This is the extended version of the article published last week.
WHY NATO NEEDS A SUPER JOINT EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND A BRITAIN THAT CAN LEAD IT.
PREPARED FOR THE OSLO SECURITY CONFERENCE 2026
by
John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend
“We are Russia's next target. And we are already in harm's way...Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured."
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Berlin, December 2025
Summary
This article calls for a Super JEF of JEF 2 – a much-strengthened British-led European Joint Expeditionary Force designed to cope with a fast-changing geopolitical situation in the Arctic and beyond at a time when technology is changing the character of war and the politics of NATO are in flux. The JEF is an existing 10,000 strong multinational rapid reaction and expeditionary force led by Britain’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden became fully operational in 2018. It is envisioned as a multi-domain force designed to operate across air, sea, land, space, cyber, information and knowledge. JEF 2 would be an AI-enabled and human-robotics force designed to make best use of Britain’s very limited deployable capability. Super JEF is the future of Allied Airborne and Allied Seaborne. No longer a Continental or a Maritime force, but multi-domain and lethal and able to operate across the conflict spectrum in all environments.
North Cape 2035!
It is a dark night in April 2035 off Norway’s North Cape. No moon. Bitterly cold. Russian forces supported by their Chinese allies are on the move. The massive Russian Northern Fleet has made its way past the so-called Bear Line (Norway, Bear Island, Svalbard to Greenland) and is beginning to make its way out in strength towards the Greenland, Iceland, UK (GIUK) gap, whilst Russian SPETSNAZ and Naval Infantry begin to move across the Finnish Norwegian, and Swedish borders to seize Finnmark, much of NATO’s High North and Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. Russian forces in the Western Military Oblast also begin to move against the Baltic States and rump Ukraine beyond the Donbas region they had successfully seized in 2027, after an under-equipped and resourced European inter-position force had been humiliated.
British, Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch Special Forces have been monitoring the movement of Russian forces close to the point where the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish borders meet for some time, slowly building a biometric map of key Russian military personnel. They have successfully identified where key commanders of SPETSNAZ units are and well understand their routines, habits, strengths and weaknesses. Radio and cyber communications have also been hacked and satellite transmissions blocked following a targeted digital space war between the West, China and Russia. It soon becomes clear Russian Special Forces have crossed the Norwegian Russian border on a line Pechenga-Kirkenes-Hammerfest. Sleeper agents also sabotage critical infrastructure such as, road junctions, railways and aerials across Northern Norway. North Cape is being systematically isolated by Russian forces.
Unbeknownst to the Russians cloaked in a stealth cloak and a hundred kilometers off North Cape a wave of fast landing craft and CB90 assault craft depart from the multinational fleet of amphibious ships that form the maritime component of JEF 2, the expanded Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). They are led by the British heavy air platform and digital command hub, HMS Prince of Wales, and stealthily make their way towards shore. Their aim is to knock the Russians out of, their battle rhythm by reinforcing Allied forces in the North Cape region and get behind the mix of Russian Special Operators and naval infantry to break their line of advance.
JEF 2
This is what JEF 2 had been designed for. In November 2025 London and Oslo agreed the Lunna House Agreement. In December 2025 Chief of the British Defense Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton described the international situation as the most dangerous in his thirty-seven-year career. “The price of peace is increasing”, Knighton said, “It’s about our defense and resilience being a higher national priority for all of us. An ‘all-in’ mentality. And that will require people who are not soldiers, sailors or aviators to nevertheless invest their skills – and money- in innovation and problem-solving on the nation’s behalf”.[1]
In 2027 British forces had to all intents and purposes collapsed. The reason was chronic under-funding over many years exacerbated by a growing gap between the increasingly fantastical ends, ways and means outlined in Strategic Defense Review 2025 London imposed further underpinned by an ideologically motivated conspiracy within HM Treasury (finance ministry) to destroy Britain’s fighting power and destroy NATO. After years of rebuilding JEF 2 has become a European mobile force of ten nations led by the British.
It is a warfighting force designed to offset over-stretched American forces in the Arctic and North Atlantic, act as a First Responder during any major pre-Article 5 emergency on NATO’s Northern and North-Eastern Taiwan in 2027 and despite Russia’s seizure of some 25% of Ukraine. The defense of Europe was not only handed over by the Americans to the European allies, but those same European forces had to undergo a rapid and difficult re-organization one consequence of which was a much enlarged and re-equipped JEF - Super-JEF or JEF 2.
