STAVANGER, Norway – NATO Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) executed its new wargame, “Sword of Justice”, during a legal interoperability conference from September 5 to 7, 2023.
The conference brought together personnel in the NATO legal community from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT), the U.S. Army Center for Law and Military Operations, the U.S. Marine Forces Command, and a number of other key Alliance stakeholders.
The aim of the JWC’s wargame was to apply critical thinking on legal interoperability at the operational- and strategic-levels of warfare and to red team the impacts of adversarial legal operations through all phases of conflict in a fictitious but realistic operating environment.
“In order to really challenge Alliance legal interoperability and test mitigation of adverse legal operations, the JWC wargaming team helped us to design a notional future setting, replete with climate impacts and geo-political insecurity,” said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Lipkin, the JWC’s Legal Advisor.
Lipkin explained that the participants worked hard through the legal friction points in an effort to identify lessons and potential steps to improve the alliance’s legal interoperability and ensure that NATO “maintains cognitive superiority concerning adverse legal operations.”
The first iteration of the JWC’s “Sword of Justice” focused on a wide range of legal interoperability topics, such as the Law of Armed Conflict/International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.
“Everyone was really engaged and I think enjoyed the experience, and I hope this effort results in some key lessons learned for our community,” said Lieutenant Colonel Lipkin.
