Exercise TRIDENT LANCE 14 (TRLE 14) started on 30 November, involving nearly 4,000 personnel, with the aim to test NATO's ability to coordinate and execute a NATO-led Article 5 Collective Defence operation in a multinational environment.

TRLE 14 will train NATO's Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) and three corps headquarters from the NATO Force Structure (NFS) in the execution of a follow-on mission post-NRF initial entry, launched by exercise TRIDENT JUNCTURE (TRJE 14) in November.

In addition to LANDCOM as the primary Training Audience, TRLE 14 involves the following commands:

- NATO Rapid Reaction Corps Turkey (NRDC-Turkey)
- NATO Rapid Reaction Corps Greece (NRDC-Greece)
- NATO Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE)
- South-Eastern Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG)

Upon completion of TRLE 14, LANDCOM will achieve Full Operational Capability as NATO's single service Land Component Command.

German Army Major General Reinhard Wolski, Commander Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) and Exercise Director for TRLE 14, said: "As the JWC team, we have put a great deal of effort into bringing the lessons learned from exercise TRJE 14, which concluded 13 days ago, into exercise TRLE 14. With TRLE 14 we are now exercising multiple corps in joint land operations. This is a very challenging exercise to deliver. The goal of all EXCON entities is to achieve the Training Objectives of LANDCOM and to ensure that NATO's land-based Command and Control (C2) elements are ready to deal with any threats to the Alliance."

"I wish us all a good and challenging exercise," Major General Wolski continued: "Remember that, besides the ongoing NATO real-world operations, these exercises, based on high intensity, war-fighting conditions, are the absolute core business for the Alliance."