Defence Review currently underway is widely understood to seek closer relations with European partners.

Therefore, the UK government should use next month’s JEF Summit in Tallin, Estonia, as a launchpad to unveil policies that will actually help deter Russian aggression, whilst advocating for a Ukraine-Poland-JEF Working Group, in addition to promoting permanent Ukrainian Observer Status. The time has come to unleash the JEF’s full potential to help stabilise Europe, and the UK government is the one to lead it.

* Robert Clark is a Research Fellow at the Yorktown Institute, a Washington DC-based Trans-Atlantic security think-tank.

This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal.