After donning its helmet and flack jacket and becoming a soldier in the global war on terrorism, naval intelligence now must return to its post. With new direction and the constraints naval operators are encountering, it is paramount that naval intelligence supports its operators in an unprecedented way. In an article on NBCSanDiego.com on 5 June 2003, the new mode of operation is laid out clearly:
In the future, deployment schedules and patterns will be less predictable. Gone will be the longstanding practice of putting a carrier into six months of maintenance after it returns from an overseas deployment, followed by 12 months of progressively more demanding training of sailors.1
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vern Clark has warned that the days of standard six-month deployments are long gone. Yet despite his redirection toward more short-fused tasking, ad hoc and surge operations, and a "sleep with your boon dockers on" mentality, naval intelligence has not readjusted to meet the demands of its operators. This needs to be the catalyst for redirecting how naval intelligence should support its operators. For naval intelligence to reach the highest levels of effectiveness and efficiency, a more symbiotic relationship must be fostered between the theater intelligence centers, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and its operators.
* Problem 1: Lack of Theater Support. As most junior sailors can attest, the intel support carrier strike groups (CSGs) and expeditionary strike groups (ESGs) receive in theater is insufficient. Rather than plugging in to theater command for all things intelligence, CSGs and ESGs are being tapped as an intelligence resource for their theaters. This is not to say it should be a one-way street from theater to the CSG/ESG. By virtue of the CSG's/ESG's operations and geographic location, they should be tapped as theater's most valuable operational intelligence collector, but they should not be expected to be self-sufficient.
* Problem 2: ONI's Unavailability. Another problem is ONI's availability. Its name implies the hub of fused and centralized naval intelligence. All theater intelligence centers should work hand in hand with ONI, and ONI should be the metaphorical senior intelligence officer that mentors, guides, and provides the best fused intelligence on any given maritime matter. Although the brainpower and knowledge base within ONI is unequivocal and unsurpassed, it rarely gets past the organization's gates. Occasionally and on demand, the knowledge base will make its way to the Pentagon and the decision makers. But ONI support during deployment is essentially nonexistent. ONI's utility to operators does not seem to extend beyond being the customer service center for its merchant vessel database and search engine. In addition, ONI is one more command the operators need to appease with support.
* Problem 3: Not Using Operators as Collectors. Another significant problem is not streamlining or standardizing how operators collect. Each CSO/ESG that enters theater becomes the. theater expert on operational intelligence-the daily routine maritime operations of nearby countries. Unfortunately, that six-month wealth of knowledge seems to outchop with the carrier or large-deck amphib instead of being turned over to theater command or being passed to the incoming CSG/ESO. The seemingly mundane daily operational intelligence is critical in developing trend analyses. It allows on-board analysts to more accurately decipher between routine operations and hostile operations. The information collected by the previous deployer can provide the incoming, inexperienced CSG/ESG with a point of reference. Unfortunately, the point of reference goes to homeport on board the homebound deployer.
Combining these problems with the CNO's redirection of ad hoc, unpredictable tasking magnifies the problem. At least under the previous mode of operation, CSGs/ESGs had an established time to prepare for deployment. Within some degree of certainty, CSG/ESG commanders knew where they were going, when they were heading there, and how long they would be staying. It seemed feasible that an inexperienced intelligence crew on a carrier or large-deck amphib could be fully operational on station without its theater's intelligence support. But those days have been jettisoned overboard. Expecting insufficiently trained and inexperienced intelligence teams to go into theater on short notice and be self-sufficient is preposterous, unnecessary, and unsafe, especially when the theater intelligence center is in the most favorable position to provide support.
Proposed Solution
Every CSG/ESG that enters theater should be able to plug in to and breathe from the theater's air supply. On entering theater, the various theater intelligence centers should temporarily embark a representative on board the flagship of the incoming CSG/ESG. In addition to giving a general indoctrination, the representative should provide various products. The CSGs/ESGs should receive several CD-ROMs with the most updated information regarding threat countries in the present theater: orders of battle, IPB (intelligence preparation of the battle space) briefs, threat country briefs, collection support briefs, and anything else that might be useful for operating safely in theater. Until now, the responsibility for these products has fallen largely on the deployed CSGs/ESGs. While some of these products are available through the theaters' Web sites, they often are not current enough for operational dependence. While there is something to be said about the training that will come from having the shipboard personnel create those types of products, the luxury of time to produce them may be a thing of the past.
Theater command should provide the CSGs/ESGs with standard templates for them to fill out as they collect operational intelligence. The CSGs/ESGs then could enter gathered information on a theater-provided template, which the theater command can incorporate quickly into its databases and products and pass along to the next CSG/ESG. The CSGs/ESGs then can implement and update the previously mentioned products and threat briefs with current information. In essence, the theater could become the custodian of theater intelligence products. As the custodian (which does not imply that they should be building the products from start to finish), they can touch up the products, extract certain information for their historical trend analyses, and pass them to the next CSG/ESG entering theater.
As for ONI, the problem will be corrected when a carrier intelligence officer who is preparing a brief before a dangerous strait transit can talk to ONI's subject matter expert (SME) on coastal defense cruise missile (CDCM) sites near that strait and ask some questions for clarification. The ability to efficiently tap into ONI and get data from the most qualified analyst currently is absent; a good communications system does not appear to be in place to make this the norm. A viable solution would be that when a new CSG/ESG is about to go on deployment, an ONI representative also gives a brief and provides the CSG/ESG with a robust schematic or spreadsheet with updated points of contact. Furthermore, realizing that most ONI SMEs are not on a 24-hour watch rotation, a system should be in place in which the ONI watch slanders, broken down by theater, can reach out to any of the organization's SMEs during off hours. This way, if a high-interest item comes up requiring information from the most qualified analyst, he or she is but a phone call or a CIP ("come in please" on chat) away.
ONI should try to capitalize on the collection capability of deployed vessels by providing them "fill in as you go" templates, which the vessels can return to ONI as they are returning home. ONI can incorporate the gathered information into its robust databases and products and make them easily available to the war fighters. While formal requests for information are available, the bureaucratic process is not timely enough to keep up with the operator's demands.
Although the theater's intelligence center should provide the most current and updated theater intelligence, the men and women on board the CSGs/ESGs should not enter theater empty-handed or unprepared. If time permits under the CNO's new guidance, onboard intelligence personnel should try to be self-sufficient. By building their own products, they will strengthen their knowledge base and be familiar with certain countries' daily operations and orders of battle when they enter theater. Entering theater cold, regardless of how much updated information and products that theater command provides, is a recipe for failure, as the products might be overwhelming if the shipboard intelligence crew has never seen them before.
Another problem that may arise from making the theater's intelligence support more robust relates to manning: more bodies likely will be required. It would seem logical to transfer the billets of the shipboard production cells to the theater intelligence centers. Intelligence support should be able to reside where it can be most effective: on land. The dividends that can result from ships receiving better intelligence support before going into harm's way cannot be overstated.
11 September 2001 happened. The intelligence community reacted. The global war on terrorism commenced. Naval operations was reshaped. It is time for naval intelligence to become aligned with naval operations in a way that will be most conducive and effective. With deployments occurring more unexpectedly and with less time to prepare, it is paramount that theater begins to take the helm for naval intelligence in their area of responsibility. It is time for the information inside the walls of the Office of Naval Intelligence to be readily available to the operational navy it supports.
1 http://www.nbcsandiego.com/new.s/2252050/detail.html.
Lieutenant Ona was a supplot watch officer on the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and the supplot officer and division officer on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.