Vanguard Magazine

16 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2024 www.vanguardcanada.com I N T E R V I E W I N T E RV I E W W I T H B R I G A D I E R - G E N E RA L C H R I S H O R N E R, C O M M A N D E R 3 C A N A D I A N S PA C E D I V I S I O N (3 C S D) A N D J O I N T F O RC E S PA C E C O M P O N E N T C O M M A N D E R (J F S C C) T he Canadian Joint Warfare Centre (CJWC) plays a criti- cal role in ensuring the Ca- nadian Armed Forces (CAF) stay ahead of emerging threats and maintain decision superiority. In June we sat down with Col Chris Horner, who was then the outgoing Commander of the Canadian Joint Warfare Centre (CJWC), to discuss the evolution, current mission, and future initiatives of this pivotal institu- tion. He has since been promoted to the rank of BGen, assuming command of the 3 Canadian Space Division and becoming the Canadian Armed Forces Joint Force Space Component Commander. The discussion covers the Centre's inno- vative approaches to training and doctrine FROM EXPERIMENTATION TO INNOVATION How CJWC is Modernizing the Canadian Armed Forces B Y T E R R I PAV E L I C development. It also touches on the im- portance of international partnerships and technological advancements in shaping the future of military operations. Q I understand that the Canadian Joint Warfare Centre had several differ- ent iterations. Can you give us a quick synopsis of how it came to be what it is today? The genesis of what is now the Canadian Joint Warfare Centre came in late 2000 with the Canadian Forces Experimenta- tion Centre. The Chief of Defence Staff later changed our name to the Canadian Forces Warfare Centre because we were doing more than just experimentation. We started to expand beyond concept space modelling into integration activities and broader force development. In 2015 we became part of the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC). For the next four years our focus was on a large computer-based exercise called JOINTEX. Each year several hundred people would come to our CJWC campus in Shirleys Bay, Ontario and participate in the operational joint command and control sphere. We ex- perimented and gamed with the idea that we were campaigning as part of a large-scale Canadian Forces operational joint opera- tions deployment. But in the background, we were still doing things like developing doctrine and developing concepts and in- creasing our modelling and simulation

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