"We thank all the men and women of NRDC-Turkey for their incredible competence, commitment and teamwork. They advanced the NRF mission to the next level, and we are fortunate to maintain them in the "stand down" role for the coming year," said Lieutenant General Cloutier.

LANDCOM, as NATO's advocate for land domain expertise, is responsible for enabling land domain readiness, interoperability, standardization, and competency across Allied land forces. Part of the way they do this is through Combat Readiness Evaluation, or CREVAL, for NATO Land Forces.

The evaluation team itself conducted evaluation operations in several locations, working to provide the proper analysis and assessment, both in the physical evaluation location and remotely. They did so by leveraging the physical linkage between the members deployed in Norway and the remote affiliated entities at LANDCOM headquarters in Izmir, NRDC-Greece, and Joint Forces Command-Brunssum in The Netherlands.

The NRF was established in 2002 to provide the Alliance with an immediate and credible response capability for the range of military operations. Though it has evolved over the past 19 years, readiness remains at its core. The decision to use the NRF requires political consensus taken on a case-by-case basis by the North Atlantic Council.

The Lille-based corps already fulfilled the role in 2014 in an annual rotation of nine headquarters, must be able to deploy a staff and command post in 10 to 30 days in order to lead allied land brigade - up to 40,000 service members.

Concluding his remarks during the ceremony, Lieutenant General Cloutier emphasized the importance of having a ready and capable land force within the NATO Alliance.

"History teaches us that weakness invites aggression. In an era of great power competition, it is incumbent on land forces to be ready and strong," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind that [RRC-France's] investment in readiness and building lethal combined arms teams has them prepared to compete, deter, and win."