Naval Intelligence: One Mind, Two Bodies

CSC 1995

SUBJECT AREA - Intelligence

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Title: Naval Intelligence: One Mind, Two Bodies

Author: Major R. J. Raftery, United States Marine Corps

Thesis: The Navy and Marine Corps, in today's fiscally constrained environment, must be fully interoperable with each other and within the joint intelligence community. Are there areas requiring integration or restructuring of both Navy and Marine Corps intelligence capabilities?

Background: For the past two hundred years, the Navy/Marine Corps intelligence team has supported combat operations, nation building and peacekeeping operations worldwide. The evolving reorientation of the Navy's warfighting focus to littoral warfare mandates an integrated approach by both the Navy and Marine Corps intelligence communities. This change in Navy focus presents opportunities for the Marine Corps to enhance its intelligence capabilities and take, advantage of the vast resources resident within the Navy's intelligence community. The Navy can also benefit by making use of the land warfare orientation of the Marine Corps to improve its focus on littoral warfare.

Recommendation: We must develop a naval intelligence mindset of naval expeditionary warfare that uses the principles of maneuver warfare in the maritime environment and emphasizes joint interoperability. This mindset must drive the force structure, training and education, and the support infrastructure. Both services are making great improvements in coordination and interoperability, but there can be further efficiencies. A unified Navy and Marine Corps effort should be undertaken at the tactical, operational, and service levels to integrate the intelligence capabilities of both services. Efficiencies can be made in service intelligence production, doctrine development, component intelligence support, budget functions, reserve intelligence operations, and personnel training.

Naval Intelligence: One Mind, Two Bodies

Every military publication today rattles the saber of joint warfighting. Given the basic tenet that the United States' military will never fight another battle that is not joint, the Navy/Marine Corps team must both strive to meet the requirements of joint warfare and improve its ability to fight as a cohesive naval team. To fulfill the requirements set forth in the National Security Strategy of the United States, the Department of Defense must organize naval services (defined as both Navy and Marine Corps) to deal with major regional contingencies, counter weapons of mass destruction, contribute to multilateral peace operations, support counterterrorism efforts and provide a credible overseas presence.1 "Forward ... From the Sea" addresses the naval contributions of strategic deterrence, sea control, maritime supremacy, and strategic sealift to our national security. What is more important, "it underscores the premise that the most important role of naval forces in situations short of war is to be engaged in forward areas, with the objectives of preventing conflicts and controlling crisis."2

In these times of tight fiscal realities, with an American society that will not tolerate high casualties, it is imperative that the Marine Corps and Navy combine their efforts to take advantage of existing advanced technology to support littoral operations. Echoing these sentiments, the Director of Marine Corps Intelligence believes that the Marine Corps "needs to develop a closer working relationship with the Navy without being subsumed. Both services must develop commonalty of purpose that will allow them to go to the joint requirements table with one expeditionary voice, but two votes."3 This need is most apparent within the intelligence communities of each service, both of which have developed intelligence capabilities to support two very different cultures. As budgets and manpower decrease, it is imperative that the two services explore integration of their intelligence resources to prevent the neutering of naval intelligence while enhancing their value to joint warfighting. Unlike many other warfighting areas, the intelligence communities of both services must satisfy service and operational requirements to enable their intelligence forces to operate in the joint environment. According to the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, "the military intelligence community views increased jointness as a potential solution to a decreasing budget. Specifically, the military intelligence leadership is focusing on embedding joint culture in all intelligence operations."4

The swirling technological revolution, declining defense resources and expectations of international instability dictate that the naval services efficiently use their available resources, within a joint framework to carry out their national security missions. The naval services must address a fundamental question about the role of naval intelligence. Is the Department of the Navy properly allocating intelligence capabilities to support the "Forward ... From the Sea" doctrine that Naval Doctrine Publications 1 and 2 espouse? Are there areas that require integration or restructuring of both Navy and Marine Corps intelligence capabilities to improve that support? We are at a crossroads; we can continue to chart separate courses, or we can join hands and create a littoral intelligence capability that will provide unrivaled intelligence support to advanced warfighting concepts such as Operational Maneuver from the Sea. This paper will discuss the requirements of naval expeditionary intelligence, explore current efforts to integrate the intelligence effort, and recommend areas in which naval intelligence can provide unparalleled intelligence support to the littoral warfighter.

Climbing Out of the Doldrums

In the past, Marine Corps intelligence could afford to be an insular scavenger, relying on other services to develop capabilities and feed them to the Marine Corps. To do this today would result in life-threatening failures for the operational forces. Naval expeditionary warfare demands a high degree of accurate, high quality, and timely intelligence tailored and developed to support forced entry operations. These requirements are unique because of the maritime nature of the operations. During the past 10 years, there have been quantum improvements in intelligence capabilities that could provide superb intelligence support to the Marine Corps' operational forces. Past neglect of the Marine Corps' intelligence field by the leadership of the Marine Corps, coupled with a Navy focused on blue water operations has resulted in a littoral intelligence capability that is not capable of supporting doctrine or current tactical and operational requirements.

Marine Corps intelligence deficiencies, as identified by the 1993 Intelligence Study Group, the 1994 Mission Area Analysis-12 Intelligence, and the 1994 report from the Department of Defense Inspector General, exist in all functional areas. These studies identified career progression, organizational structure, force structure, and equipment deficiencies as the primary culprits of a broken but critical capability.5 Suffice it to say that the Marine Corps is addressing intelligence deficiencies in personnel structure, career progression, doctrine, equipment, and organization and that the leadership of the Marine Corps is taking an active role in correcting the critical deficiencies. The current plan envisions a healthy intelligence occupational field by the year 2002.6 This paper will not look at the past. Rather it will look toward the future and explore ways in which the Navy and Marine Corps can join to improve their intelligence capabilities and provide some cross-pollination of the two very different cultures.

The "revolution in military affairs" puts the Marine Corps in a relatively advantageous position. As the hybrid service, concerned with ground, aviation, and maritime intelligence, the national and joint intelligence communities recognize that they must fully involve Marine Corps intelligence. These communities are developing the majority of intelligence improvements to be interoperable in the joint warfighting environment. According to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, "Jointness is a primary consideration for information systems design and management. Operationally, we can't continue to have separate systems for each service."7 The 1945 Congressional hearings on the unification of the War and Navy Departments encapsulated the view we should take today:

Complete merger of the intelligence services of the State, War, and Navy Departments is not considered feasible since each of these departments requires operating intelligence peculiar to itself Intimate and detailed knowledge of the objectives and problems of each service is obviously indispensable to successful operations.8

The intelligence resources being used to make this happen are being apportioned within the national intelligence community, where the Marine Corps enjoys a high level of Congressional interest and support. In sum, both services should strive to be fully interoperable within the Joint community while retaining their individual intelligence organizations.

An Intelligence Intensive Environment

The future environment in which the Navy/Marine Corps team will operate is a challenging one. Regional crises, budget constraints, a smaller operational force, and an increased need for forward deployed naval units will be the environment in which we must operate. If history serves us well, most crises will arise on short notice and in areas for which detailed planning has not taken place. The opposition will deny us the best landing beaches, and we will generally encounter poorly developed infrastructure. Major populated areas will contain the major ports, modern airfields, and supporting power grids. The ultimate complicating factor is that the climate is likely to be hostile and variable, with no clear opponents.9

Recent, rapid advances in technology have changed the nature of modern warfare and increased the demands on intelligence. To operate in this environment, the Navy and Marine Corps must employ a highly capable organization of intelligence and cryptologic personnel -- afloat and ashore -- closely linked to and integrated with other service, joint, and national intelligence operations. Understanding this environment is vital to ensure that Marine Corps and Navy forces have the intelligence force structure and equipment that will allow rapid movement of information and collection assets to best support Naval Expeditionary Forces.

Threats Across the Spectrum of Conflict

Although the Soviet threat has evaporated, the likely areas of Marine Corps contingency operations have not changed radically. When President John Adams signed An Act for Establishing and Organizing a Marine Corps' on 11 July 1798, the mission of the Marine Corps included "any ... duty on shore as the president, at his discretion, shall direct."10 In reality, the operational focus has been primarily on Third World countries.

In the coming decade, conflict between states and among ethnic groups will be the status quo of international relations. The majority of these conflicts will be low intensity. There will be an expanding demand for humanitarian and peacekeeping operations as increasing populations stress limited global resources and inadequate foreign governments. Regional conflict driven by states with hegemonic ambitions remains possible and is the most likely route to high-intensity conflict or the use of weapons of mass destruction. All parties in a conflict may resort to terrorism as a tactic as the distinctions between combatant and noncombatant, soldier and peacekeeper, and military target and civilian target are increasingly blurred.11

Developing countries will employ large numbers of sophisticated, but cheap weapons, as countries sell their advanced weapons to help their economies. Highly lethal, information intensive weapons will be present at all levels of conflict. More and more nations will develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and appropriate delivery means. Nontraditional arms producers will challenge market leaders in many areas of conventional and advanced conventional weapon production. In essence, the third world threat is growing increasingly large and sophisticated. The days of gunboat diplomacy, when an embarked Marine Corps detachment could take over a country, are history.

Expeditionary Intelligence Requirements

Littoral warfare is nothing new to the Navy/Marine Corps team. The Marine/Navy team has efficiently executed national security policy throughout the world's littorals "since receiving their first test as a seagoing force-in-readiness when in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson ordered United States forces to quell unrest and protect American interests near VeraCruz, Mexico. The initial landing force consisted of a traditional mix of Marines and Navy bluejackets. "12 Today's military operations synchronize, joint, close and distant battles, and employ overwhelming combat power to quickly crush an enemy. Inherent in this, is the ability to integrate the tactical and operational intelligence picture for the Joint Force Commander that components can access during the decentralized execution of the operation.

