Defence Secretary formally launches new Joint Forces Command body

April marked the launch of the Joint Forces Command, recognised as a major milestone in the MOD’s Transforming Defence programme. Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond MP, attended a ceremonial event at JFC’s new Northwood headquarters.

The Joint Forces Command has been established to ensure that a range of vital military capabilities, functions and organisations – such as medical services, training and education, intelligence, and cyber – are organised and managed effectively and efficiently to support success on operations. By bringing together a number of joint defence organisations, the new body plans to ensure investment in joint capabilities is appropriate and coherent.

Its creation was recommended by the Defence Reform review, led by Lord Levene, as part of the most significant programme of change across the Ministry of Defence in a generation. Joint Forces Command has been designed and delivered from scratch in only nine months. Over the next year, it will assume its full range of its planned responsibilities, It will also oversee the development of weapons for cyberwarfare, and recommend new ‘smart’ equipment that might make the difference in future campaigns

Head of the new body Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach would not be drawn on the kinds of cyber-capabilities the UK will be looking to develop, and said the UK needed to better understand the threat.

In an interview with the Guardian, Sir Stuart Peach stated: “One of key ways to exploit this new command is to make sure that lessons are applied into education and training, so that our soldiers, sailors and airmen are better prepared.”