By Geoff Fein
While there are still challenges with sharing intelligence data, not only within the United States, but with allies, efforts are being made to speed up the process and make information that is time sensitive more accessible, a Navy official said.
There are challenges with classification levels and highly sensitive data, as well as with time perishable information, Rear Adm. Tony Cothron, director of Naval Intelligence, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
He noted there is a focus on, and a process that Naval Intelligence trains to, to sanitize intelligence data to get it out quickly, particularly if it is threat warning.
“We train to get it out and practice getting it out to our allies as well. We are much more sensitive to the need to disseminate [information] to our allies today than we ever have been in my career,” he said. “We always seem to focus on NATO, and we support them, but now with our Maritime Cooperative Strategy we are focused on every nation out there.”
In fact, earlier this month, all the NATO attach�s were taken out to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in Suitland, Md., for a tour and orientation, Cothron said.
There is also a emphasis on making sure information is passed both down the chain of command and back up.
“We are focused on doing that very quickly, very seamlessly,” Cothron said, making sure that strategic level intelligence at the Pentagon is available for the most junior, and every member of the fleet.
“That’s a constant focus,” Cothron said.
As for joint efforts, Cothron said the intelligence community is inherently joint. “Roughly half my force is joint and it’s joint literally from the beginning.”
Any intelligence professional is going to have multiple joint tours. Cothron himself had three tours. A young intelligence officer will go to the fleet for a 24- to 30-month tour and then he or she will typically go off to a joint command as a new lieutenant, Cothron noted. “And he will have a couple more of those as he goes through.”
Cothron also said he agrees with Adm. Kirkland Donald, director, naval nuclear propulsion, that finding well-trained and technically savvy folks is an issue that needs more attention (Defense Daily, March 7).
When Cothron was in command at the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), one of the last things he did was to initiate a small innovation cell called the advanced maritime analysis cell (AMAC). “I did it because I saw youngsters dealing with technology and being competent at it, but not understanding completely all the fundamentals and principles of intelligence analysis.”
AMAC’s mission was to look for tools and technology that are out there, advanced things, that young intelligence officers can learn quickly, but also but bring them in and train them on the fundamental intelligence analyticals. Then apply those tools, tradecraft, and analytical techniques to challenges, he added. “How I take this new tool and really apply it to this problem I am working on.”
Cothron said he saw a 400 percent increase in output from intelligence personnel from taking advantage of just one of several tools. “After they used it for six weeks, they said they won’t go back without the tool.”
That’s because they said they could do in one hour what it was taking them four hours to do before, Cothron said.
“They were also finding nuggets of intelligence that they were missing before,” he added. “The challenge today for all of us is there is too much stuff coming into our computers, our ears, and everywhere else. For intelligence professionals, no matter what your domain, you got this big catcher’s mitt and you are trying to catch everything, and without the tools to help you organize that coherently and make sense of it, you can’t analyze [it].”
Cothron said he likes to tell young intelligence officers that if all they are doing is reading and briefing, or reading and writing, they are not an intelligence analyst.
“You have to have some template, some model, some approach, some set of techniques, aided by tools, to organize data into something you can look at, model, simulate, and generate predictions. That’s hard to do,” he said.
“The tools today give us great potential to do this, but it takes training. I agree with Adm. Donald, you have to train on the tools, but you have to train them on critical thinking [too].”
Just as the rest of the Navy, Cothron acknowledged he, too, has to look for ways to trim costs.
“We all get ordered and directed to look for efficiencies, that’s good business practice…good management practice. We need to do that. We are constantly looking at our processes, our people, and our systems, to try and reduce some costs,” he said. “Over the last couple of years, I have partnered with N6 (communications networks) and have reduced the cost of one of our major systems [Distributed Common Ground System-Navy] in half.”
That effort was accomplished through improved systems integration on N6’s side and more of a focus on what activities the Navy is going to do in the ships, Cothron explained.
“We also look very carefully at what we need to do afloat or forward and what we can do back from ashore or garrison,” he added.
Naval intelligence has some impressive contributions going on from naval shore facilities, Cothron said. For example, ONI is providing near real-time support for forward forces in the 5th Fleet and 7th Fleet areas, and to SEALs on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We have developed concepts here over time to create small dedicated cells [called Trident] which provide direct support to our SEAL teams and actually deploys small groups of people forward to work with the SEALs,” Cothron said. “Those elements that are deployed reach back into Suitland and into other elements of our community for more detailed support for the operations that are going on. So we are constantly looking for efficiencies, we are constantly looking to reduce the cost of things we are doing.”
ONI is constantly looking how to leverage the larger investment of the national intelligence community, he added. “How to shape the development of that community so that we are linked into it.”
“We are getting very successful [at] that. We get tremendous…great…support from the combat support agencies,” Cothron said. “So by leveraging their research and development and their evolution of their systems’ capabilities, by synching up with them, we get greater output for the fleet at reduced cost for the Navy.”
But because Cothron relies so much on a number of different agencies, he can’t just plan and program for his budget.
“I have to be looking across all the combat support agencies’ budgets and looking at how their changing and how they are adapting, and going parallel with them,” he said. “I have an obligation to share what I am doing and thinking with those other combat support agencies as we are working together, and I am required to balance and synchronize my military intelligence program with my national intelligence program. I really wear two hats–one for the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations)…my military intelligence program, and one for director Michael McConnell (director of national intelligence) with the program resources he provides.”