The role of minilateral cooperation in enhancing Baltic and European security
The Memorandum | No. 08.2026
The growing security concerns across Europe have intensified the debate over how states organise defence cooperation. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the persistence of sub-threshold threats and growing demands on military readiness have highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of existing multilateral frameworks, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
The potential of minilateral collaboration has been highlighted further amid speculation about a possible decrease in the United States’ (US) presence in Europe and shifting security arrangements around Greenland. In this regard, like-minded minilaterals have gained more prominence in addressing regional security concerns, their strength lying especially in their greater flexibility and speed of decision-making.
What the JEF gets right
In the Northern Hemisphere, and particularly in the Baltic Sea, the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) has undoubtedly presented its strategic and operational importance in addressing security challenges for over a decade. Starting as one of three ‘Framework Nations Concept’ arrangements at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, it represents a high-readiness, flexible framework where a pool of military capabilities can be used for conducting different operations.
Comprising ten Northern European nations, the JEF was designed to be capable of responding quickly to crises across the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic Sea. Its ability to conduct rapid consultations and deploy forces at short notice provides deterrence against adversaries – namely Russia – and reassurance for allies. According to Hanno Pevkur, Minister of Defence of Estonia, the JEF’s importance lies in its ability to respond rapidly. Beyond existing capabilities, a similar understanding of threats provides a solid foundation for fast decision-making.
Over the past few years, the JEF has been adapting to evolving security concerns with the aim of clarifying its unique contribution to regional security, especially in areas where large multinational formats have failed to respond with the speed and relevance. Lately, the focus has been on sub-threshold actions, especially amid intensified activities by Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ in the Baltic Sea.
The challenge with sub-threshold threats is that NATO, while possessing a comprehensive military toolbox for countering military threats, does not have all the means needed to counter sub-threshold activities, which combine both military and civilian aspects. On their own, minilateral formats such as the JEF have the potential to become very effective and responsive in dealing with such threats.
In November 2023, the JEF activated its Joint Response Option – which focuses on sub-threshold threats – for the first time, following damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia. The patrolling of JEF warships in the Baltic Sea clearly contributed both to deterrence and reassurance. There is still significant potential to leverage minilateral efforts in the ‘grey zone’, especially in connection with protecting critical undersea infrastructure.
Furthermore, there seems to be potential for combining efforts in other areas as well. In November 2025, JEF defence ministers signed an agreement to enhance the minilateral’s partnership with Ukraine. This aims to provide training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and to foster closer collaboration on protecting critical underwater infrastructure, drones, battlefield medicine and methods to counter disinformation.
What can limit the effectiveness of minilaterals?
It is necessary to acknowledge that smaller cooperation formats also have their limitations. One of the key challenges lies in the limits of operational capacity. While smaller frameworks can improve coordination and responsiveness, they remain dependent on national force readiness and availability.
For most European allies, long-term underinvestment has resulted in a hollow force structure, scattered military readiness, a strong focus on lighter forces and innovative capabilities. Most armed forces in Europe struggle with personnel shortages, insufficient stockpiles and delayed procurement programmes. Even with a significant increase in defence budgets, readiness levels would still take years to match needs and expectations.
Another underlying constraint is the lack of sovereign enablers, including strategic lift, intelligence, and advanced Command and Control (C2) capabilities. In practice, this makes many minilateral groupings dependent on either a particularly capable leading nation within the format, or on the implicit support of a larger external power.
The decisions to increase defence spending, such as the joint commitment by alliance members at June 2025’s NATO summit in The Hague to raise spending to 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), largely remain as political slogans in many countries. While all the Baltic states have already committed to meeting this spending, the United Kingdom (UK) – the JEF’s leading nation – has committed to reaching 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027, with an expectation to reach 3.5% by 2035; the agreed deadline for the investment commitment from The Hague.
The Netherlands has accepted the commitment but has not provided any timelines. Defence capacity building is a persistent, long-term effort, and assessments indicate that even with sufficient military investments, providing the necessary capabilities to replace American contributions would take years.