Naval intelligence must be capable of supporting the Naval Force's ability to maneuver operationally from the sea. Naval intelligence "must be prepared to support amphibious operations during sustained operations ashore, while simultaneously supporting requirements of the ships, submarines, and aircraft that maintain battlespace dominance in the littoral area of operations."13 Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) puts a heavy burden on naval intelligence to identify enemy dispositions, critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity in a manner that will allow mission tailored assault echelons to exploit seams and gaps in the enemy defense. OMFTS requires a different mindset, not only operationally, but also from those who must plan and prosecute the intelligence battle. Over-the-horizon operations create tremendous demands for covert standoff intelligence collection capabilities that will support and not compromise the assault echelon's maneuver. Naval intelligence must provide timely, usable intelligence to units during the assault phase to allow rapid shifting of the main effort to exploit enemy vulnerabilities and monitor enemy reactions to that maneuver. This capability is as critical for the Navy as it is for the Marine Corps.14

As the hybrid service, the Marine Air Ground Task Force units operating with air, ground, and naval components, will require interoperable systems and a seamless intelligence picture. The MAGTF will also require an intelligence collection capability that will allow it to shift between components, act independently as a component, and act as a Joint Task Force headquarters. It must be "expeditionary:" able to be embarked aboard naval shipping or strategic airlift. It must be able to connect with national, service, theater, and fleet intelligence resources. It must have the capacity to provide a fused intelligence picture, graphically, to multiple subordinate elements, in an austere environment.

The identification of intelligence requirements for future littoral operations has been a vexing question for the Marine Corps and Navy intelligence leadership for the past decade. The Marine Corps led the intelligence community in identifying mission requirements when it published the Generic Intelligence Requirements Handbook in 1992 to standardize generic intelligence requirements for missions throughout the Marine Corps. This document promulgated frequently used Essential Elements of Information and Other Intelligence Requirements to facilitate rapid, time-sensitive, crisis planning for MAGTFs. It serves as a checklist to determine gaps in information; as a brevity code to request information; and finally as a baseline tool for intelligence centers providing operational intelligence to forward deployed naval units.15 This document, although helpful in determining information requirements for operational units, falls short of identifying personnel, equipment, and organizational requirements for intelligence to support the spectrum of Marine Corps operations.

The Challenge: Developing a "Naval" Intelligence Mindset

The chief issue facing the Marine Corps and Navy intelligence leadership is altering the divergent cultural mindset between the Navy and Marine Corps intelligence communities. Despite centuries of operating together, both services have developed their own intelligence cultures. This has resulted in a basic ignorance of each other's intelligence capabilities and requirements. There are some within the Marine Corps who believe that Marine Corps intelligence, because of its land war orientation, should sever its ties to the Navy and develop a closer relationship with the Army. In fact, although the Marine Corps is sending Second Lieutenants to the Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course, the Marine Corps ground intelligence officers are also attending the U.S. Army Basic Intelligence Officer Course, the Military Intelligence Officer Transition Course and the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course for their Military Occupational Specialty training. Likewise, the Navy intelligence community focused its intelligence effort on supporting the air, submarine, and surface warfare communities. Until recently, the Navy viewed amphibious force intelligence as a lower priority than aviation, surface and subsurface intelligence. This emphasis resulted in the assignment of "fast trackers" to choice billets on non-amphibious force staffs. It was not uncommon to see Fleet intelligence staffs that contained neither Marines nor resident Navy amphibious intelligence expertise. The result of this non-amphibious focus was Fleet intelligence officers that did not understand the significant intelligence requirements of amphibious operations or the capabilities resident within units such as a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (MEU(SOC)).

This divergent mindset is less apparent within the deploying Amphibious Readiness Groups from both coasts. In a typical deploying unit, the Marine Corps intelligence team usually consists of an analysis section, a Radio Battalion detachment, a counterintelligence subteam, an interrogator-translator subteam, a topographic platoon detachment, a Force Imagery Interpretation Unit detachment, and a Force Reconnaissance platoon. The Radio Battalion detachment operates the Navy cryptologic spaces while deployed. In contrast the Amphibious Squadron (PHIBRON) intelligence section may consist of the PHIBRON intelligence officer and cryptologic officer, augmented by the ship's intelligence officer and the Tactical Air Control Squadron intelligence officer. At best there may also be two or three intelligence specialists along to support the PHIBRON Commander. At this level, there is good cross-pollination of intelligence capabilities, although the PHIBRON intelligence staffs require additional expeditionary warfare training and exposure to the Marine Corps prior to deployment. There are two reasons the MEU and PHIBRON combination works well. First, both intelligence sections undergo the same predeployment training that familiarizes both with each other's operational capabilities and limitations. Second, the focus of both intelligence sections is also on the same mission, namely littoral warfare. This single mission focus is essential to developing a common mindset within both service intelligence communities that will allow them to operate with a common understanding of each other's capabilities. At the senior Navy intelligence ranks, there is little appreciation of "across the beach," traditional amphibious intelligence requirements. This is not the result of a conscious effort to dismiss littoral operations, rather it is the lack of an amphibious warfare background.

During a recent congressional visit to both Atlantic and Pacific Navy and Marine Corps intelligence commands, it was evident that since the articulation of "...From the Sea," many senior Navy officers are trying to reorient themselves to littoral warfare, but their lack of expertise was hampering their understanding of littoral warfare requirements.16 This revolutionary change of mindset will take a generation to take complete hold. It is imperative that the senior leadership of the Navy/Marine Corps intelligence team ensure that their subordinates receive a "naval" intelligence education, and that those entering the intelligence field today grow up with the expeditionary naval spirit that will allow them to bridge psychologically the gap of parochialism. Inculcating this spirit during the very early stages of an intelligence officer's career will help later when required to work as part a joint team. An initial step in blending Navy/Marine Corps intelligence mindsets is the merging of intelligence education and the development of doctrine that defines naval intelligence and outlines its enduring principles. Ideally, the Marine Corps Major and Navy Lieutenant Commander Marine and Navy intelligence officers would be interchangeable as staff officers, both equally conversant on the other's requirements and capabilities.

