The First Writing Session to AJP-3.18 Review

The NATO Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Centre of Excellence (COE) as the custodian for the Allied Joint Doctrine for Explosive Ordnance Disposal Support to Operations AJP-3.18 organized   from 23 to 24 June 2021 the first Writing Session (1st AJP-3.18 WS) as an online event (CISCO-WebEx).

During this two-day virtual event, 19 participants - Subject Matter Experts in the area of EOD, C-IED, CBRN, FP, DAT, and MILENG discussed details of the Working Draft of AJP-3.18 prepared by the team from the Transformation Support Department of the EOD COE. 

The NATO Standardization Office promulgated the current AJP-3.18(A) in March 2017. Allowing for a nominal 3-year interval, the publication was scheduled to be reviewed in 2020. In August 2019, the EOD COE took over the AJP-3.18 custodianship from Germany. Request for Feedback (RFF) questionnaire was initiated by a formal release in May 2020. The RFF was prepared using the template in AAP-47, with questions specifically tailored for the review of AJP-3.18(A). Responses to the RFF were received from 13 entities.

Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Joint Doctrine Coherence (JDC) Section has led a Virtual Data Fusion Workshop (V-DFW) which was hold 09 - 10 December 2020. Twelve workshop’s participants represented the following Nations and NATO Commands: Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Poland, USA, ACT, JFCBS, EOD COE, MILENG COE and SP COE. 

Based on the results of the workshop, ACT compiled the final adjudicated Request for Feedback response matrix and prepared the ACT data fusion summary report & Draft Doctrine Task. 

Doctrine task for AJP-3.18 review was approved by the Military Committee Joint Standardization Board (MCJSB) in February 2021.

The new revision of AJP-3.18 will be developed with Normal Priority (24 months) and shall be ratified by 15 NATO Nations at least.
According to schedule, releasing date for Ratification Draft is December 2022.
Based on Allied Joint Doctrine Campaign Plan, the target date for promulgation is April 2023.