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AJP-3.14

AJP-3.14 Allied joint doctrine for force protection

NATO commanders and staffs planning and executing force protection for Alliance operations

AJP-3.14 is NATO doctrine for how commanders and staffs plan, coordinate and assess the protection of personnel, facilities and materiel from threats and hazards.

Edition
B
Published
2024-10

What it is

AJP-3.14, Allied Joint Doctrine for Force Protection, is NATO's doctrine for planning, executing and assessing Force Protection (FP) "in the context of the full spectrum of Alliance activity." It is subordinate to AJP-3, Allied Joint Doctrine for the Conduct of Operations, of which FP is one of the joint functions, and it sits on the policy set out in MC 0656, Military Committee Policy for the Force Protection of Alliance Forces. Edition B, Version 1 was promulgated on 21 October 2024 and supersedes Edition A. Nations record their agreement to use it in STANAG 2528; that ratified agreement, not the AJP text itself, is how the doctrine acquires force. AJP-3.14 is covered by STANAG 2528.

The doctrine is written for a military reader. It states plainly that it "is intended primarily as guidance for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commanders and staffs," usually "at the Joint Operational level," though it "can be used at any level." It also says it "is instructive to the planning for activities by a coalition of NATO members, partners and non-NATO nations" and "provides reference for non-military actors" such as international organisations and NGOs. It is not written for suppliers, manufacturers or acquirers, and it places no direct obligation on a company.

What force protection means in this doctrine

Force protection is defined as "all measures and means to minimize the vulnerability of personnel, facilities, materiel, operations, and activities from threats and hazards in order to preserve freedom of action and operational effectiveness of the force thereby contributing to mission success." It is one of NATO's joint functions rather than a separate discipline, coordinated vertically and horizontally across strategic, operational and tactical command. The doctrine sets out nine guiding principles - joint and multinational interoperability, prioritisation, flexibility and agility, defence in depth, all-round protection, proportionality, risk management, unity of effort and command, and enabling operations - and a five-step process that Chapter 3 develops in full: establishing context, risk assessment, risk treatment, monitoring and review, and communication and consultation.

Who is responsible

Responsibility is distributed, not centralised. Strategic and operational commanders answer for the FP of their own headquarters and units; the Supreme Allied Commander Europe "remains ultimately responsible and accountable for all aspects of FP for assigned forces"; Troop Contributing Nations answer for their own forces and for contributing to the wider force; Host Nations may provide FP within their own territory under the relevant agreements. A commander's staff draws on a wide set of specialties to deliver it, including intelligence, security, cyberspace, CBRN defence, air and missile defence, military engineering, the Provost Marshal, logistics, a dedicated contracting authority, medical, planning, civil-military cooperation, safety, explosives safety, strategic communications and legal advice.

The force protection process

Chapter 3 sets out the risk management process a commander uses, run as part of NATO's Operations Planning Process: establishing context, assessing risk (criticality, threat and hazard, and vulnerability assessment), treating risk (developing and implementing measures, and planning incident response and recovery), monitoring and reviewing, and communicating and consulting throughout. The doctrine grades the operating environment on a threat scale used to calibrate the effort applied, and gives separate treatment to cyberspace and to explosive safety and munitions risk management, the latter pointing to the Allied Ammunition Storage and Transport Publications and Allied Logistics Publication (ALP)-16 where NATO's own explosives safety requirements cannot be met.

Planning, and where contractors appear

FP planning is meant to be integrated into operations planning "from the outset," with its own annex in an Operation Plan and its requirements combined into a Critical Asset Protection Plan. Chapter 4 also covers integrating Host Nation and multinational capability, incident response and recovery planning, coordination with civil-military cooperation staff and with international and non-governmental organisations, and a stated expectation of "annual FP training in accordance with the relevant NATO Standardization Agreement or command authority" plus pre-deployment and in-theatre induction training.

Contractors appear only where the text puts them. Commanders "have a responsibility to provide FP for NATO-employed civilian contractors and, in certain circumstances, locally employed civilians," a theatre contracting authority "is required to ensure the contracts with civilian companies providing logistics support directly to NATO and Nations meet FP requirements," and "the responsibility for civilian contractors employed by a company operating under a NATO or national contract needs to be clarified in the contract." The doctrine does not set a standard a contractor meets on its own account; it describes what a commander and a contract have to settle between them.

The fundamental elements and Annex A and B

Annex A names eight "fundamental elements" a commander can draw on: tactical area of responsibility control, integrated air and missile defence, CBRN defence, resilience, military engineering support, consequence management, force health protection, and security. Annex B groups force protection measures into five categories: procedural, personnel, materiel, infrastructure and information. Both annexes describe categories and fundamentals for a commander's own staff work; the specific protective measures they contain are not reproduced here, because they are the commander's operational judgement to apply, not general guidance for a company to follow.

How it is checked

NATO does not certify anyone against this doctrine. Compliance is an internal military matter: commanders and staff "should use all available means and tools to continually assess the FP risks against the risk attitude established by the commander," using "inspections, evaluations, assessment surveys and exercise," and Allied Command Operations runs "a process for conducting FP Advisory Team (FPAT) visits." None of this is a scheme a supplier is assessed against; a contractor's own performance is whatever its contract with the customer administering the operation says it is.

How we help

AJP-3.14 is operational doctrine. It describes how a commander organises force protection, and that work is done by commanders and staffs in planning and on the ground, not in software. Where it touches a company is where the doctrine says a contract does the work: a contracting authority has to make sure a logistics contract "meets FP requirements," and where FP-related education and training falls to a contractor's own staff, the doctrine says that "needs to be clarified in the contract."

ComplyTrain does not do force protection planning, run risk assessments, or design protective measures. What it can hold is the evidence trail behind a force-protection contract term: the procedure describing how a required induction, briefing or training obligation is met, the training records showing which contractor personnel completed it and when, and the record that a specific contractual requirement was actually satisfied and can be produced on request.

The tier that applies to a given contract, and the specific force protection terms that come with it, are set by the customer and the contract, not by this page. If your organisation is working out what a force-protection-related clause means for its own procedures and evidence, we can talk through what a workable structure looks like.

Standards it references

Questions

Is AJP-3.14 mandatory?

It binds through ratification, not by itself: "the agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 2528." A nation that has ratified STANAG 2528 has committed its forces to use this doctrine. A company is never a party to that agreement; any obligation on a contractor comes from its own contract, not from AJP-3.14 directly.

What is the difference between AJP-3.14 and STANAG 2528?

STANAG 2528 is the Standardization Agreement: the record of nations' commitment to use a publication. AJP-3.14 is the Allied Joint Publication itself, the actual doctrine text that STANAG 2528 covers.

Does AJP-3.14 apply to contractors?

Not directly. The doctrine addresses NATO commanders and staffs. It says a commander has a responsibility to provide FP for NATO-employed civilian contractors, and that a contractor's own FP or training responsibility "needs to be clarified in the contract" it is working under.

Can a company be certified against AJP-3.14?

No. NATO operates no certification scheme for this doctrine. Compliance is assessed internally, within NATO's own command structure, through inspections, evaluations and FP Advisory Team visits, not by an accredited body auditing a company.

What changed in Edition B?

Edition B, promulgated in October 2024, supersedes Edition A. It broadens the threat picture beyond the earlier, more Afghanistan-centric doctrine, adds cyberspace and Strategic Communications content, moves risk management guidance into the main body while removing the former Risk Management Annex, and adds a new annex categorising force protection measures.