There are three interrelated levels at which Naval intelligence must operate: tactical, operational, and service levels. There are many branches to each of these levels and I will try to identify some critical areas in which naval intelligence can benefit.

Improving "Naval" Intelligence

The area in which there is most concern, and where the Marine Corps tends to concentrate, is at the tactical level. There has been journeyman work done during the past two years to begin the process to correct deficiencies at the tactical level, but it is not within the scope of this paper to examine each in detail. Realizing that contingency operations will not wait until the intelligence field is healthy, Marine Corps intelligence, must be able to leverage the capabilities of the national, theater and other Service intelligence organizations in the interim, to provide state-of-the-art intelligence support at the tactical level.

The major tactical deficiency within the FMF is the lack of personnel and intelligence collection capabilities. The Marine Corps is currently 106 intelligence officers short of its authorized strength. Joint intelligence billets receive manning priority. This manifests itself in severe personnel shortages within the intelligence billets of the operational forces. How can the Marine Corps provide an interim solution to this shortage? One answer could be to arrange with the other services -- the Army, Navy, and to a lesser extent, the Air Force -- to provide officers to fill vacant billets within the FMF. There are currently Navy intelligence officers acting as S-2s of fixed wing Marine Corps squadrons and the Navy offered the Marine Corps up to fifty intelligence officers to fill existing personnel shortfalls at various levels within the FMF.17 Reminiscent of the past bias against amphibious billets, a number of mid-grade Navy intelligence officers view assignments within a Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) to be the "kiss of death" for their careers. As one Navy intelligence officer pointed out, "They want to send me into a job with no experience and no tools to do a good job... we'll get chewed up and spit out. " This is a valid concern for the Navy intelligence officers. That being said, the recent naval operations off Haiti highlight the need for increased Navy intelligence awareness of ground requirements. According to the Naval Task Group N-2,

getting ground expertise for the Joint Task Group emerged as a top priority when the Marines went ashore. We lacked ground smart personnel who could help us understand what our Marines, SEALs, and aviators would be dealing with over the beach. We lacked fundamental knowledge of how ground forces are organized, communicate, fight and move. This is critical to understanding how the enemy will react, use the geography, fight; how to pick ground targets that count; and anticipate intelligence requirements that our people will need when they cross the beach.18

Whether it is an F- 14 flying aerial reconnaissance for 24th MEU(S OC) during Operation Provide Comfort, or P-3 Reef Point aircraft flying reconnaissance missions for I MEF during Operation Restore Hope, Marines must understand naval intelligence collection capabilities, and Navy staffs must understand Marine Corps requirements.

Although there are similarities between Marine Corps and Navy intelligence requirements, there is much more commonalty of requirements between the Army and the 13 Marine Corps. Both services have a land warfare focus to support their ground commanders with common priorities. Both possess helicopters and despite the propensity of the Marine Corps to view the Army as a bogeyman trying to steal its mission, there are many capabilities that Army intelligence can provide that the Marine Corps is lacking. According to the Army Focus '94, "Army intelligence will support Force XXI by reshaping intelligence to power projection needs. The Force XXI intelligence system will be flexible ... comprehensive and seamless from tactical to national level."19 A close relationship with the Army at the tactical level, including the exchange of personnel and the development of Memorandums of Agreement, could significantly enhance the MAGTFs ability to provide intelligence. It would also allow the MAGTF Commander and subordinate units to operate smoothly with adjacent Army units and exploit their significant intelligence collection capabilities during joint operations.

Operational Intelligence

Operational intelligence support traditionally provided by the Navy's Fleet Intelligence Centers declined when they became Joint Intelligence Centers (JIC), providing joint intelligence for theater operations. That being said, recent events in Haiti and Rwanda suggest that the JICs are improving their support to deployed naval units and are now capable of providing operational intelligence support on demand. Even cross-CinC requirements, such as in Rwanda, were relatively seamless in their execution and provision of JIC intelligence support.20 The major concern is whether the Marine Corps will receive its fair share of support during large scale operations where the Marine Corps is not the only game in town. How can the Navy and Marine Corps improve the support they are getting from the joint intelligence community?

One of the identified deficiencies of Marine Corps intelligence is the ability to provide component intelligence support.21 In this era of declining resources, the Marine Corps will be able to provide the required personnel and connectivity to support component requirements fully. Component functions during war require significantly more manpower than during peacetime. Various studies have recommended between a fifty and seventy man increase in the component intelligence staff during wartime. The 1991 Force Structure Planning Group recommended that non-Fleet Marine Force sources battlestaff the remainder and that the reserves backfill positions vacated by the non-FMF augmentees.22 Since then, leaders have suggested other possibilities including global sourcing to fill the required positions. The Marine Corps used this global sourcing during Operation Restore Hope, when the 1st Marine Division used Quantico-based intelligence personnel to augment the Marine Forces (MARFOR) Somalia intelligence staff. Although they performed superbly, there is a more permanent solution: provision of a centralized component intelligence support capability with the equipment and personnel designated to augment a MARFOR G-2. The Navy/Marine Corps could centralize this instantly deployable capability, consisting of both Navy and Marine Corps intelligence personnel, active and reserve, at the National Maritime Intelligence Center, and weave them into operations and training. This capability would be responsive to the component's requirements, would require fewer personnel than completely manning all component intelligence sections, and would be capable of taking maximum advantage of Joint Task Force, Joint Intelligence Center, and National/Service intelligence capabilities.

