STAVANGER, Norway – NATO Exercise STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025 (STDC25) successfully concluded at the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), and several other locations across Europe on May 28, 2025. This marks the completion of nine days of intensive training focused on strengthening NATO’s deterrence at the strategic and operational levels.
Directed by the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), Exercise STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025 certified SHAPE as a strategic warfighting headquarters for NATO. The exercise saw SHAPE and the United States European Command (USEUCOM) joining together as training audiences at the strategic and operational levels for the first time in history.
“STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025 was an unprecedented exercise in NATO’s history,” Major General Ruprecht von Butler, Commander JWC, said.
The JWC Commander added: “Never before has the Alliance executed a strategic-level exercise such as this. It focused on operationalizing NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defence together with our American partners, reinforcing our transatlantic collaboration on collective defence. It validated elements of NATO’s defence plans and the force model, increasing exercise realism to an unprecedented level. It also supported NATO’s efforts to become a multi-domain operation-enabled Alliance by providing the opportunity to test the operationalization of cyberspace and space, as well as the cognitive dimension and strategic communication.”
Approximately 4800 military and civilian staff participated in Exercise STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025.
Never before has the Alliance executed a strategic-level exercise such as this. It focused on operationalizing NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defence together with our American partners, reinforcing our transatlantic collaboration on collective defence.
Major General Ruprecht von Butler,
Commander JWC and the Exercise Director
In addition to SHAPE and USEUCOM, STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025 involved further participation from the NATO Command and Force Structure headquarters, including Allied Land Command, Allied Maritime Command, Allied Air Command, Special Operations Forces Command, Joint Support and Enabling Command, the Allied states, as well as the component commands under USEUCOM and non-military entities.
The Chief Content for STEADFAST DETERRENCE 2025, Lieutenant Colonel (GS) Robin, said: “Effective deterrence is far from easy to achieve. The exercise allowed us to explore the military-strategic depth of decisions in a crisis. Especially when the actions of our adversaries are strategically ambiguous, we must understand their signals, anticipate their next moves and successfully deter them through our reactions. In this exercise, we have strengthened our Alliance’s ability to maintain peace in the future.”
The Joint Warfare Centre is NATO’s training focal point for joint operational- and strategic-level warfare, responsible for delivering NATO’s largest multi-domain exercises at these levels.
The Centre serves as part of NATO’s defence architecture. It directly supports NATO’s deterrence by delivering challenging, technologically integrated, and multi-domain exercises and training events.
It also contributes to NATO’s warfare development, driving adaptations in the areas of doctrine, concepts, experimentation, capability development and lessons learned.
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