Security in the High North and the Arctic region was firmly under the spotlight at last week’s JEF biannual gathering of military planners from all ten of the Joint Expeditionary Force’s participant countries.
More than 60 delegates from every JEF nation gathered in Utrecht, Netherlands for a week of discussions about existing and emerging threats to peace and security in the North Atlantic, Nordic and the Baltic Sea region.
A key region of interest is the Arctic, which is undergoing major changes in its environment, opening it up to greater access for any number of reasons, including trade, transport, natural resource extraction and military activity.
Delegates convened at the Kromhout Barracks in Utrecht to get planning firmly underway for Exercise Lion Protector, the opening activity in a new three-year JEF exercise series.
Activities during Lion Protector, scheduled for September 2026, are likely to cover deployments and patrols across parts of Iceland, the Danish Straits and Norway, and the seas and skies around them. Emphasis will be on understanding the operating environment and collecting data to get a better picture of what’s happening in the area.
Lion Protector represents the first in a rolling sequence of JEF activities—followed by Lion Sentinel in 2027 and Lion Shield in 2028—that aims to bolster collective resilience against the backdrop of growing military activity in JEF’s area of interest, from the High North, North Atlantic to the Baltic Sea region, complementing NATO throughout.
Lion Protector is occurring amidst a wider focus on the Arctic and High North. The UK Ministry of Defence recently announced that its role in the High North is set to expand significantly. During a visit to Royal Marine Commandos at Camp Viking, the Defence Secretary confirmed that the number of British troops committed to Norway will double from 1,000 to 2,000 over the next three years. This uplift aligns wider UK activity in the region with the JEF’s evolving operational design.
British forces will also play a central part in NATO’s Arctic Sentry mission, with detailed planning currently progressing in Brussels. Lion Protector 26 will complement Arctic Sentry.
Also contributing to Arctic Sentry, Denmark is planning a year of security activities in Greenland under the banner ‘Arctic Endurance’, with a large multinational participation.
With planning now underway and political momentum building, Lion Protector 26 marks the beginning of an intensified, coordinated JEF approach to safeguarding the Arctic and High North at a time of rising strategic challenge.