JEF 2 was designed to act under SACEUR, DSACEUR or as a coalition of the willing and able and fully interoperable with high-end US forces. British and Norwegian naval forces had also been integrated into what in effect wad a new sensor to shoot shield designed specifically to contest the entry of Russian forces into the North Sea, whilst the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap was strengthened and the Norway, Svalbard, Greenland ‘line of observance’ or ‘Bear Line’ established. Both the Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Navy also began plans to create a new Atlantic Bastion to prevent Russian Northern Fleet submarines from having unfettered access to the North Atlantic. Delivering the strategy relied on two new British AI-enabled loitering unmanned sensor and fire platforms, Fathom SG-1 and Excalibur.
JEF 2 was also the logical development of the 2025 Lunna House Agreement and the centerpiece of the 2028 revised UK Strategic Defense Review. SDR 2028 had taken its inspiration from the ‘Steel before Flesh’ strategy of the Western Allies in World War Two. Desperate to avoid the attrition of trench warfare Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed to use the immense industrial power of the US and UK, and the technology that supported it, to limit the exposure of their forces to frontline fighting. In 2028, the Americans and British had signed a new Atlantic Digital Defense Charter. This made sense because the US had the world’s leading tech sector whilst the UK the third largest. The “Technology before Flesh” strategy had rapidly led to a new form of dynamic defense in Europe that relied upon a mix of volunteer conscription to harness both civilian and military cyber, electronic and digital warfare expertise. The Americans and British also pioneered a new concept of robotic force which acted as support for spearhead forces in the form of both offensive and defensive robotic ‘loyal wingmen’. [2]
Airborne 2035
Off North Cape JEF 2 continues undetected towards its objectives, but halfway into the target part of the force stops. From the decks of the many Swedish-built assault craft, fast landing craft and autonomous platforms ghostly figures ascend to the heavens. 3 Commando Brigade, with the UK Commando Force at its core, alongside the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and Britain’s 16 Air Assault Brigade are going into action.
At the spear-tip of the force is 45 Commando, the new AI-enabled UK Joint Commando Air-Maritime Assault Force. By 2035 British forces have become a fully deployable relatively small multi-domain force that has a trick up its sleeve – a new form of mass has been created by the use of drones and other robotic systems that developed from Ukraine’s experience fighting the Russians. UKJCMAF sits at the AI-enabled command and operational nexus between Special Forces and specialized forces with fighting power generated by the turning of each Commando into a personalized combat hub. Equipped with the latest Mark 5 Gravity Jet assault suits the brigade-sized deep joint force represents the future of airborne alongside the British Army’s Ranger forces. The most important lesson for NATO’s European forces in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine had been the need for Europeans to generate forces that could maneuver lethally, securely and stealthily at the high end of conflict with a mass of robotic force able to quickly reach and stay in any fight anywhere in and around Europe.
Super-JEF was also a tailored response to China-enabled Russia’s sophisticated gray zone operations across the Arctic, North Atlantic and North Sea as well as the build-up of Russian nuclear forces on NATO’s Arctic Flank. China’s aim had been to force the Americans to fight wars and incursions in several places at once. It was an aim they had realized comfortably as the Americans were forced to offset European weakness at the cost of their own readiness to fight in the Indo-Pacific.
The specific trigger for the 2035 crisis had been the latest incursion into British waters by the Russian spy ship Yantar 2, and an attack on North Sea underwater infrastructure by the Russian submarine Belgorod. Once again, Yantar 2 had targeted Royal Air Force P8 Poseidon aircraft with lasers, but this time the attack had persisted. Finally, both countries realized they had to move from simply condemning Russian gray zone operations to actively countering them and approached the North Atlantic Council to invoke Article 3. However, two Russian stooges within the ‘NAC’ under pressure from Chinese paymasters had blocked agreement.
As each commando rises into the night sky powered by the jetpack s/he carries a personal digital command module, an assault rifle and a series of small ground attack missiles. Heavier platforms carry personally assigned ‘intelligent’ lift drones alongside a raft of attack drones. After the initial AI-drone strikes take out both air and ground defenses the Commandos hit the ground running and join forces on the ground, with their tailored drone-borne equipment alongside them ready for action. And, as the enemy forces advance flying commandos and strike drones appear from several directions at once and target each individually. They quickly join up with Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish ground forces already resisting the Russian advance.
