CSA's Focus Area 16: Actionable Intelligence.

In the January-March 2004 column in the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, we introduced the concept of "Actionable Intelligence" and gave a very broad description of the Army Focus Area process. Since then, we conducted a second review with the Army Chief of Staff (CSA) and began programming and executing our major concepts. We still face some challenges in gaining the necessary resources for this effort. As we execute the restructuring of our Army, it is important to remember that our nation is at war.

The threat we face today and for the extended future requires us to change our intelligence capabilities and business practices dramatically. We are no longer primarily focused on collecting against conventional threats. The new challenges with transnational terrorism, asymmetric warfare, and the increasingly real specter of weapons of mass destruction are the realities of today. Our adversaries are now empowered by the globalizing effects of technology, communications, media, international travel, worldwide computer networks, multinational corporations, commercial intelligence, and international financing. These new threats will engage us asymmetrically since challenging the United States conventionally is not a realistic option for any future adversary.

Transforming Intelligence Collection and Processing

To defeat this type of threat, we must transform our intelligence collection capabilities, and more importantly, we must improve our processing capabilities to separate relevant information from background clutter. This is a much more difficult task when fighting an asymmetric threat. The challenge becomes determining the identification of people who intend to do us harm, the structure and capabilities of their organizations, and their intentions in time to defeat them. Focus Area (FA) 16 Actionable Intelligence is the catalyst for the majority of the intelligence transformation initiatives within the overarching Army Campaign Plan.

The Army must be dominant across the full spectrum of operations, using deployable, modular force packages in support of a joint task force, including the capability to work with coalition, interagency, law enforcement, and non-governmental organizations. Our soldiers are the building blocks for that capability. To achieve that goal, the focus of our Intelligence Transformation is the soldier. All of our initiatives provide improved battlespace capabilities that connect better-trained soldiers to the network and enable them with knowledge from the global intelligence enterprise.

Enhanced Intelligence Capabilities At Every Level

First and foremost, intelligence transformation is about enhanced intelligence capabilities at every level, starting with the soldier. Given the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers are immersed in a dynamic operating environment. They are working within the indigenous communities, talking with the inhabitants, seeing and observing more relevant information than all of our combined technical intelligence sensors are collecting. As a result, in order to collect, integrate, and use this information, the Army is implementing the concept of "Every Soldier is a Sensor" (ES2). This concept involves two critical aspects:

* Train all soldiers better to observe and report on their environments and intelligence requirements.

* Train leaders on how to maximize reporting and collection by their soldiers in all capacities at all levels.

The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is implementing this concept through out our military education system. ES2 will help ingrain the concept of fighting for knowledge.

Task Force Modularity

Second, working closely with the concept of "Task Force Modularity," we have significantly improved battlespace capabilities by increasing intelligence collection and analytical capabilities within our new modular Maneuver Units of Action (MUA), and the Units of Employment (UE) echelons. These changes enable our Army to operate better in both the conventional and asymmetric environments. MUA analysis capabilities expand with the addition of an analysis platoon, an integration platoon, and additional analysts within the S2 sections. Additionally, human intelligence (HUMINT) collection teams are organic to the brigade and an S2x was added to the brigade S2 section to provide technical control and synchronize all counterintelligence and HUMINT in the brigade's area of responsibility. The MUA also has one tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platoon (Shadow 200), organic signals intelligence teams (Prophet), and other Joint enablers.

Leading the synchronization of these and other initiatives is FA Actionable Intelligence. The main thrust of FA Actionable Intelligence is to provide greater intelligence capabilities today and to institutionalize the capability for Army Intelligence to continue improving within a rapid spiral-development approach.

Critical Initiatives of FA 16

The six critical initiatives of FA Actionable Intelligence fundamentally change the way the Army thinks about and performs intelligence collection, analysis, production, and dissemination. Our focus is to transform both our analysts and software tools from Industrial Age processes aided by technology, to true Information Age processes that allow us to use advanced software tools to process, analyze, and visualize the vast amounts of information available today.

We need better data tools capable of processing millions of data elements and visually presenting this information to the analyst so that a human can see the relevant information contained in 200,000 messages rather than having to read and analyze each individual message. Some of these advanced tools, such as STARLIGHT, are in use today and are radically changing the way we do business. The six critical Actionable Intelligence initiatives encompass:

[] Tactical overwatch.

[] Interim Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A).

[] Pantheon Project.

[] Information Dominance Center (IDC).

[] Project Foundry.

[] Red-Teaming capability.

Tactical Overwatch will formalize a discrete, downward-focused mission task to support designated tactical forces during periods of low situational awareness and high vulnerability, particularly when on the move from fixed intelligence facilities with access to forward area and national collection, shared databases and advanced processing.

Fielding an Interim Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A). DCGS-A is already a Future Force Program of Record (POR) design scheduled for fiscal year 2008. We have begun accelerating DCGS-A to the field in a spiral-development approach. The Army is fielding interim DCGS-A fixed site capabilities to the theater intelligence brigades and groups and we are expanding this effort down to the maneuver battalion level.

Pantheon Project. This project's team of 10-12 elite, world-class individuals from business, academia, and government will rapidly develop and field new capabilities that solve our hardest technical problems, creating technological or procedural solutions for the enhancement of tactical through national intelligence echelons. These solutions will then rapidly spiral forward into the intelligence community and tactical units.

Information Dominance Center (IDC). The IDC is a state-of-the-art operational intelligence organization that rapidly leverages national, theater, and tactical reporting to establish threat association and linkages; recognize threshold events, activities patterns, and anomalies; and aid understanding of the significance of information "buried" within large volumes of collected material.

Project Foundry places a percentage of our tactical intelligence soldiers into ongoing live-environment intelligence operations that provide better technical and regional expertise. Project Foundry will include soldiers from almost every MI military occupational specialty (MOS).

Red Teaming Capability will integrate an ability to see ourselves as the enemy sees us in order to holistically assess proposed Blue force operations from an adversary perspective, identify weaknesses, and develop mitigating solutions.

What Is Next?

The focus of Intelligence Transformation is providing optimized intelligence support to the one who needs the information the most--the soldier. We are effecting this change primarily through the improved changes in our new modular units and the improved capabilities and processes the intelligence community brings to the fight as a vertical enabler.

In the next issue of MIPB, we will discuss how the six critical Actionable Intelligence initiatives are complementary enablers of our tactical forces and nested within our Nation's joint and expeditionary capabilities. The fall issue and this column will provide a detailed explanation of our new modular MI force structure.

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Iwicki is currently assigned to the Army G2 and serving as the Deputy Director of Task Force Actionable Intelligence (TF-AI). Readers may contact him via E-mail at [e-mail] and telephonically at [phone].

Actionable Intelligence provides commanders and soldiers a high level of shared situational understanding, delivered with the speed, accuracy, and timeliness necessary to operate at their highest potential and conduct successful operations.

--Headquarters, Department of the Army G2