Exercise Report

This technical report constitutes the Exercise Report of the Coherent Resilience 2025 – Arctic (CORE25-A) tabletop exercise (TTX), jointly organized by the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (NATO ENSEC COE), the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC), the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Energy Academic Group (EAG) and Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies (TSC). Conducted in Sweden from 3 to 7 November 2025, the CORE25-A was a TTX on the energy system of the Arctic with a focus on maritime critical energy infrastructure protection against hybrid threats. The event brought together 116 participants from 21 nations including all Allied Arctic nations, who came from 56 different organizations representing maritime, energy supply and security stakeholders (private, public and military), as well as NATO entities, the Joint Expeditionary Force and European Union institutions. It was instrumental to have 3 preparatory meetings: initial Planning Conference (April 2025), Main Planning Conference (June 2025) and Final Coordination Conference (September 2025) prior to the final exercise execution phase in November 2025, as this ensured the participants were engaged and contributed to the exercise objectives, scope and scenario. The exercise goal was to support national authorities and key energy system stakeholders of North American and European Arctic in increasing the resiliency of their maritime energy installations and distribution networks against hybrid threats. The TTX addressed critical energy maritime infrastructure protection, including offshore, onshore energy installations and supply chain in the Arctic, crisis response, maritime regulatory, and strategic communications considerations when working in parallel in the following four syndicate groups: Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection, Crisis Response, Strategic Communication and Maritime Regulatory Framework. A spectrum of events was introduced in the exercise scenario, ranging from hybrid attacks, terrorist activities to conventional maritime operations. The exercise served as a collaborative venue to improve national contingency plans and procedures to develop NATO and the European Union capacity to support national authorities. The results of the exercise are summarised in 44 takeaways, and among them 20 takeaways were selected by a Joint Evaluation Team as exercise key takeaways. All takeaways were grouped in the following categories: Maritime Domain Awareness; Legal and Institutional Framework; Intelligence and Strategic Partnership; Crisis management and Societal Resilience; Infrastructure and Resource Security and Emerging Threats. The takeaways were captured as syndicate responses to the exercise scenario, highlighting discussion and recommendations. All takeaways were elaborated during Post-Exercise Discussion meeting (December, 2025) and finally agreed by all exercise participants.

ASENSIO BERMEJO Isabel;  ADDINGTON Paul;  KOPUSTINSKAS Vytis;  HELDT Karol;  JONTÉN Maria;  VUILLAUME Jean-François;  LYNN Charles;  CALVO Jay;  TARANTOLA Stefano;  FORETIC Hrvoje;  THERON Julien;  KAZOKAS Gytis;  HOWARD Alan;  FULLI Gianluca; 

2026-05-05

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC146781

978-92-68-39871-5 (online),    978-92-68-39873-9 (print),   

1831-9424 (online),    1018-5593 (print),   

EUR 40720,    OP KJ-01-26-216-EN-N (online),    OP KJ-01-26-216-EN-C (print),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC146781,   

10.2760/6542521 (online),    10.2760/6143993 (print),