ULM, Germany - For the British military magazine "The Sustainer" requested Captain Harry Ziegler, Executive Officer at OPS J3 Division, gave an insight in his service at the Joint Support and Enabling Command. THE NETWORKER shares an excerpt of his article.
The opportunity to serve within the JSEC has been an immensely valuable experience
For those reading who are yet to recognise the subject of this article having read only the title, you may not be in exclusively isolated company. Nestled high in a fortress above the Swabian city of Ulm sits the Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC). In September 2021, the then Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) declared the JSEC at full operational capability, having started on this journey since its inception in only 2018. The JSEC is still a young headquarters, but has been set on a path to disrupt and reinvent the status-quo of bi- and multi-lateral coordination between nations to instead centrally coordinate logistics and enablement. This is travelling in only one direction: forwards. If you are yet to hear of the headquarters, that is sure to change in the upcoming months and years.
The article, written by Captain Harry Ziegler, was published in the british military magazine "The Sustainer".
For Captain Ziegler serving at JSEC "has been an immensely valuable experience". Photo by OF-2 Manuela Harant
With its close-to three hundred members of staff comprised of officers, soldiers, and civilians from 25 of the 32 NATO member countries, the headquarters is directly subordinated to SHAPE and is the coordinating authority (at the operational level) for enablement within SACEUR’s AOR during peacetime and for reinforcement by forces and the ensuing sustainment during crisis and conflict. To accomplish this challenging task, the JSEC continues to undertake the development of a comprehensive network of POEs / PODs, mobility areas, contracts with host nations, standards for infrastructure, and requirements for the accompanying enablers to operate this network – these can be described as the physical and functional layers of the network. The updating and creation of this network remains an iterative and perpetual process, but the JSEC already boasts significant successes in this field: of note, the headquarters championed a ‘military Schengen’ between the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland to truncate red-tape and bureaucracy to ease the transportation of military equipment and personnel across national borders.
JSEC will see a steady and substantial increase of British officers and soldiers from across all three services over the course of the next three years
This was and remains an innovative and exciting initiative, but the headquarters of course continues to further promote such innovation in the quest of fulfilling its given task. From January 2025, the JSEC will do this under a new structure as a fully-fledged member of the Allied Command Operations in the form of a NATO Command Structure where it has access to NATO common funding. What this means in practice, following this month’s Post Allocation Conference, is a greater commitment from across the member nations to staff the headquarters in a more balanced make-up with a lower reliance on the host nation, Germany, to do so. The U.K. is no different, and the JSEC will see a steady and substantial increase of British officers and soldiers from across all three services over the course of the next three years. This significant change not only signals a positive change across the Alliance, but provides ample opportunity for British logisticians to contribute to and put their stamp on how the headquarters achieves its mission.
For those yet to consider working in NATO, or perhaps may have even discounted themselves due to a lack of multi-national experience need only cast an eye on the deteriorating European security situation since the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to swiftly understand the importance currently placed on collective defence. Even though NATO does not yet find itself in conflict, the role of the JSEC to set the theatre for eventual deployments in the case of conflict can exist only in peace time. The ongoing work in the headquarters must happen before large-scale forces cross SACEUR’s AOR to meet a potential Russian threat.
From a personal and reflective perspective, the opportunity to serve within the JSEC has been an immensely valuable experience. Serving at the JSEC whilst it continues to grow from a nascent Force Structure to a Command Structure on the tip of many tongues in the corridors of NATO HQ and SHAPE has given me profound exposure to conversations and decision-making in the field of logistics at the very highest levels. As I prepare to leave the JSEC next year, I anticipate really only seeing the true extent of my development once in my next job: the diplomatic skills one cultivates, the understanding and appreciation of how other nations think, plan, operate, and execute one gains, and ultimately the professional development as a logistics officer I have undertaken.
Ulm is a terrific city to live in and there are few greater pleasures than being part of a tight-knit British community whose active involvement in the headquarters’ social calendar matches only that of the scale of its contributions to the various ongoing work strands. For those fortunate enough to be posted to the JSEC, let it be known that you will have the opportunity to make active contributions to the improvement of enablement across SACEUR’s AOR, no matter how big or small that may be.