Service Intelligence

At the Service level, the Marine Corps must address three areas: the supporting establishment, Headquarters Marine Corps staff and the service intelligence activity. This level is perhaps the least understood and most difficult to address. It is also one of the most important areas of intelligence, for without representation at this level, the joint world will not address naval intelligence requirements within the joint environment. Without support from this level, the tactical forces will not be prepared or equipped to fight the next conflict. Although the focus of the Marine Corps is at the tactical level, it is imperative that it allocate adequate resources at the service level to focus joint intelligence programs and allow the proper leveraging of national and other service intelligence capabilities to support the tactical consumer. Resource allocation in this area is the key to exploiting developing capabilities provided by the revolution in military affairs. With most intelligence programs being developed jointly, it is imperative that the Marine Corps and the Navy have smart people at the Service intelligence level that are able to articulate naval operational intelligence requirements.

The supporting establishment, for the purposes of this paper, is that level within the Marine Corps that provides professional military education, doctrine development, training, requirement management, and force modernization. These areas are critical to the well-being of Marine Corps intelligence. Recent Marine Corps studies have identified critical shortfalls within all segments of the supporting establishment. 23

Doctrine Development. The recent development of the Naval Doctrine Publication on intelligence, NDP-2, involved Marine intelligence officers, making the publication truly "naval. " If the Office of Naval Intelligence is serious about developing a closer working relationship with the Marine Corps, this is one way of making it happen. There is no such relationship when writing Marine Corps intelligence doctrine. If the Marine Corps wants a truly integrated intelligence effort, it should begin at this level, where all intelligence doctrine is a fused Naval intelligence doctrine, possibly subsets of NDP-2, Naval Intelligence.

Professional Military Education. Our professional military education creates a perception of intelligence that lasts an entire career. Educational institutions such as the Marine Corps' Amphibious Warfare School, and Command and Staff College, and the Navy's Naval War College must include classes on the capabilities and limitations of naval intelligence.

Likewise, the Navy/Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center (NMITC) at Dam Neck, Virginia, is the focal point of Navy and Marine Corps occupational specialty education for intelligence. Although the Navy and Marine Corps elements at NMITC operate as essentially separate entities, there has been a concerted effort by the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Directors to integrate training capabilities better. Although neither service possesses the staffs required to provide integrated training complete with a Mobile Training Team (MTT) capability, the Marine Corps Directorate teaches about two man years of Navy intelligence classes each year. These include courses such as Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course, Expeditionary Warfare Intelligence, Joint Task Force courses, and Reserve courses. Navy instructors also provide Marine Corps intelligence systems instruction. A joint MTT, consisting of Navy and Marine Corps instructors recently provided instruction to the Marine Corps Command and Control Systems Course at Quantico. NMITC is also developing the MAGTF Advanced Intelligence Officer course that would be ideal to familiarize Navy intelligence officers with MAGTF intelligence. If the Navy and Marine Corps want to get serious about providing integrated state-of-the-art naval intelligence instruction, NMITC staffing levels must increase.

This leads us, finally, to other service intelligence officers who are attending Marine Corps Service schools such as Amphibious Warfare School and Command and Staff College. Having these officers serve follow-on tours in appropriate Marine Corps intelligence billets where the Marine Corps could use their expertise, would help clear the fog of understanding other service intelligence capabilities. They could also assist in the development of coherent intelligence doctrine, or make smart interoperability choices for intelligence systems acquisition, professional military education instruction, and training at such places as the Marine Air Ground Training Center, 29 Palms, California and Marine Air Weapons and Tactics Squadron at Yuma, Arizona. This could also include assigning Marines attending the Naval War College to Fleet duties after graduation. Understanding these numbers will not be large, the most logical course of action is to locate these personnel at key billets within the Marine Corps. This brings us to Service level intelligence support within the Marine Corps.

Service Intelligence Policy. The Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) intelligence staff is responsible for the development and implementation of Marine Corps intelligence policy, including budgetary submissions for Marine Corps intelligence. It accomplishes this through the Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C41) Department. The Intelligence division is responsible for providing current intelligence and policy development through each of the Signals Intelligence, Imagery Intelligence, Human Intelligence, and Special Activities branches. Similarly, the Director of Naval Intelligence Staff within the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) carries out the same functions. Unlike the Director of Naval Intelligence, however, the Director of Marine Corps Intelligence is dual hatted as the C41 Department Head. As such, he is junior in rank to his other Service counterparts and has a very complex system to control intelligence personnel, money and equipment. In short, a separate Intelligence Department within Headquarters Marine Corps places Marine Corps intelligence in a better position both within Headquarters Marine Corps and with the Director of Naval Intelligence and his staff. A Major General, functioning solely as the Director of Intelligence should head the Department and reorient the intelligence field away from systems and toward the operational art.

