STAVANGER, Norway – General Philippe Lavigne, NATO’s new Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), arrived at the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) today to meet with senior leadership and preside over the JWC Change of Command Ceremony, which will take place on Friday, October 8, 2021.
“I want you to know that I am aware of the essential work of the Joint Warfare Centre and would like to express my gratitude to all JWC’s staff for their overall achievement here in Norway,” General Lavigne said.
“Whilst NATO 2030 agenda presses on the increase of training and exercises, the Joint Warfare Centre shall continue to contribute to improve the Alliance capabilities by integrating concepts, advancing doctrines, and training NATO, and recently through disruptive tools, such as wargaming. We are at a crucial moment regarding technologies. Today, agility and flexibility are keys required to integrate experiments into the exercise planning process so that we collectively ‘win as a team.’”
General Lavigne was warmly welcomed by Rear Admiral Jan C. Kaack, the Centre’s outbound Commander; Major General Piotr Malinowski, the inbound Commander, and Brigadier General Douglas K. Clark, the Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff.
During the high-level visit, SACT received detailed mission briefings on the JWC’s programme of work as NATO’s premier operational- and strategic-level training provider, with particular focus on the Centre's role in bridging the gap between Operations and Transformation.
Other topics discussed in the course of the meeting included upcoming JWC-directed command post exercises, STEADFAST JUPITER 2021 – NATO’s largest command post exercise this year – followed by STEADFAST JACKAL 2021; warfare development and the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept (NWCC), wargame design capability, the new JWC study on future exercise support, and the Centre’s approach in implementing the multi-domain operations concept into NATO’s major command post exercises.
All these JWC strands of work support the larger NATO mission and underscore the Transatlantic Bond, Allied deterrence and defence, and the strong commitment to NATO’s three core tasks – collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.
“How NATO will fight in the future is at the forefront of our minds and I am convinced that the Joint Warfare Centre’s exercises provide a unique and invaluable opportunity to test and refine warfare development objectives,” Rear Admiral Kaack said.
General Lavigne then shared his vision and expectations at this crucial time for the Alliance as it adapts to address complex threats and challenges, including the upcoming review of the NATO Strategic Concept – the official document that outlines NATO’s enduring purpose and nature, as well as its fundamental security tasks.
During his visit to the JWC, General Lavigne also received a guided tour of the JWC’s cutting-edge training facility.
General Lavigne was appointed SACT on September 23, 2021.
Before his assignment as SACT, General Lavigne served as the Chief of Staff of the French Air and Space Force.
From left: Rear Admiral Jan C. Kaack, General Philippe Lavigne, Major General Piotr Malinowski
Background
NATO Joint Warfare Centre was established on October 23, 2003, in Jåttå, Stavanger, Norway, subordinate to Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT), in Norfolk, Virginia, the United States.
The Joint Warfare Centre achieved its Full Operational Capability in 2006.
As NATO’s footprint in the Northern European region, the Joint Warfare Centre is responsible for planning, developing, and delivering operational- and strategic-level training and exercises that challenge NATO Command and Force Structure headquarters, while simultaneously supporting NATO warfare development through doctrine, concept development, innovation, and experimentation efforts.
In doing so, the JWC is at the heart of NATO’s transformational activities and warfare development, ensuring the high readiness and successful interoperability of the NATO Command and Force Structure headquarters in a rapidly evolving and complex global security environment.