As the Commandos begin their part of the mission a phalanx of ‘intelligent’ fast strike drones lift off the decks of specialist drone platforms which are part of the task force and make their way towards the North Norwegian littoral. The drone platforms were a joint civil-military acquisition developed with the support of two major Dutch salvage companies –Mammoet and Smit Tak - the advanced technology of which was made available to the JEF coalition under license. Belgian (under lease), British, Dutch, and Norwegian P8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft provide continuous surface and sub-surface protection as extended range F-35B4 Lightning 2’s take off from the decks of several of the Allied ships. The task force itself is protected by Intelligent Shield, a mass of small loitering drones designed to hurl themselves against any drone, missile, aircraft or submarines – manned or unmanned - deployed against them.
Timed to match the moment when the enemy’s forces are on the move and most vulnerable least the combined JEF 2 human/drone force creates maximum shock and confusion, just as the Special Air Force, Special Boat Squadron and other Special Operators get behind Russian forces, whilst missile strikes target the ‘digital butterflies’ which reveal the location of Russian headquarters and systems. The Special Forces, now supported by Allied ground forces, destroy the command elements of Russian forces.
The Choice
The JEF is an existing 10,000 strong multinational rapid reaction and expeditionary force led by Britain’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters also including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden became fully operational in 2018. It is envisioned as a multi-domain force designed to operate across air, sea, land, space, cyber, information and knowledge. A much bigger JEF 2 is needed because war in NATO’s north is here, now and the need for NATO and its Northern European nations to be critically and demonstrably strong is as great as at any time since the 1980s. Unfortunately, the scenario above will be fantasy non-fiction if Britain, indeed Europe, cannot get its military house in order at this time of weakness in danger. And, make no mistake, the vision of warfare laid out in the scenario by and large reflects the current trends in technology will impact military operational art and science. If Europeans do not get on board with this emerging reality, then they might as well surrender now, or rather, surrender their fellow Europeans who live on the edge of Putin’s ambitions.
The strategic importance of the Arctic has been highlighted by President Trump’s concerns that Greenland become a fiefdom of the U.S. if only to prevent it becoming a fiefdom of China and Russia and thus a systemic threat to North America itself. For decades whilst NATO nominally talked about the defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area from Vancouver to Vilnius, since 911 it has become a pressing reality. A new transatlantic contract is being forged in which the Americans will only defend Europeans if Europeans do far more for the defense of themselves and North Americans. At the very least, such a contract demands a major increase on the part of Europeans of the burdens of defense and a radical revision of NATO’s military organization.
Specifically, Trump’s concerns and America’s strains reinforce a need for Europeans to develop a credible First Responder, high-end, deployable military capability able to operate across the Arctic and North Atlantic and for many years to come. Political reality must also be faced because divisions within the North Atlantic Council mean it can no longer be assumed the Alliance could act quickly, even in a pre-war, Article 5 type contingency. JEF 2 would thus need to operate not just under NATO command, but also as a theater-reach coalition of the willing and able in the face of all high-end contingencies.
Wars happen when financial and economic stress and consequent political division combine with fast changing technologies to enable revisionist powers to challenge an apparently settled global order. It is precisely such a challenge that China and Russia now pose to the democracies of the Global Free. Therefore, to prevent the catastrophe of war and thus its catastrophic costs, democratic governments have traditionally had to increase their demonstrable fighting power precisely at the worst possible moment in any economic cycle.
Is JEF 2 Realizable?
The challenges of realizing a JEF 2 must not be under-estimated. Currently, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Alexus Grynkevich, is ever pushing hard to get the Allies to deliver what they have promised under “The Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area” (more simply known as and “Deter and Defend”). As one senior NATO insider put it, “The danger posed by a Super JEF is that it will simply exacerbate SACEUR’s difficulties with NATO HQ once again fixating on new deliverables, whilst forgetting the ones they have agreed, and then failing to deliver even as they try to put multi-domain command and control to bed”. One of NATO’s perennial problems is that Brussels often seeks ever more ambition that allies ever refuse fail to resource.
The Arctic and North Atlantic challenge also comes at a time when many of the Allies are committed to providing security guarantees in Ukraine with an already under-powered Coalition of the Willing and Not So Able. However, implicit in Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on those Allies opposing his efforts to buy Greenland is the belief that too many Allies, most notably the United Kingdom, are already backsliding on their commitment at the 2025 summit in The Hague to spend 5% GDP of which 3.5% will be spent on defense investment. In December 2025 London delayed publication of the Defense Investment Plan indefinitely as the cost of increases to welfare spending hit home.