Nevertheless, there is ongoing strong trust in NATO as a cornerstone of collective defence in Europe, but it is evident that implementing its new generation of regional defence plans, adopted at the NATO summit in Vilnius in 2023, requires coherent integration of national, multinational and minilateral efforts. While minilaterals can increase overall readiness through joint exercises, and are seen as a tool for rapid response, there is a risk of fragmentation if military activities are not synchronised properly with NATO planning.
Importance of minilaterals in supporting Ukraine
The enhanced partnership initiative portrays another area where minilateral cooperation has demonstrated potential during the past several years. Since 2022, smaller coalitions of willing states have played a decisive role in coordinating military assistance, training and capability development for Ukraine. These groupings have often been more agile in accelerating equipment delivery, as well as in more focused capacity-building initiatives.
Another example of a well-functioning minilateral formation is the IT Coalition. Launched in 2023, this coalition coordinates and delivers practical support to Ukraine across Information Technology (IT), cyber and digital resilience. Its primary focus is enhancing Ukraine’s capacity to maintain secure communications, digital C2 and cyber defence during wartime.
Estonia plays a pivotal role as a co-leader of this coalition, alongside Luxembourg. It facilitates support for Ukraine in funding, procurement and expertise-sharing, prioritising rapid delivery and operational relevance. Assistance provided encompasses secure IT infrastructure, communications-related digital solutions, cyber-military engagement and tools to improve situational awareness.
Estonia’s decision to pledge 0.25% of its GDP to military assistance for Ukraine has high strategic importance but, as a small nation, even with this extended effort, the promised military assistance will only amount to about €100 million (£87.3 million) per year over the next four years.
Minilateral initiatives can be beneficial to amplify the impact of such efforts, and the IT Coalition has thus far met the expectations: in just two years, €1.1 billion (£960.4 million) was raised. Furthermore, this pledge not only supports Ukraine, but also strengthens the overall security architecture in Europe by fortifying the continent’s defence innovation ecosystem and enhancing long-term technological competitiveness through lessons learned on the battlefield.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the potential of minilateral cooperation in bolstering NATO and EU efforts towards strengthening regional security have been valuable. Worth mentioning are the following positive benefits:
Targeted responses to sub-threshold threats: The JEF’s capability to activate responses to sub-threshold threats quickly positions it as a vital asset in the Baltic security landscape, complementing NATO’s broader military capabilities;
Enhanced flexibility and rapid decision-making: Smooth decision-making and rapid responses are crucial for addressing the multitude of security threats, especially sub-threshold ones, and safeguarding critical infrastructure; and
Agility in supporting allies and partners: The success of smaller coalitions in supporting Ukraine has been very valuable to Estonia, which has been devoted to supporting Ukraine as long as it takes to achieve victory, and whose contribution has been amplified through minilateral engagements.
However, there are also still some limitations to keep in mind with such formats:
Operational capacity limitations: While minilateral arrangements such as the JEF offer promising frameworks, they often face limitations in operational capacity stemming from each nation’s existing military capacity;
Risk of fragmentation and overlapping: This is especially relevant in relation to direct military engagements, which must be synchronised with NATO to prevent overlap and confusion in the operational practices; and
Long-term commitment requirements: Building effective defence capabilities through minilateral cooperation is a persistent, long-term effort that may not yield immediate results.
Minilaterals have become indispensable components of Northern Europe’s security architecture. Their flexibility, speed and political cohesion make them well-suited to addressing the demands of a rapidly changing threat environment. The success of initiatives such as the JEF demonstrates how smaller frameworks can complement NATO by enhancing readiness, interoperability and regional deterrence.
However, their effectiveness ultimately depends on the availability of national forces, sustained investment in capabilities, and careful alignment with alliance planning and command structures. When aligned with NATO’s collective defence efforts and embedded within a coherent strategic framework, minilaterals have the potential for significantly strengthening collective defence, crisis response and resilience – against both conventional and sub-threshold threats.
Nele Loorents is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS). Her areas of expertise include NATO and US security and defence policy, transatlantic relations, and deterrence and defence posture in the Baltic region.
This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.
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