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As the German Air Force reported at the beginning of February, its annual rotating readiness as part of the “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force” (VJTF) as an exposed part of the “NATO Response Force” (NRF) ended last month. The German Air Force took over responsibility for the VJTF as “Air Component Standby” from the French Air Force in January 2023 and then handed it over to the Spanish Air Force in January 2024. This task force must be operational within three to five days.

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The alarm squad of Tactical Air Force Squadron 71 “Richthofen” in action over the Baltic States. (Photo: Bundeswehr/Johann Michael Scheller)

Last year, the German “Joint Forces Air Component Headquarters” (JFAC HQ – DEU), as part of the national air operations center (ZentrLuftOp) in Kalkar, Lower Rhine, provided the multinational air force command post within the VJTF framework of the Atlantic Alliance. The JFAC HQ (DEU) is one of a total of six AirC² command posts (Air Command and Control), which serve the larger European NATO member states - France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and Turkey - as well as the United States as national members of the North Atlantic Alliance Provide contribution within the framework of the “NATO Force Structure” (NFS).

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An AWACS Boeing (Airborne Early Warning and Control System) E-3 “Sentry” and two F-16C fighter aircraft from the Air National Guard of the US state of South Dakota fly over northern Germany as part of “Air Defender 2023”.
Photo 1: Bundeswehr/Air Force Press and Information Center

Reviews

The past year was eventful for the German Air Force. In June, the largest relocation exercise in the history of the Atlantic Alliance, the multinational air force exercise “Air Defender 2023”, was conducted under German responsibility from the ZentrLuftOp command post in Kalkar. The command post in Kalkar also took over the operational management of NATO air operations in Europe from September to November from NATO's "Allied Air Command" (HQ AIRCOM) in Ramstein - for the first time in the history of the North Atlantic Alliance. HQ AIRCOM is a tactical-level headquarters of the NATO Command Structure (NCS), which is directly subordinate to the Allied Command Operations (ACO) in Mons, Belgium.

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Entrance to the Von Seydlitz barracks in Kalkar, where, among other things, the air operations center is located. (Photo: Air Operations Center PAO/Hofmann)

The VJTF was set up in 2015 as NATO's response to the violent annexation of Crimea and the military intervention in Donbas by Russia to increase the response speed of the NATO Response Force. The NRF, for its part, had already been formed in 2003. In February 2022, in response to the major Russian attack on the entire Ukraine, the NRF was activated for a military mission - strengthening NATO's eastern flank - for the first time in its history.

dr Gerd Portugall

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