And yet, if pressure is to be maintained on shifting the burdens of the Alliance from the Americans to Europeans as promised then it cannot be done without a radical reorganization of NATO’s European pillar if the Area of Responsibility (AOR) wide Strategic Plan is to be more than yet another great work of European fiction. of the shifting and staying in step with Washington DC and the DOW. e fully supported DDA and the AOR-wide strategic plan, and our roles. If nothing else, Trump’s pressure will almost certainly force a re-consideration of the current iteration of current NATO Defense Policy and Planning (NDPP) targets. Alternatively, the Allies simply give into Trump and accept that to all intents and purposes they cannot and will not defend either Greenland or the wider Arctic.
At the core of NATO’s crisis, and it is a crisis, is that European political leaders are not prepared to admit that under their watch European military shortfalls are in fact far worse than they are prepared to publicly admit even though they publicly agreed the NDPP targets. For too long European leaders have offered unfunded grand visions, such as the Future Hybrid Navy, which is repeated across the conventional force base with land and air forces similarly under-funded, whilst the nuclear establishments of both Britain and France consume ever more of limited defense resources.
Leading by Poor Example
Take the British, not only as an example of NATO’s European problem, but the challenges of building a JEF 2. Defense budgets have been increased but for most Europeans it is still built on the failed principle of ‘how much defense can we afford’ with even modest increases mired in internal political disputes. In the British example, the problem is exacerbated by London’s defense pretense which has forced too many British military leaders to place too much emphasis on protecting their respective Service from cuts than generating credible fighting power across the piece.
Today is no different. Britain’s Strategic Defense Review 2025 (SDR 2025) states, “All of defense is firmly behind delivery of our transformative Strategic Defense Review (SDR), which set out a deliverable and affordable plan to meet the challenges, threats, and opportunities of the 21st century. The plan is backed by the largest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War – hitting 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027. This includes investment across land, sea, air, space and cyber, underpinned by SDR commitments including £4 billion for drones and autonomous capabilities, an extra £1.5 billion for munitions factories, and a £15 billion investment into our sovereign nuclear warhead programme this Parliament”.[3] Really?
SDR 2025 is (as ever) political sleight of hand. London is only committed to increasing British defense expenditure from 2.4% GDP in 2025 to 2.5% (maybe 2.6%) GDP in 2027 and possibly 3% by 2030 and 3.5% GDP by 2035 or $129 billion in total investment. Real defense investment is actually far lower than advertised because under current planning Britain will only increase its defense budget by 0.3% GDP by 2034, which is far below the defense cost inflation that is ravaging defense investment. Britain’s hopelessly hollowed out forces have also been ordered to CUT the budget by £2 billion in 2025-2026.
Furthermore, for all the talk of innovation in SDR 2025 there is little in the way of a coherent future force concept. The UK Armed Forces now face a dangerous paradox. They will only offer real defense value if far more money is invested in them. Britain thus has a choice – either move to 3.5% GDP on conventional defense and not only to recapitalize the force but to save it or simply abandon any serious role in Allied defense. In fact, London is pretending to do the former whilst in fact doing the latter. The situation has become so bad it is hard not to believe there is some kind of anti-defense conspiracy in London. According to Statista the average of British defense spending 1955-1994 was 4.6% GDP as opposed to the historically low 2.2% today[4]. In other words, THIS is the moment for NATO to be organizationally radical and for London to be defense radical. It would not be the first time. In 1960 Britain was the first major power to end conscription and create a fully professional force, whilst it took the U.S. a decade more to figure this out for itself.
Ultimately, SDR 2025 fails because it does not address the only real choice that matters. At current and planned levels of the defense budget Britain can either have a high-end expeditionary force or a cutting-edge and bespoke nuclear deterrent, but not both. Rather, by trying to have both on a budget only fit for one British forces are being impoverished with costs paradoxically spiraling because the ends, ways and means simply do not add up. The choice is clear: either take all costs of the Defense Nuclear Enterprise outside the defense budget or scrap it and use the released money to build JEF 2!
NSS 2025 and NATO’s US Dilemma
There are two other imperatives NATO Europeans must confront. First, taken together with the Greenland imbroglio, the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) is but the latest evidence that the center of gravity of NATO is moving inexorably eastwards from the U.S. to Europe, specifically Germany. Over the next decade Germany will become the indispensable power with the U.S. acting as some form of distant over-the-horizon 7th Cavalry. Second, and at the same time, NATO must also deter Russia through denial not punishment. How?
