Statement by Defence Ministers on the declaration of the initial operational capability for Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

We, the Allied Defence Ministers, have today declared the initial operational capability for NATO’s Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (JISR) initiative. This achievement follows up to the commitments that our nations made at the Chicago Summit and subsequently reaffirmed at the Wales Summit.

This initial operational JISR capability is centred on enhancing the situational awareness of the NATO Response Force through heightened proficiency in collecting, processing, and exchanging intelligence. In short, JISR will maximise the resources we have at hand already, both in NATO and in individual Allies: enhance interconnectivity across our systems, improve training and expertise among our personnel, and lead to better procedures for information handling and sharing.

All of these improvements will ultimately contribute to a better informed and more watchful Alliance. JISR stands ready to support rapid decision making across several major lines of effort, including the Readiness Action Plan, our strategy on hybrid warfare, and our overall deterrence posture. Further, JISR is helping to lay the groundwork for integrating Alliance Ground Surveillance into NATO.

The achievement of this milestone has been made possible by our collective Alliance pulling together towards a shared set of objectives. JISR is demonstrating the value that multinational cooperation – particularly in research and development – can have in strengthening NATO as a whole.

This initial operational capability is only the first milestone for the JISR initiative. Further work is needed to sustain these achievements, and expand them beyond the scope of the NATO Response Force. NATO will further aim to intensify JISR support to the Readiness Action Plan and other efforts, all towards the end of enabling timely and informed decisions by our political and military leaders.

We look forward to continued progress in the months to come.