Britain offers nuclear umbrella to nine European countries in JEF

The United Kingdom has offered nine European countries — Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden — protection under its national nuclear umbrella as part of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) defense partnership. This would mean nuclear deterrence in the region is no longer guaranteed by NATO alone.

“Finland is under the nuclear umbrella. It is provided by our submarines, which are currently patrolling the Atlantic,” said Gwyn Jenkins, commander of the British Navy, during a visit to Finland.

It has also emerged that JEF member states will sign an agreement in November establishing joint combat units. Deploying these new JEF units to strengthen the defense of Finland and other member countries would not require invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

JEF is an international coalition of ten European countries led by the United Kingdom, created for rapid response to threats in Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Arctic and the North Atlantic.

Source: novinky.cz