Those who say Russia poses no threat to NATO members are not grasping the evident reality of the last decade. Moscow is committed to a policy of bite-size aggression and expansionism. One only must look to Ukraine to see what Russia does to the people it conquers and has always done. What Russia cannot conquer it devastates. That is the Russian way of war.
NATO Europeans thus need to build the consequent strategic ambition vital to NATO deterrence and defense and the fighting power needed to make it credible in this contested age. Only then will Europeans be able to help field in time a powerful high-end first responder European force that could deter, defend and fight in all circumstances affordably and credibly, across the seven domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge vital across the spectrum of hybrid, cyber and future hyperwar where AI is leading. And, along the immense length of NATO’s now extended front-line with a China-enabled Russia from the Bosphorus to Greenland. It is the very minimum that the maintenance of peace in Europe will demand.
Why should the very parochial challenges of Europe matter to Americans? For all the undoubted might of the US armed forces and despite the rhetoric Americans need allies. However, America also needs capable allies because US forces are stretched thin the world over. Therefore, if the U.S. is to maintain peace through strength the world over the importance of capable-regional strategic powers to the U.S. grows by the day. Europeans are no longer world powers, but they remain a potentially very capable grouping of regional-strategic powers, but only if they once again become defense serious. Here Trump is right. For too long Britain has been free riding on the U.S. for its security and defense and continues to do so. Maybe that will change in the wake of the shock of Trump’s actions over Greenland. One of the great lessons of political realism is that however close countries may be, it is a mistake to rely on others for one’s own defense. Without a capably credible Europe NATO is nothing more than a defense DHL, a delivery service to Europeans, of U.S. military power rather than the force magnifier it should be. In other words, America has every right to expect far more from its European friends and allies to realize its own security and defense policy goals. Only then can what is now an historic and indispensable partnership be remodeled and rekindled for the threats, risks and challenges that are undoubtedly coming.
The Special Relationship?
The Special Relationship is dead, long live the Special Relationship! The only way for Europeans to begin the Grand Recovery of their collective defense effort is for Britain, France and Germany to lead together. After all, they represent some 70% of all defense investment in Europe and 90% of the European defense, technological and industrial base (EDTIB). When it comes to a possible JEF 2 that means Britain. Only real and relevant military capability AND capacity is needed if Britain is to rise to the JEF 2 challenge (as it must) and President Trump’s diktat (for that is what it is) that NATO Europeans spend more and do more. The entire future of the transatlantic security and defense relationship is at stake, and the only choice London really has is no choice at all if it really believes in NATO.
Why now? The core role of the US in the Alliance has never been weaker. Whilst the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS 2025) does not suggest the US is abandoning NATO, it is telling the European Allies once and for all that America’s global challenges and lack of European military preparedness are in danger of weakening US forces everywhere. America is also deeply divided politically and unsure of its place in the world. That is why the future of NATO will thus depend on the formation of a new “directoire” of European powers within NATO ad a new Special Relationship between America and ALL NATO Europeans not that Britain has chosen to become a very ordinary European. Britain, France and Germany (possibly Poland) will need to lead supported by other Allies, most notably Italy and supported by combat ready forces such as those of the Nordic States.
This is because NATO 2026 has far more territory to defend than ever at a time when technology is not only accelerating the pace of war but changing its very character. The defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area must thus be organized to cover a growing space in which multi-domain operations will be conducted around all four of the Alliance’s strategic flanks – North, East, South and West. Much of that effort will fall on the Europeans, particularly the three major European powers, with the US and Canada acting as an over the horizon strategic reserve. One only has to consult the map to see it would fall to Britain to lead the defense of the Northern and Western flanks covering the Arctic Atlantic, North Atlantic and the Western Approaches, which would also need to reach far out towards Greenland to avoid the re-creation of the infamous Atlantic Gap of 1940-1943 during the Battle of the Atlantic. Germany with Poland would lead the defense of the Eastern Flank, whilst France and Italy would lead the defense of the Southern Flank, with the support of Turkey and others.
Allied forces would still support each other under Article 3 of the Washington Treaty but only such a division of leadership would enable NATO to generate credible deterrence across the Euro-Atlantic Area through the efficient and effective use of force. If properly organized European forces could also support each other flexibly and rapidly in whatever theater was under pressure at any given time. That, after all, is the reason for the creation of the new Allied Reaction Force of which a JEF 2 would be a vital component.
