The Navy’s Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers (JRICs) give U.S. Naval Intelligence a unique opportunity: The service could use them to develop a joint interagency platform to support global operations and strengthen the United States in great power competition. The JRICs’ primary purpose is to bolster Reserve Military Intelligence, but some of the centers have ample space to house capabilities to go well beyond that mandate.
Centers of the Action
The military’s 28 JRICs host 300 reserve component units that underpin multiple Combatant Commands, Combat Support Agencies, and Service Intelligence Centers. These reserve units provide valuable intelligence to the agencies they serve during steady-state and contingency operations such as those occurring during the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, the JRICs have the physical and information-technology infrastructure to sustain a larger intergovernmental footprint.
The U.S. Government’s Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 allows interagency organizations to send their employees to the JRICs to work from these sites. These intelligence centers are excellent locations to stage contingency and surge activities to buttress broader intelligence operations. Moreover, they could serve as critical assets for reach-back, distributed operations, and continuity of operations for intelligence organizations.
The Commander, Naval Information Forces Reserve, (CNIFR), maintains nine of the military's 28 JRICs. Leadership-screened lieutenant commanders run the centers on the admiral’s behalf as officers in charge (OICs). This differs from many non-Navy JRICs, where enlisted personnel, warrant officers, civilians, or junior officers manage the buildings. The OICs ensure the centers function well both for daily operations and during monthly reserve drill weekends. Some of the OICs also serve as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) operations officer (OPSO). In this capacity, they may sign limited memoranda with core tenants who support Reserve Military Intelligence, but also with non-core tenants from DoD or outside agencies.
These officers are responsible for balancing JRIC populations to ensure that Reserve Military Intelligence remains the primary focus. At the same time, OICs working in this dual capacity must keep any DIA-provisioned networks in working order to enable tenants to support their missions. OIC/OPSOs are thus well situated to lead in a joint and interagency setting and transform the JRICs to provide a unique capability that currently does not exist in the Intelligence Community.
Tradecraft Exchange
The JRICs have a history of augmenting support to various campaigns, from Operation Allied Force to operations tied to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. However, outside of significant military operations, exercises, and drill weekends, JRICs often remain quiet, with low use rates. The OICs could change this. They might begin working with CNIFR and DIA to recruit services and interagency organizations to fill seats at JRICSs when they are not being used for Reserve Military Intelligence. This would maximize the buildings’ potential.
Over the last 11 years, the JRICs in Detroit, New Orleans, Denver, and Minneapolis underwent renovations that added more than 50,000 square feet of classified workspace, making them ideal for a variety of functions. Furthermore, the centers in New Orleans and Millington, Tennessee, have such low use that they are nearly empty outside drill weekends. The JRICs offer a location away from the National Capital Region where interagency organizations could send their people to work on a focused issue—for example, they could house working groups. The OIC/OPSOs could lead the effort, collaborating with various interagency organizations to find a common mission set for their specific JRIC, then hosting teams to set up joint interagency task forces (JIATFs). These groups could copy the structure, albeit on a smaller scale, of JIATFs South and West.
Some JRICs are in areas that would not likely be a target in wartime, offering JIATFs or interagency groups resiliency and preventing lulls in critical production. These JRICs could also become joint interagency training centers by mandating that participating interagency organizations bring in training courses to educate their colleagues on tradecraft. The OICs could coordinate with the interagency organizations and Reserve Military Intelligence units to educate reservists on tactics, techniques, and procedures. Such cross-training opportunities could spur innovation and help devise new, more efficient methodologies resulting from exposure to different perspectives. Reserve Military Intelligence units and interagency personnel would expand their critical-thinking faculties and acquire new tradecraft.
Identifying New Functions for JRICs
These facilities offer the numbered fleets, air force, and army divisions excellent locations for coop sites in the event of war. Should an OIC/OPSO recruit elements from one or more of these services, they would coordinate among service staffs, the DIA, and CNIFR to obtain the appropriate approvals, funding, and computer accounts. The resident OICs know the JRICs’ capacity and could manage the workforce to maintain its primary focus. Ideally, the transient staffs would cooperate with reserve units already generating intelligence on their target set to mitigate any lull in production. The staffs could send active-duty cohorts to the JRICs to facilitate closer ties with Reserve elements during their two-week active-duty training. Advertising the JRICs' capabilities to service staffs and signing cooperative agreements are good first steps to raise awareness of these buildings and make use of their extended potential.
There are many ways to tap that potential, and the OICs are the perfect individuals to identify them. In concert with CNIFR and DIA, the OIC/OPSOs could recruit and coordinate multiple agencies to increase the centers’ usage and occupancy. Coordinating the establishment of JIATFs and associated training arrangements would be a major next step to increasing the centers’ role in the joint and interagency construct.
The next conflict will almost certainly require a whole-of-government approach. The Navy’s JRICs offer military and interagency organizations a platform to collaborate to create far-reaching and timely analysis to present to decision-makers.
