There was a multi-national flavour to NAMEJS, Latvia’s main annual national defence exercise, this year as TARASSIS contributed the largest deployment of British Army troops to the nation since its independence in 1991.
Namejs 25 involved soldiers and National Guard members, including conscripted soldiers, reservists, and allied armed forces personnel from across Latvia, as well as cross-government coordination.
Organised in cooperation with the NATO MND-N HQ, the exercise also included personnel from the US, Canada, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania as well as Allied personnel from the NATO Multinational Brigade Headquarters in Latvia, the NATO Force Integration Unit (NFIU) Latvia, and Task Force Latvia.
This year, NAMEJS 25 was also closely integrated with the Joint Expeditionary Force’s (JEF) TARASSIS activity. Troops from the UK’s 11 and 8 Brigades deployed to the forests of Latvia to rehearse reinforcement and logistical support to a fellow-JEF nation in the event of a crisis. They also tested new capabilities with the Latvian National Guard units, enhancing interoperability and mutual understanding.
In the Command Post Exercise (CPX) phase, a multi-national team of staff planners from the JEF HQ, normally based in the UK, deployed to sites near Riga to contribute pre-NATO Article V injects to the exercise scenario. This was an ideal opportunity to refine JEF operational procedures that would be used to coordinate a multi-national response to a crisis or incident in the region.
The integration of TARASSIS, the largest activity ever planned and executed by the JEF, into NAMEJS marked a significant step forward in digital command and control capabilities, reinforcing collective defence in the Baltic region.
3 Scots [Black Watch] from 11 Brigade of the British Army evacuate a ‘casualty’ during a raid side by side with Latvian forces, in the Latvian forests.
TARASSIS, which ran for two months from early September, has played a pivotal role in enhancing situational awareness and the readiness of JEF nations, streamlining deterrence measures, enabling real-time decision-making and operational synchronization.
The series of coordinated, multi-domain activities, from Iceland to the High North to the eastern Baltic Sea region, also demonstrated the unity and readiness of JEF Participant Nations to come to each other’s aid in response to a crisis.