You say tomato…
What NATO needs is a force like the US Marines Corps (USMC). This is because for all the manifest failure of the US Marine Corps (USMC) “divest to invest” program and the strange decision to fix the world’s best mobile strike force on China’s First Island Chain, the USMC remains the best organically integrated force upon which to model Britain’s future force. JEF 2 would be an expeditionary force able to “kick down the door” anywhere in and around NATO’s Northern and Western area of responsibility (AOR), and beyond if needs be and which also reinforces the Allied Reaction Force which will be stood up in 2026. JEF 2 would also go beyond the old divide of Continental or Maritime Defense and yet combine both in a new form of air and expeditionary operations – a Super JEF! The existing JEF provides the template, but it is far too small. However, super JEF would need to be organized around the British and given how far the British star has fallen in both the U.S and across NATO it would only work if British forces were for once properly invested and become far more organically integrated than they are today.
Why Britain? Britain created the JEF and is the Framework Nation. For Britain today the defense of the realm cannot simply be about hiding behind its nuclear shield. Britain is the leader because, with France, it is the only European power with extensive experience of high-end, multidomain, deployable fighting power over time and distance. For an open society like Britain such a defense can only be achieved in the twenty-first century with like-minded states and that can only be realized through alliance. It is the ‘how’ question that London constantly fails to answer. Too much energy is still wasted trying to balance the vested interests of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force given the mis-match between ends, ways and means with too many senior officers and their political masters either mired in the anchor drag that is nostalgia made worse by the patent lack of adequate investment, or simply anti-defense.
First, London must do something Whitehall detests; take radical action with the focus squarely on the medium to long-term and mean it. JEF 2. That would mean an end to the short-termism in which Whitehall endlessly hedges bets about threat whilst trading off vested interests against each other. Under the NATO War Plan Britain is effectively expected to field two warfighting divisions in support of NATO land operations within 60 days of the start of a conflict. It simply cannot do that even though it continues to pretend it can. If the Germans, Poles and others stepped up then this fiction could once and for all be ended.
Second, Britain is an island in the North Atlantic and, like it or not, London must now make a hard choice, and it is not simply whether to reinforce the JEF. The ends, ways and means of British defense strategy simply do not add up. At the July 2025 Lancaster House meeting on European defense Britain and France with the support of Germany came together to forge a concept of NATO compatible autonomous European power. The message of Lancaster House 2.0 was clear: “The UK and France, as Europe’s only nuclear powers and leading militaries, share a unique responsibility for European and international defense and security. Our two nations represent nearly 40% of the defense budget of European Allies, and more than 50% of European spending on research and technology...”.
Third, the Lancaster House 2.0 Declaration also created a new Combined Joint Force or CJF to “ensure the ability to plan and command Combined Corps Capability (the highest level of fielded forces in our armies). This Corps level force is designed to provide the Land component of a broader joint force combining all military functions, as part of NATO or bilaterally. It must also be JEF 2 compatible. For example, if an emergency emerged in the Arctic the French could support the JEF through the CJF and vice versa the British could support the French in the Mediterranean. Moreover, the command mechanism is already in the making for several such compatible joint forces under the umbrella of SACEUR and the new Allied Response Force (ARF). The ARF was created at the NATO Vilnius Summit and is the Alliance’s capstone rapid reaction force, “...capable of carrying out the Alliance’s full spectrum of missions in support of NATO’s three core tasks (deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security).”[5]
Fourth, the CJF will facilitate the deployment of a force fully interoperable with NATO and available as the Alliance’s Strategic Reserve; this is a critical step towards the UK and France providing two fully interoperable Strategic Reserve Corps to NATO, enabled by the CJF”.[6] What really would be the difference between JEF 2 and the CJF other than labelling if the force was properly designed. The hard truth is that Britain cannot fulfil its commitments under either the JEF and the CJF at present and needs to rebuild its force in any case. And, with the Germans and Poles leading the renaissance of European land forces it is a JEF 2 which offers the shortest route for Britain to add the highest value to the collective Alliance effort.
How to build JEF 2?
London’s over-committing of Britain’s small force has reached a dangerous point. By Britain’s own historical record, the UK armed forces are tiny and can at best deploy no more than 25,000 fully deployable warfighting troops to both the defense of continental of Europe and the security and defense of the North Atlantic. The ends, ways and means of British defense policy simply no longer add up!