An ideal time to implement this restructuring would be when the Marine Corps moves into the Pentagon, currently planned for 1997-98. This move would allow a closer coordination between the two staffs and offers an opportunity to have a truly naval intelligence effort at the service headquarters level. Although there are areas where the two services cannot realize any efficiencies by merging, there are others that can. The Director of Marine Corps intelligence agrees that headquarters of both the Marine Corps and the Navy should merge common functions. Merging the current intelligence function at both Navy and Marine Corps Headquarters will provide a more cohesive naval intelligence assessment, and increased productivity by merging the personnel of both staffs into one section.

Imagery policy and Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities are another area that would benefit from integration with the Navy. The Marine Corps currently splits the imagery function in the Marine Corps between HQMC and the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA). Policy and imagery collection requirements validation are the responsibility of the HQMC staff despite the location of a robust collection requirements management capability within ONI. An Expeditionary Warfare Intelligence Collection Requirements Office at the National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC), with Marine Corps and Navy representation, can manage all service-level intelligence collection requirements for exercise support and predeployment contingency planning. This Office could champion service-level intelligence collection issues at national-level fora. It would streamline collection requirements management and produce a more responsive product to the littoral warfighter.

Service Intelligence Budgeting. Each service accomplishes intelligence budgeting for both the Marine Corps and the Navy at the headquarters level. They group intelligence resources according to their function and/or purpose.

"Those that support national level missions are managed as part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP). The General Defense Intelligence Program (GDIP) is one of the subsets in the program that provides funds for theater and national intelligence support. Resources supporting the tactical missions of operational forces are known as Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (TIARA)."24

Budgets for GDIP and TIARA process through two distinctive resource management systems, each of which provide information used in the President's annual budget submission to Congress. The Marine Corps draws its intelligence funding from both sources. Although it is not within the scope of this paper to discuss the details of the intelligence budget, there are areas in which the Marine Corps can realize efficiencies and ensure adequate representation within the funding arena. The Marine Corps, although a separate service, must submit its funding requirements through the Navy staff. The majority of Marine Corps intelligence funding is within TIARA, although GDIP is becoming a larger source of funds for Marine Corps intelligence production requirements. As previously mentioned, two distinct management systems run the two programs.

The Intelligence Budget Office on the C41 staff manages Marine Corps TIARA funding. The HQMC staff coordinates with, and submits annual budget submissions through the Navy staff. The two services establish an integrated POM working group, jointly chaired by both the Navy and Marine Corps to iron out differences in program prioritization. The important thing is that the Marine Corps has recourse to any decisions. A very close working relationship has developed between the staffs, and there is daily interaction.25

Although TIARA budgeting appears to be working efficiently, the GDIP interaction between the Navy and Marine Corps staffs is not. The Navy GDIP staff handles Marine Corps GDIP requirements. In turn, the Navy submits their consolidated requirements through the GDIP staff functional managers at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). DIA functional managers rank all service requirements. During this process the Navy staff represents Marine Corps requirements. The Marine Corps was the only service not allowed representation. Obvious problems with this arrangement and concern at the highest levels of Marine Corps intelligence resulted in Marine representation being allowed this year. To highlight the problems experienced by the Marine Corps during the FY-96 GDIP submission, the Navy GDIP staff chose not to forward any of the new initiatives submitted by Marine Corps intelligence. Although the ongoing and base initiatives were met, the new initiatives required Congressional intervention to support the Marine Corps' requirements.26 This is clearly an example of why Marines must represent Marine Corps interests. Although the Marine Corps cannot afford the large contracting staff required to execute the GDIP budget, it does require adequate representation on both the Navy and DIA GDIP staffs. The Navy and Marine Corps must integrate their approach, similar to the process currently used within TIARA.

Service Intelligence Production. The largest growth area within Marine Corps intelligence during the past few years has been at the service intelligence production center, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA). The original conception of MCIA was to provide intelligence support to the Marine Corps under service Title X responsibilities; to train and equip the force. According to its mission statement,

"Under the operational supervision of the Director of Intelligence, HQMC/ Associate Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, ONI, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity will provide tailored intelligence and services which: support the Commandant of the Marine Corps and his staff in his role as the Marine Corps member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, support the development of service unique doctrine, force structure, training and education, and acquisition policy and programming; and support Fleet Marine Force contingency planning and other requirements for intelligence products which are not satisfied by either theater, other service, or national research and analysis capabilities. Ensure that all supported elements of the service receive timely and concise intelligence which emphasizes the threat, terrain, and other considerations specifically pertinent to the mission of the Marine Corps and which are applicable to areas of the world in which the Marine Corps can expect to conduct expeditionary operations."27

This includes support to the supporting establishment, the HQMC staff, through the intelligence division, C4I and other service specific requirements from the Fleet Marine Forces. MCIA, in concert with the HQMC staff, is responsible for representing Marine Corps interests at a variety of national intelligence fora, particularly in the areas of Mapping Charting and Geodesy and intelligence production management. The largely civilian intelligence professional workforce has accomplished this with a fraction of the numbers used by the other services. The decision to man the Service activity primarily with civilians and funding almost entirely from GDIP was the result of a conscious effort not to rob intelligence structure or funding from the already depleted operating forces.

