NATO Militaries Strengthening Allied Medical Resilience

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This winter, NATO Allies raised the bar on medical resilience across the Alliance through a series of major exercises designed to strengthen civil-military coordination and ensure life-saving care can be delivered at scale in crisis or conflict.

Brigadier General Petter Iversen, Chair of the Committee of Chiefs of Military Medical Services in NATO (COMEDS), underscored that medical support is a core element of Allied deterrence and defence. “The exercises Cold Response, Medic Quadriga and Casualty Move demonstrate that medical support is not an add-on to operations, but a core element of Allied deterrence and defence,” he said. COMEDS is NATO’s senior military medical body on military medical matters.

“Through exercises like Cold Response, Medic Quadriga 26 and Casualty Move 26, our militaries and civilian services are training together to save lives in the most demanding conditions,” Brigadier General Iversen added. Pointing to lessons from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, he stressed that “full-scale war takes an immense toll on the health of both military forces and civilian populations.”

“These exercises strengthen civil-military cooperation and interoperability, ensuring that in a crisis we can deliver life-saving care at scale,” Brigadier General Iversen said, emphasising that medical resilience requires a whole-of-society approach because “Health Security is Collective Security.”

In the Arctic-based exercise Cold Response in Norway, civilian and military actors tested large-scale wartime health preparedness by moving wounded personnel over long distances and across borders, from the High North to hospitals at home and abroad. Activities included both live training and virtual elements.

In Germany, Medic Quadriga 26 focused on the full medical evacuation chain, from the front line to strategic aeromedical evacuation, closely coordinated with civilian health providers.

The Multinational Medical Coordination Centre – Europe (MMCC-E) led Casualty Move (CAMO) 26, training how to manage massive patient flow, medical command and control and civil–military coordination in a major crisis or conflict. The exercise was conducted at the main training location in Germany, and at reach back cells in different countries.