Furthermore, and given that, the Alliance remains the only way for Britain to realize its security and defense policy goals which is why Strategic Defense Review 2025 (SDR 2025) placed NATO at the heart of Britain’s defense strategy. In other words, NATO’s Military Strategy is Britain’s military strategy which means the British have no alternative but to again become a Tier One Euro-Atlantic military power at the command core of a credible and capable NATO European force. The alternative? The decoupling of America from European defense implied in NSS 2025 and the end of credible NATO deterrence and defense with Britain retreating behind its ageing nuclear shield.
Therefore, if London wants to maintain credibility, influence and realize its own defense affordably it has no option but to deliver real credible fighting power to the Alliance. Such fighting power can in turn only be realized by placing warfighting forces at the very core of the Allied Reaction Force (ARF) and a future multi-domain Allied Mobile Heavy Force, which might emerge in time from a JEF 2, a force capable of providing deterrence and defense effect across the nuclear, cyber, space and conventional force spectrum.
The problem for Britain is that given the size and constraints of its forces it can either be at the core of the ARF, CJF and JEF OR provide some forces to the land defense of NATO’s Eastern Flank. It cannot credibly do all. Even a JEF 2 would require a new British Army built on at least eight warfighting brigades, a Royal Air Force that gets back into the business of long-range strategic effect, reinforced by a restored power projection mindset, and a Royal Navy focused on delivering a continually at sea deterrent (CASD), protecting sea lines of communication (SLOC) in the Atlantic, as well as strategic amphibiosity in which jointness is so deep that the force is in effect fused and integrated for multi-domain operations at the Littoral and beyond.
Furthermore, NATO planning under the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) will not remain static given the pace of technological change and its impact upon both the use and nature of military power, as per the scenario. Therefore, if London is serious about Britain’s role in NATO, then the UKAF must create a truly integrated, intelligent, mission command led force able to move fast and apply tailored mass critically, much of it built on the application of robotics. This is because U.S. forces are facing a burgeoning China and global pressures whilst Germany and Poland are re-building their land power. Going forward, UK Armed Forces (UKAF) will add best value by providing the core of a future 300,000 strong NATO European pillar Allied Mobile Heavy Force (AMHF) which can act under either NATO command or as a coalition of the willing and able and which is the logical development of both the Combined Joint Force and a Super Joint Expeditionary Force. Only such a force would demonstrate to the Americans a plain truth that is missing from NSS 2025:
Per Mare, Per Terram
Therefore, the British future force must necessarily sit at the interface of Special Operators and Specialized Forces which is precisely where JEF 2 would act. Take the UK Commando Force (UKCF) as an example of a force development model. As currently constituted, the UKCF is a small light force with limited organic combat support (a light artillery regiment and an engineer squadron) and can only sensibly be employed at the less demanding end of the combat spectrum in a major state-on-state conflict. In other words, it is too small (tiny) and lacks both fighting power and fighting weight to sustain the missions with which it is charged in a major war, whatever the impressive qualities of each individual Commando. UKCF also exemplifies the dangerous paradox at the heart of a broken UKAF which too often lives in past glories. It is a small, highly mobile force designed to generate high strategic effects, but has little mass, limited maneuver and no strategic depth. The UK Commando Force (UKCF) is also a prime example of a London which too often fritters away British fighting power on low priority tasks that others could undertake. It is also too reliant on the Americans for vital enablers, such as Intelligence and Lift, for all but the most permissive of operations at a time when the Americans simply do not have space capacity. A reliance that not only weakens UKCF but also the Americans.
Equally, UKCF is a high-end integrated force able to operate to effect in extreme climatic conditions and across the maritime space, roles of which are vital to NATO’s spearhead, the Allied Reaction Force, and thus a vital component of British fighting power. Moreover, UK Commando Force, along with 16 Air Assault Brigade and the new Ranger formations, would offer Super JEF a credible and rotatable fighting power core if properly invested and supported. The real strength of UK Commando Force is that it is a thinking force able to adapt to changing environments and technology adeptly. It is also an in-place and advanced maritime-amphibious-air assault force, designed to set, shape and meet the challenges of theater command with and through the Strategic Command. It also has nine JEF partners and the mindset to drive change.
In other words, like much of UKAF UKCF is a work in progress that could help realize the full strategic potential of the JEF to enable Britain and its Allies and Partners to meet the future force on force challenge. To that end, JEF 2 would need significantly more robust amphibious shipping and airlift to generate credible deterrence in the Arctic and North Atlantic which would be its primary purpose. Without such enabling capabilities UKCF’s utility as a littoral plus force will decline yet further and arguments for retaining integrated enablers from across Defense will be weakened to the detriment of Britain’s command and leadership role, and not just in the JEF.
