Platform
Modules
By sector
By sector
By standard
Blog
News
Events
STANAG 6514
Participating NATO nations and the forces and bodies they direct; a defence supplier meets it only where a contract or tender names AJP-3.20
STANAG 6514 is NATO's agreement committing member nations to implement AJP-3.20, the Allied joint doctrine for cyberspace operations; it binds nations, not suppliers, and is not an information security standard.
STANAG 6514 commits NATO nations to implement AJP-3.20, Edition A, the Allied joint doctrine for cyberspace operations. The agreement itself runs to a handful of pages and holds no doctrine: it states an aim, names the publication, and sets out how a nation ratifies and implements it. Its aim is given as an interoperability requirement, "to provide an overarching framework for cyberspace operations, cyberspace operations principles and planning considerations, roles and responsibilities in joint operations, as well as relationship between cyberspace activities and the joint functions."
A STANAG is the instrument, not the content. Nations ratify it, implement it through their own regulations and procedures, and a company encounters it only because a contract or a tender invokes the doctrine it carries. Ratification and implementation are separate, a nation may ratify with reservations, and so the question "is STANAG 6514 mandatory" has a contractual answer and no general one.
This is the point worth stating first on a site like this one. AJP-3.20 is military doctrine: how NATO plans and conducts operations in and through cyberspace as a joint operational domain, alongside land, sea, air and space. It is not a management-system standard, and nothing in this cover or the doctrine it names maps onto ISO 27001, NIST guidance, or any organisational information-security control set. A reader arriving from a security questionnaire or a customer audit will not find that mapping here, because it does not exist.
The agreement defines its own test. It "is implemented when it becomes part of national regulations, procedures, mechanisms as well as internal education, training, and exercises programs." Allies and NATO bodies "shall provide implementation details through the electronic reporting tool (e-Reporting)"; partner nations "are invited to provide their implementation details through the electronic reporting tool (e-Reporting)" - invited rather than obliged.
Ratification is a separate, earlier step: "Nations are invited to examine their ratification of the STANAG and, if they have not already done so, advise the NSO of their intention regarding its ratification and implementation," with responses recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database.
STANAG 6514 does not stand alone. Its cover names a long list of sibling Allied joint doctrine publications as related: AJP-2 for intelligence, counter-intelligence and security; AJP-2.4 for signals intelligence; AJP-2.7 for joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; AJP-3 for the conduct of operations; AJP-3.5 for special operations; AJP-3.6 for electronic warfare; AJP-3.9 for joint targeting; AJP-3.10 for information operations; AJP-3.12 for military engineering; AJP-3.14 for force protection; AJP-3.19 for civil-military cooperation; AJP-3.21 for military police; AJP-5 for the planning of operations; and AJP-6 for communication and information systems. Every one of these is listed as informing context, not a binding requirement. The agreement is also reviewed under AAP-03.
It describes no certification, no notified body, no government quality assurance and no audit of an organisation. Its only stated check is its own periodic review under AAP-03, recorded in the NSDD. Edition 1 was promulgated on 29 January 2020, and the cover states plainly that it supersedes no earlier document.
There is no compliance obligation here for a company, and no information-security framework to map onto a platform, so we will not invent either. The honest connection is narrower: where a programme expects people to be familiar with the doctrine a contract names, what a customer can ask to see is a documented procedure and a record of who was trained on it.
ComplyTrain holds exactly that: controlled documents, training records against them, and the audit trail those produce over time, for whatever body of standards a programme's quality clause actually requires. It does not write military doctrine, plan cyberspace operations, or carry out technical cyber defence work, and it makes no claim that AJP-3.20's content is implemented in software.
Which documents a contract or a security questionnaire actually invokes, and what comes with them, is set by that contract and the customer's quality clause, never by us. The standards explorer shows what sits alongside this agreement, and we are glad to talk through what a specific tender is asking for.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 6514 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
No. It binds the nations that ratify it. It reaches a company only when a contract or a tender invokes AJP-3.20 or the doctrine it carries.
No. STANAG 6514 covers AJP-3.20, NATO's military doctrine for cyberspace operations, not an information security management standard. Nothing in the cover or the doctrine it names sets out an organisational control set, and no such mapping exists.
Only the machinery: the aim, the agreement to implement, the ratification and implementation steps, and the review clause. The doctrine itself is in AJP-3.20.
No. The agreement names no certification body, no assessment body, and no audit of any organisation.
Edition 1, promulgated 29 January 2020. The cover states that it supersedes no earlier document.
One system for the whole compliance programme. Start with the module you need most.
Collect information the same way every time, and decide in advance what happens next.
Know whether your controls are operating, not just whether a policy says they exist.
Turn the compliance work you already know about into a plan with owners, dependencies and dates.
Know what you can offer, and hold the evidence behind every configuration you offer it in.
Eight built-in reports across every module, scheduled, delivered, and filed where the evidence lives.
The sector news that matters to your organisation - read and rated by AI, and delivered as a scheduled digest in your own language.
AI reads the tender pack and pulls out the requirements, deadlines and rules - then helps you draft the response from your own approved content, with you reviewing every step.
One current register of the suppliers and partners you depend on - each risk-assessed, re-assessing itself on schedule, and wired straight into your risk register.
See every requirement you face - across every standard, plus your own contracts and policies - traced to the documents, evidence and processes that satisfy it.
Identify, score, treat and review your risks in one place - with AI to help anyone run a proper assessment, and a defensible trail behind every decision.
Assign training, prove it was understood, and hold the competence records an auditor asks for.
Draft compliance documents with AI, keep every version under control, and export them beautifully branded - all in one place.
Audits, corrective actions, processes and approvals in one quality system, organised around ISO 9001.
Medical device manufacturers operate under more regulatory pressure than almost any other sector outside pharmaceuticals. The rules govern how you design a device, how you make it, how you track it after it ships, and how you respond when something goes wrong.
Learn how EU dual-use export controls apply to encryption, sensors, and software, how classification works under Annex I, and why sending source code by email can count as an export.
A practical way to turn in-your-head risk management into a register that survives staff turnover and answers the risk questions now showing up in tenders.