Integrated Warfare Centre
The Integrated Warfare Centre (IWC) provides campaign-focused Warfare Development support to UK and NATO Commanders against near-term operational challenges and opportunities. It drives optimisation, adaption, and integration of the existing Joint Force, through close collaborative engagement with the Domain Warfare Centres.
About the Integrated Warfare Centre
At the Integrated Warfare Centre, we equip military leaders with the knowledge, skills, and adaptability needed to prevail against adversaries in complex and contested environments.
Our mission is to optimise and adapt the current integrated force, through concepts and warfare development, supporting UK and NATO joint commanders to achieve operational advantage over adversaries, across the continuum of competition.
We achieve this through the synthesis of operational analysis and lessons identified from observing operations, training, and exercises. We also draw on conceptual, doctrinal, and technological development, as well as capability integration, wargaming, and experimentation across all military operating domains. Together, these efforts optimise and adapt existing joint capability and support further Joint Force Development.
Our Organisation
Warfare Development: Warfare Development’s role is to ensure the Current Joint Force is ready to succeed on operations. This is achieved through exploiting lessons through force development, integration and training. Joint Force Development & Integration (JFDI) develops joint capabilities and leads the Joint Force’s integration with allies and partners. Joint Force Training (JFT) serves as the Training Delivery Authority for Combined Joint Collective Training to ensure operational readiness.
Integrated CyberEM & Effects Directorate (ICED): ICED plays a key role in ensuring that the Cyber & Specialist Operations Command (CSOC) can deliver on its priorities. ICED provides the cross-defence Warfare Development engine to develop and cohere defence’s Targeting, Command & Control, Cyber, Electromagnetic (CyEM), and Specialist capabilities. Mission-focussed and disruptive, it exists to enable Defence to win by enabling a faster Sense-Understand-Decide-and-Effect cycle and by developing competitive CyEM capabilities. It does this by rapidly building and iterating capability within existing organisational structures and the existing technical estate.
Joint Doctrine & Analysis: Joint Doctrine and Analysis take ideas, test them and analyse the results to identify the best ways of workings. These are then shared through guidance (doctrine) to help ensure our forces can work effectively with others. Our Joint Doctrine Team shapes the future of UK and NATO military strategy by developing authoritative threat-informed doctrine to enhance interoperability with allies. By prioritising NATO within UK Defence, we ensure coherence and readiness, enabling seamless operations in global coalitions. Within our Lessons & Evaluation Team, we enable evidence-based decision-making by gathering, cohering, analysing, and managing critical insights across Defence.
Defence Modelling and Simulation Office: The Defence Modelling and Simulation Office (DMSO) is the lead in modernising and integrating Modelling and Simulation technologies across Defence. Its vision is to maximise Modelling and Simulation capability Pan-Defence through interoperability and exploitation of investment. As a key enabler for experimentation, training, wargaming and operational support, DMSO drives digital transformation by leveraging cutting-edge Modelling & Simulation capabilities to enhance decision-making, readiness and interoperability.
jHub: The jHub supports Defence’s mission to get the best technology and concepts into the hands of its users as quickly as possible by expanding their access to the commercial innovation base. A critical part of jHub’s role is to experiment with process and share the lessons to help Defence ingest innovation more effectively, from problem framing to adoption. Through constructive challenge and adapting the conventional approach to capability development, the jHub provides new ways for industry and Defence to work together and enable our users to have faster access to cutting-edge solutions.
Collaboration
The Integrated Warfare Centre is responsible for driving operational insights and lessons into force development and campaign planning. Exploiting operational research and wargaming, alongside CSOC, MSHQ, PJHQ, Defence Digital, Dstl, and other delivery agencies. The Integrated Warfare Centre plays a key role in adapting current Defence capabilities through innovation and spiral development.
This informs UK and international collective training and experimentation opportunities, and rapid development of NATO and UK doctrine. Collaboration is key with NATO, International partners, Industry and the UK Defence domain warfare centres.