Relatively modest investment would further operationalize UKCF’s long-established training and exercising platform in Norway into an operational capability thus reinforcing the warfighting core of JEF 2. Such investment would also markedly increase the potency of the UK’s currently weak offer to NATO by strengthening affordable Allied deterrence in the Alliance’s markedly increased and contested northern area of responsibility. UKCF could also become another driver of defense modernization with industry by helping to establish benchmarks across 5th Generation Warfare and a further development platform for 6th Generation Warfare.
The darkness before dawn?
One must only look at history to understand why London is so mired in defense pretense. Britain was the only country to enter World War Two, knowing full well that win or lose it would be weaker. In 1949, and because of the cost of war and moneys owed to the U.S., British net public debt peaked at 250% of GDP. It was the cost of war from which Britain has never fully recovered. The lesson? The price of peace is far cheaper than the price of war but the price of preventing war can be too much during a time of straitened peace.
All the threat indicators suggest London must play a role within NATO commensurate with Britain’s still significant regional-strategic weight. Such a goal will only be realized if there is a radical rethink in London about the value of peace as opposed to the cost of defense, not least by British Government economists. Sensible American political and military leaders must also hold British feet firmly to the defense delivery fire if SDR 2025 really is to move UKAF to “warfighting readiness” as it claimed. The need is urgent because the British armed forces are fast reaching the tipping point at which the cost of force recovery would be beyond the means and ken of any British Government. Only radical solutions will work.
In late November 2025 Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s top military officer wrote to John Healey, the Secretary of State for Defense, to warn that current spending plans are inadequate for the future force as envisaged by SDR 2025. His demarche was supported by the heads of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. One senior defense official who preferred to remain anonymous said, “It is no secret defense is woefully underfunded and the promise of getting to sensible numbers by 2034 just doesn’t cut it”. Sadly, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s capitulation to hardline Labour Party MPs by reversing planned cuts to the massive welfare budget killed off any chance of real defense investment. Whither SDR 2025?
And yet, SDR 2025 made all the right noises. Such documents always do. “NATO First” was the adopted mantra with a recovering UKAF to be used as an engine for growth, whilst the lessons from Russia’s war on Ukraine would drive innovation as part of a whole of society approach to security and defense. Crucially, SDR 2025 avoided the hard truths of ends, ways and means by interpreting further cuts to the defense budget (some £2 billion or $2.67 billion in 2025-2026 of an $83 billion defense budget) as ‘force integration’ to be delivered by so-called and by and large mythical efficiencies. The political aim is to prevent ‘defense’ from becoming a political problem for ministers. In other words, the priority for London remains as ever political rather than strategic and it that culture of defense pretense that must change if a JEF 2 or any other credible and relevant British fighting force is to emerge from the current bonfire of capabilities.
To be credible, JEF 2 would need all the necessary personnel, ships and enablers to make a NATO mobile, multi-domain force credible given the threat and U.S. policy going forward. Such capability and capacity would also need an appropriate mix of mass and maneuver forces, reinforced by a hi-tech and mid-tech legion of drones, intelligent and precision guided hypersonic missiles, offensive and defensive cyber forces and critical space-based systems. This force goal will only be achieved if successive British governments invest in the AI architectures that should forces will depend on and do it together with allies and partners. It is vital because defense is a team game! If such investments are not now made, then force modernization will be little more than political smoke and errors. Be it JEF 2 or SDR 2025 it is all only a beginning.
Semper Fi!
John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend
General (Ret.) John R. Allen is a retired US Marines Corps officer and co-author of Future War and the Defense of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2022) with Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Ben Hodges and Professor Julian Lindley-French. …
Professor Julian Lindley-French is Chairman of The Alphen Group and co-author with Field Marshal Lord Richards of The Retreat from Strategy: Britain’s Confusion of Values with Interests. (Hurst: London 2026)
JimTownsend is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy at the Pentagon and now Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
[1] Speech by Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Royal United Services Institute, December 15, 2025.
[2] See “Britain doesn’t need to become great again – it already is” by Ambassador Piotr Wilczek https://spectator.com/article/
[3] “Exclusive: Military Chiefs go to war with Labour”. “The Spectator”, November 26th, 2025
