Royal Navy and JEF Allies Sign Northern Navies Initiative

The Royal Navy and its Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) allies have signed a historic Northern Navies Initiative agreement. The agreement aims to increase security across northern Europe, the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea, and to support maritime deterrence and defence for the citizens of the UK and other JEF nations.

The Northern Navies Initiative also seeks to make the JEF NATO’s maritime vanguard in the North Atlantic, High North and Baltic, able to act early, combine quickly and transition seamlessly into NATO command should the Alliance need to mobilise at scale.

The agreement, signed amid an increasingly challenging security environment, signals closer maritime co-operation among JEF partners. They will operate in the same way, train to the same standard, plan together before a crisis and support one another, including by developing compatible equipment. The High North is a challenging environment where closer co-operation with JEF partners will allow each nation to learn lessons quickly and efficiently from each other, using the shared experience to rapidly develop capabilities.

The initiative recognises the growing threat posed by hostile activity below the threshold of armed conflict, including risks to critical undersea infrastructure, malicious seabed activity and other forms of hybrid aggression. In practice, greater interoperability means a Royal Navy frigate could transfer operational responsibility to another JEF member without losing momentum.

The JEF will make its equipment interoperable by design, letting future autonomous platforms plug in and out of each other’s command and control systems. This initiative, signed by representatives of all 10 JEF maritime nations, delivers on a Statement of Intent proposed by the First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins in London last April.

The Royal Navy will also bring the first phase of Atlantic Net, part of Atlantic Bastion, into operation within months. Working with Ocean Infinity, it will help detect hostile underwater activity earlier and protect critical infrastructure. Allies in NATO and the JEF will also benefit from a clearer picture of what is happening beneath the surface.