MCIA, being closely engaged with HQMC, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the national intelligence community, is in a unique position to leverage both national and service intelligence capabilities. It can be the bridge between the national and service intelligence level, the component level, and the tactical level. To accomplish this, MCIA colocated one production division with the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, and another at the National Maritime Intelligence Center, with the Office of Naval Intelligence. There are also plans to collocate MCIA personnel at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Air Force's National Aerospace Intelligence Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. This will allow the Marine Corps to leverage all functional areas of Service intelligence support without a major personnel investment.

The Navy and Marine Corps can integrate some functions within the Service intelligence activities, MCIA and ONI, without compromising the integrity of either intelligence effort. Under the current organization, the Director of the MCIA also serves as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Marine Corps Matters, on the staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence.

The MCIA Expeditionary Warfare Support Division, located at the National Maritime Intelligence Center, is responsible for predeployment and exercise support, in coordination with the theater Joint Intelligence Centers, to Fleet Marine Force units prior to deployment, as well as support to Service training exercises such as the Combined Arms Exercises and Weapons Tactics Instructor training. This organization also maintains a close relationship with the Joint intelligence community, particularly the theater Joint Intelligence Centers to ensure that it expeditiously handles Marine Corps requests for operational intelligence support.

Various divisions within ONI also provide the same functions for Navy units. The Navy has organized ONI by warfare community to provide intelligence support to the warfighter. Segregated into warfare fiefdoms, it reflects the Cold War organizations of the past. SPEAR analyzes threats to aircraft and ships, SABER analyzes threats to ships and special forces, and SWORD analyzes threats to ground forces. This organizational approach reflects a mentality that has not come on-line with the single joint battle approach to littoral warfighting. Although the Chief of Naval Operations reorganized his staff to better support "Forward ... From the Sea," ONI has not modified its analytical organizational structure.25 The Navy should consolidate these branches with the MCIA Expeditionary Warfare Support Division to combine the littoral warfare analytical expertise of the two Services. This consolidation would focus effort on supporting expeditionary warfare intelligence requirements of both services. It allows the services to prepare properly their operational forces for deployment to designated theaters and permits service level intelligence assets to fulfill any gaps in intelligence that the theater JIC cannot fulfill promptly.

This integrated approach would also encourage the exploration and development of emerging intelligence capabilities to provide state-of-the-art intelligence support to tactical forces. ONI accomplished this and MCIA executed it during Operation Restore Hope, when ONI/MCIA ensured the Joint Deployable Intelligence Information System deployed to support I MEF in Somalia. ONI has also developed state-of-the-art intelligence capabilities in digital camera technology and specialized mobile communications vans and support teams to support the expeditionary warfighter. They have successfully tested these capabilities at the Marine Air Ground Combat Center, 29 Palms, California, during littoral warfighting exercises. It is this integrated focus of effort that is critical to improving the intelligence support the expeditionary warfighter requires.

As addressed above, the National Maritime Intelligence Center is the ideal location for the establishment of a flyaway, component intelligence augmentation capability. It could consist of appropriately trained active duty and reserve Marine Corps and Navy personnel. This "reach-back" intelligence capability corrects the existing deficiency in component intelligence support. The ability of a joint Marine Corps and Navy flyaway component support team directly accessible to the significant assets of the National Maritime Intelligence Center is the most cost effective and efficient way to support the expeditionary warfighter.

Reserve Intelligence Support.

The Reserve establishment of both services provides the active forces with unique

intelligence capabilities such as foreign language proficiency, foreign area expertise, intelligence analysis, and civilian work experience. It is essential that the Reserves educate and train their intelligence personnel to active duty intelligence standards. They can easily blend this training with the intelligence production requirements of the active force. Recently, the Secretary of Defense issued guidance to the services to establish an integrated program to ensure the Reserve Military Intelligence Force will be able to meet effectively the peacetime-through-mobilization requirements of the Unified Combatant Commands, the Joint Staff, the military departments, and national intelligence agencies.29 The Naval Reserve Intelligence Program (NRIP) provides this skill level for the Navy. The Marine Corps is developing a similar program, which it will call the Marine Corps Reserve Intelligence Program (MCRIP). NRIP consists of 119 units at 74 sites. ONI participation within the NRIP consists of 32 units and over 1,100 reservists. The focus of these units is on intelligence production to their assigned commands.

Although the NRIP is responsive to Marine Corps tasking requirements and relies on HQMC to set production requirements, it has not received any Marine Corps requirements, highlighting the Marine Corps' ineptness at taking full advantage of the capabilities offered by the program. NRIP officers have complained that the Marine Corps cannot manage their NRIP assets and uses only 50 per cent of their available capability.30

There has been a very large investment by the ONI in establishing secure facilities and communications connectivity for NRIP, and it would be common sense for the Marine Corps to establish an adjunct program and collocate its assets with the NRIP wherever feasible. Current plans to establish connectivity between proposed MCRIP units at Camp Pendleton, Quantico, New Orleans, and Aurora, Colorado is proceeding and should provide additional connectivity and interoperability with NRIP units. This would negate the need for an additional program, minimize the need for additional Reserve management structure, and use an already existing and highly successful architecture to support the active duty force. Although the program will assist the Marine Corps Director of Intelligence in executing assigned responsibilities pertaining to the management, coordination, and oversight of the program requirements about the reserve component, there is no need to have the senior Marine physically located at HQMC. The heavy emphasis of intelligence production in the program suggests it should be collocated with the NRIP staff and managed by MCIA.

