Looking to the Future: Exercises, Training and Innovation
The Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) is the premier collective training establishment of the NATO Alliance at the strategic and operational levels of warfare.
Subordinate to Headquarters Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT), Norfolk, Virginia, United States, the JWC directly contributes to NATO’s deterrence and defence posture across all domains and ensures that the Alliance maintains its warfare advantage.
As an integral part of the NATO Command Structure, the JWC directly supports missions led by Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (Admiral Pierre Vandier, French Air and Space Force) and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (General Alexus G. Grynkewich, United States Army).
The Joint Warfare Centre is a unique organization with the ability to propel NATO’s readiness into the future. The Joint Warfare Centre forms part of NATO’s defence architecture, which enables the Alliance to campaign across the peace, crisis response, and conflict continuum; it delivers Alliance readiness; and contributes to NATO’s deterrence threshold.
– Major General Ruprecht von Butler, Commander JWC
The JWC is NATO’s transformational hub in Europe: The JWC executes NATO’s largest-scale, multi-domain computer-assisted command post exercises (CAX/CPX). But the JWC is much more than exercise delivery: it is also NATO’s “warfare” centre. Whilst the JWC delivers higher command and staff collective training for three- and four-star NATO headquarters, it can also harvest a huge dividend in warfare development and innovation. Exercises may be the most conspicuous aspect of the JWC’s mission, yet it is the JWC’s role in joint and combined warfare development at the operational and strategic levels that offers enduring benefit to the NATO Alliance.
Since its establishment in 2003, the JWC has planned and delivered nearly 150 exercises and training events to make NATO better and ensure that NATO’s commanders and their staffs are well-prepared and ready to respond to any mission, whenever and wherever the call may come.
NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit has provided the most significant change in scale and scope of NATO’s ambition for collective training, as well as the transformation of the JWC’s STEADFAST Series of Exercises.
In 2023, the JWC started planning for its new major joint exercises, subsequently named STEADFAST DETERRENCE and STEADFAST DUEL, replacing the previous STEADFAST JUPITER Series of Exercises. Meanwhile, the out-of-area small joint exercise STEADFAST DAGGER replaced the previous STEADFAST JACKAL Series of Exercises.
In parallel, the JWC also assumed the role of Officer Directing Exercise for the wargame-based exercise, STEADFAST FOXTROT.
The JWC-directed exercises encompass eleven in-house competencies to ensure the best possible outcomes for any training experience.
Click here to download JWC’s Core Exercise Functions PDF.
In January 2026, SACT, transferred responsibility for the implementation of AI in NATO training activity to the JWC. The project falls under the umbrella of the Audacious Training Initiative jointly led by NATO’s two Strategic Commands, ACO and ACT. Audacious Training leverages AI and digital automation to transform NATO exercise planning and execution. The project is using AI and digital tools to help modernize how NATO exercises are designed, controlled, and refined. Rather than treating AI as a distant concept, the effort focuses on practical support to the training teams responsible for building complex, realistic scenarios.
The integration of NATO Maven Smart System (MSS) into JWC’s exercise planning and delivery is a key element of the JWC’s ongoing digital transformation. As NATO’s first AI-enabled command and control platform, MSS bolsters the efficiency and effectiveness of JWC-directed multi-domain exercises, providing the JWC with an exciting new toolset for data transformation, fusion, organization and display.
The Audacious Training Initiative also provides strategic guidance that supports and reinforces the ACO Campaign Approach to Exercises, where training is considered an integral part of campaigning and not a standalone activity. Training the ACO warfighting system, therefore, continues to increase the scope and scale of the JWC-directed exercises and the exercise participation frequency.
In summary, the JWC plans, prepares, and executes operational- and strategic-level collective training events and exercises; sustains and develops scenarios necessary for joint operational- and strategic-level exercises; and strengthens relationships and integration with national and international entities in alignment with established policy.
Ultimately, the JWC’s relentless pursuit of excellence, professionalism, innovation, and cooperation stands as a testament to its pivotal role in ensuring NATO’s preparedness and transformation in an ever-changing global security landscape.
