Expansibility and Army Intelligence

Rose, Thanks for posting. Great article and I tip my hat to the effort. Like many other low-density, high-demand skill sets, one of the great challenges for mobilizing the reserve component military intelligence community is maintaining readiness through meaningful home station training. MOS/SSI qualification at the schoolhouses or through mobile training teams only gets units so far. Even more challenging for units with operational and strategic level mission sets, unit leaders often spend as much or more time establishing meaningful training venues than their units can actually spend training. One option for MI skills maintenance and unit training that was recently in development is employing the MI federation of USAR and ARNG units distributed throughout the force in tackling project work needed to fill shortfalls at the geographic combatant commands (GCCs). Brokers within the MI community could manage a database of GCC sponsored project initiatives. Participating MI units could then sign up to contribute to support of those projects as they fit their collective training needs – potentially with GCC provided man-day funding to enable reserve component units to increase their participation level. I do caution against the planning assumption – and common mis-conception – that the National Guard would be mobilized first to support homeland security and defense missions and second to support expeditionary requirements. The National Guard does have a core mission to support emergency response events on behalf of their governors; however, they are still part of the total force and, once federalized, their low-density units are often some of the first enablers to deploy. Additionally, because their units are mobilized within the close-knit support structures of their individual states, the National Guard is often able to cross-level in house to fill unit manning and equipment shortages much faster than the USAR. Let me know if you’re interested in more information about the federated MI project work as a training venue. I have a POC that may be able to provide some leads to your training team. Cheers, - Keith

Rose - I enjoyed reading your article and commend you for taking on such a challenging topic. Allow me to throw out a radical thought/question for your consideration. Are we currently organizing our Military Intelligence Corp to create leadership and command positions, over a streamlined functional organization that focuses on collection and analysis at the expense of platoons, companies, battalions and brigades? I question this form of organization for my former specialty of human intelligence and counterintelligence. Something to consider......