Naval Intelligence for the New Millenium

For the past two hundred years, the Navy/Marine Corps intelligence team has supported combat operations, nation building and peacekeeping operations worldwide. The evolving reorientation of the Navy's warfighting focus on littoral warfare mandates an integrated approach by both the Navy and Marine Corps intelligence communities. This change in Navy focus presents opportunities for the Marine Corps to enhance its intelligence capabilities and take advantage of the vast resources resident within the Navy's intelligence community. The Navy can also benefit by making use of the land warfare orientation of the Marine Corps to improve its focus on littoral warfare.

If we are to move into the 21 st century as a naval intelligence team, we must adapt the tools and procedures we have developed over the years to support operational maneuver from the sea with intelligence that is both timely and pertinent to the mission. We must develop a naval intelligence mindset of naval expeditionary warfare that uses the principles of maneuver warfare in the maritime environment and emphasizes joint interoperability. This mindset must drive the force structure, training and education, and the support infrastructure. Both services are making great improvements in coordination and interoperability, but there can be further efficiencies. When we think as one, we will act as one. Our goal should be to develop a "naval" intelligence officer who, regardless of service, be it Navy or Marine, is fully qualified to carry out duties as either the Director of Naval Intelligence or the Director of Marine Corps Intelligence; for when this happens, we will truly be naval intelligence ... from the sea.

1 The White House, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement

(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), 6-7.

2 Department of the Navy, Forward ... From the Sea (Washington: n.p., n.d.), 1.

3 Major General P.K. Van Riper, Director of Marine Corps Intelligence, interview

by author, Washington, D.C., 22 March 1995.

4 James R. Clapper, Jr., "Challenging Joint Military Intelligence," Joint Force

Quarterly 5 (Spring 1994): 95.

5 PRC Inc., Mission Area Analysis for Intelligence Study, Final Report

(Woodbridge, Va: 1994), ES-2 and ES-3.

6 Major General P.K. Van Riper, The Plan to Revitalize Marine Corps Intelligence

(Washington: August 1994).

7 Emmett Paige, Jr., "Re-engineering DoD's C3I Operations," Defense '93, no. 6

(1993): 16.

8 The United States Senate, Unification of the War and NM Departments and

Postwar Organization for National Security (Washington: U.S. Government Printing

Office, 1945), 163.

9 Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Threats in Transition, Marine Corps

Mid-Range Threat Estimate 1995-2005 (Quantico, Va.: Marine Corps Base Quantico

Field Print Office, 1994), 40-42.

10 Jack Murphy, History of the U.S. Marines (New York: Exeter Books, 1984), 18.

11 Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Threats in Transition, Marine Corps

Mid-Range Threat Estimate 1995-2005 (Quantico, Va.: Defense Printing Service), 1-14.

12 Thomas C. Linn and C.P. Neimeyer, "Once and Future Marines," Joint Force

Quarterly 6 (Autumn/Winter 1994-95), 49.

13 Department of the Navy, Naval Intelligence; NDP-2 (Norfolk Va. 1994), 49

14 Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Draft Marine Corps Concept of

Operational Maneuver from the Sea (Quantico, Va: April 1993), 15-28.

15 Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Generic Intelligence Requirements Handbook

(Quantico, Va.: 1993).

16 Richard J. Raftery, Trip Report: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Staff

Delegation Trip (February 1994), 1-2. This observation was based on comments made by

numerous senior Navy and Marine Corps Officers during the trip.

17 Commander D. Armstrong, Office of Naval Intelligence Staff (N20), memorandum to C4I Division, Headquarters Marine Corps; "USN/USMC Intelligence Support," Washington D.C., November, 1994.

18 Commander H. Stein, Office of Naval Intelligence Staff (N20), memorandum to

C4I Division, Headquarters Marine Corps; "USN/USMC Intelligence Support,"

Washington D.C., November, 1994.

19 Department of the Army, Army Focus Force XXI, (Washington D.C. 1994), 39.

20 Major D. Gran, Intelligence Officer, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, interview by author, Quantico, Virginia, 10 February 1995.

21 Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Intelligence Study Group

Report-1993 (Quantico, Va.: 1993), Appendix 6.

22 Ibid.

23 PRC Inc., Section 5.

24 Joint Military Intelligence Training Center, An Intelligence Resource Manager's

Guide (Washington D.C.: 1993), xxi.

25 Lieutenant Colonel K. Harbin, Senior Budget Officer, C4I Division, Headquarters

Marine Corps, interview by author, Washington D.C., 9 December 1994.

26 Mr. S. Foster, Marine Corps GDIP Program Manager, interview by author,

Quantico, Virginia, 20 February 1995.

27 Commandant of the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity Table of

Organization 7451 (Washington D.C.: May 1993).

28 Office of Naval Intelligence Organizational Chart, April 1994.

29 Office of the Secretary of Defense, "Implementation Plan for Improving the

Utilization of the Reserve Military Intelligence Force", (December, 1994), 10.

30 Raftery, 6-7. This observation was based on comments made by Capt McLeod,

NRIP Executive Officer.

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