Naval Intelligence: Transforming to Meet the Threat
By Rear Admiral Richard B. Porterfield, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Proceedings, September 2005
The longest serving Director of Naval Intelligence reflects on the force's transformation since 9/11. It is stretched thin, he says, with personnel providing maritime analysis, embarked in carriers—like Intelligence Specialist Damon Jenkinson reviewing aerial reconnaissance imagery on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74)—and embedded with special operations forces.
This dedicated force—established in 1882 and now the nation's longest continuously operating intelligence service—is stretched thin as it balances enduring, traditional missions while transforming to support a Navy faced with emerging global threats. Despite recent rhetoric, our mission has never been clearer. I am convinced that naval intelligence is even more relevant in today's complex world than during the Cold War. We are an agile force supporting more warfare areas than at anytime in our history. The operational commanders who rely on timely, relevant, and predictive intelligence for combat operations have told me they are pleased with the intelligence we provide.
For relatively minimal investment, the Navy enjoys access to our nation's sizable intelligence apparatus and the experts with the knowledge and skills necessary to leverage the full spectrum of national and joint intelligence capabilities in direct support of naval operations. The total force of naval intelligence personnel (active/reserve/civilian) numbers roughly 7,700; fewer than 3,500 of these officers and sailors are on active duty. That is less than 1% of the Navy's total force. The Navy also pays less than half of the manpower costs for its intelligence force; the bulk of personnel funding is provided by the intelligence community outside of the annual Navy budget.
Our people specialize in integrating intelligence with operations, or more precisely, the art of "operationalizing intelligence," which is what distinguishes naval intelligence from other providers. We provide the Navy with a deep understanding of the threat from adversaries we are likely to encounter and our core mission is to ensure this understanding is fully integrated into naval operations and planning. It is a full-time endeavor, both afloat and ashore, with high stakes and a broad array of demanding customers. The relentless pace is aggravated by the requirement for shore-based analysts—whose tasks may be counterterrorism or weapons of mass destruction proliferation issues—to deploy to fill augmentation accounts for distant combatant commanders. When their detailers send them back to sea after such "shore duty," many opt to leave the service. Enough is enough, they say. We're working on that.
Admiral Vern Clark, recently retired Chief of Naval Operations, characterized intelligence generation as a new mission area. Certainly with the growing use of precision weapons since Desert Storm, recognition of the value of precise intelligence has increased. In the wake of 9/11 and recent combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is a growing understanding that actionable intelligence, the kind that allows us to predict precisely the enemy's next move and to direct offensive action, is essential.
At the heart of the Navy's transformation plan is the FORCEnet concept, designed to integrate all combat and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities throughout the battlespace. There is a perception that FORCEnet replaces intelligence, but nothing could be further from the truth. Today, as we build our future naval force into one enabled by network-centric capabilities, our Navy demands unprecedented levels of precise, predictive intelligence. This will require persistent intelligence-collection capabilities and highly trained people who can provide sustained intelligence analysis. The traditional, sequential intelligence cycle has given way to a dynamic environment where assignment, collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination are performed simultaneously to keep pace with combat operations.
The Enduring Role of Intelligence in Naval Warfare
Nearly half (46%) of active-duty intelligence personnel are afloat. Naval intelligence officers and enlisted intelligence specialists serve predominantly on board aircraft carriers and big-deck amphibious ships (LHAs and LHDs), manning the carrier intelligence and joint intelligence centers. Approximately 100 personnel serve with each carrier strike group and about 55 with each expeditionary strike group. Naval intelligence personnel are assigned directly to most carrier-based aviation squadrons and they are at sea within amphibious squadrons, destroyer squadrons, air wings, strike groups, and numbered-fleet staffs. They also are assigned to our shore-based operational P-3 and EP-3 squadrons worldwide. Finally, they are assigned to each of our SEAL teams.
Afloat, they provide direct support to multiple warfare commanders, supporting strike group decision makers with indications and warnings and adding significantly to the battlespace awareness of tactical commanders. They man positions in tactical flag command centers, supplementary plots, and expeditionary plots, for example, and make warning calls on tactical networks. Much of their value derives from forward presence in areas of current and potential crisis. This is as true today as at any time during the Cold War, and this operational intelligence function afloat remains an integral part of strike group operations.
Naval intelligence has long been heavily invested in naval aviation, most notably in targeting, a function that combines intelligence and operations planning. More broadly, intelligence personnel are embedded in all aspects of strike warfare: mission planning, pre-strike analysis and execution, post-strike analysis, and battle damage and combat assessment. They perform many of the same functions on board the amphibious assault ships of the expeditionary strike groups, including detailed situation development to assess and predict adversary actions ashore for embarked Marine Corps units. All of these functions afloat demand significant information-management skills—including an in-depth knowledge of collection sensors, processing systems, databases, decision aids, and supporting information networks—to deliver intelligence on time and in the right format.
Nearly a third (29%) of active duty intelligence personnel are assigned to joint billets. Officers and enlisted intelligence specialists serve predominantly in theater joint intelligence centers around the globe. Many are assigned directly to combatant commander's staffs, while others serve within combat support agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Young naval intelligence professionals discovered that Iraqi irregulars had taken over the Um Qasr port authority tugs and small boats and were loading explosives onto the oil terminals at Khor Al-Amaya and Mina Al-Bakr. This intelligence was one of several crucial factors that caused General Franks to advance the D-Day schedule by 24 hours and order the SEALs to secure the platforms. The oil terminals remained intact and the tanker AbQaiq came alongside at Mina Al-Bakr (above) to load oil in late June 2003.
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Naval intelligence officers either currently command or recently commanded the intelligence centers for Central, Pacific, European, Joint Forces, and Transportation Commands. They also occupy senior intelligence positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Naval officers currently hold the J-2 positions at the Pacific, Joint Forces, Transportation, and Northern Commands. Our most senior naval intelligence officer on active duty, Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, is Director, Defense Intelligence Agency. The remaining 25% of naval intelligence active duty personnel are assigned to shore-based Navy billets, including about 5% in pipeline training or instructor assignments. Naturally, nearly all of the civilian intelligence professionals are assigned to shore-based billets, the majority funded by the national intelligence community. Naval intelligence officers and enlisted intelligence specialists also serve ashore within fleet headquarters staffs at Norfolk, Virginia; Naples, Italy; Bahrain, and Pearl Harbor, as well as major staffs in Washington, D.C., including the Office of Naval Intelligence. Shore-based professionals form the core of our nation's intelligence capability. They satisfy not only Navy requirements, but also those of the broader defense and intelligence communities. They directly impact the defense acquisition process by providing analysis of both current and future threats, ensuring that our next-generation capabilities are able to counter and defeat those of potential adversaries. They provide in-depth understanding of foreign naval warfare and threat capabilities to advance effective operations. They possess extensive knowledge of the merchant shipping industry and are our nation's experts in the civil maritime arena; in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, they monitor and track maritime activity in support of our homeland security efforts.
The Growing Demand for Naval Intelligence
Since 9/11, national strategic priorities have shifted considerably, requiring the Navy to support small-scale contingency operations, such as peacekeeping and stability operations, in addition to traditional warfighting requirements. The service is also diversifying its capabilities to mitigate risk against the irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges that are part of the war on terror. The CNO recognizes that we must reduce the time necessary to move significant joint combat power anywhere around the globe, continue to develop precision weapons to maximize our capabilities, maintain continuous surveillances above and throughout the battlespace, and develop to the fullest measure of joint interdependency. Naval intelligence is integral to each of these areas.
The Director of Naval Intelligence is the FORCEnet co-lead with OPNAV N6/7 (warfare requirements and programs). We are making significant advances in the systems and networks that enable interoperability and increase our ability to share information. FORCEnet is the objective architecture and network infrastructure that will support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations in an operational environment characterized by distributed forces and network-centric operations and warfare. It will provide the technical means by which naval intelligence is managed as vital content that supports planning and combat. It is the vehicle that will enable transformation from today's intelligence capabilities to realization of the integrated ISR capability associated with the future warfighting requirements.
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