The Different Levels Of Military Intelligence
The Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance community is one of the markets that we support at Greenwood Aerospace, but it occurred to us that the acronym and surrounding community is largely misunderstood or completely unknown altogether.
We’re going to take some time to open up the ISR narrative and talk about what military intelligence is, talk about clarify what intelligence operations are, and go over some common concepts like intelligence collection and imagery intelligence and how they fit into the overall combat operations and intelligence hierarchy.
So, let’s take a dive into the different levels of military intelligence and how intelligence activities fit into the ISR mission.
The National Intelligence Strategy
Let’s start with the most foundational of doctrines: what is the National Intelligence Strategy (NIS)?
For the complete answer, check out the formal National Intelligence Strategy brief.
Every year, the Director of National Intelligence releases a new NIS that lays out the next four years of intelligence strategy. This is for the entire intelligence community and takes into account what leaders from each of the eighteen intelligence elements have to say.
It is the overarching guide to operations, intelligence investments, and priorities of the overall intel community at large.
The strategy itself exists to
- Establish new foreign intelligence relationships
- Strengthen existing relationships
- Meet ever-changing and emerging global security challenges and risks.
Strategic intelligence
There are three tiers to the intelligence apparatus, and the highest level of military intelligence (or intelligence in general) is strategic intelligence.
In the realm of the overall intelligence community, strategic intelligence refers to the collection, analysis, and interpretation of information that will be used for long-term decisions at the national or organizational level.
In the context of the military, strategic intelligence is used at the Department level; i.e., it is being provided to the 4-star flag billets and civilian leadership (SECDEF, SECARMY, Joint Chiefs, CSA/VCSA, MAJCOM/numbered field army, etc.).
What Is Strategic Intelligence?
Strategic intelligence is about looking at the broadest view of global security. It is the FL450 look at the operational environment. Strategic intelligence is the first level of intel, usually also encompassing joint intelligence elements, for a broad national security image. In their World Fact Book, the CIA describes strategic intelligence as “that is necessary to create and implement a strategy, typically a grand strategy, what officialdom calls a national strategy. A strategy is not really a plan but the logic driving a plan.”
The Pentagon defines it a little differently, defining strategic intelligence as “Intelligence that is required for the formulation of strategy, policy, and military plans and operations at national and theater levels.”
So, strategic intelligence is not really a plan in place to deal with specific threats. No, it is a much higher level than that. Defining strategic objectives is much more nuanced than that. Strategic intel is more like the doctrine that creates plans. It is more about disseminating the logic used to create our security decisions.
What Are the Three Forms of Strategic Intelligence?
This question is a misnomer; there are not three different forms of intelligence at the strategic level; there are instead just different components of it.
Political Intelligence
While this article is geared toward military intelligence, to accomplish strategic objectives, you have to understand that they are always intertwined, you will never find military activity without a political directive; our national security with foreign nations depends on this.
Political intelligence involves understanding political landscapes the world over. At the strategic level, the data collected includes
- Government structures
- Key political figures
- Foreign policies
- Potential geopolitical shifts
The intelligence community must conduct a qualitative analysis of the political dynamics of other world powers to inform our leaders regarding diplomatic relations, alliances, and international strategy.
Economic Intelligence
Everyone here knows that the world runs on money. Economic intelligence focuses on following the money; where the money flows, there you are likely to find security threats. A few of the measures the applicable agencies look for are
- Market trends
- Trade policies
- Financial stability
- Availability of resources
It is in our best interest to help the development of our friendly nations economically; economically weak nations are historically primed for corruption and turmoil.
Military Intelligence
The trifecta is complete with an understanding of their military assets. What is their troop strength? How is their quality of training? How about their equipment? Are they moving troops or materials anywhere on a large scale? What are their entanglements with other nations?
What Are the Goals of Strategic Intelligence?
National intelligence is the other name for STRATINT, and that is the focus. The goal is for the decision-makers to have enough information to make well-informed and effective long-term decisions for the good of the nation and, broadly speaking, the good of the Department. Here are some of the key objectives:
- Risk assessment: looking for bad actors in the world through the lens of politics, economics, and military movements.
- Policy formulation: STRATINT aims to develop the logic and doctrine to align military missions with national goals.
- Resource allocation: government budgets are built looking years into the future, so STRATINT is used to identify broad future conflicts and endeavors, giving leaders the leverage to make correct budgetary decisions.
- Early warning: one of the most important functions of intel is to identify future problems. STRATINT is a powerful tool to identify future threats and hopefully mitigate entanglement before they begin.
Operational Intelligence
The next rung down in the hierarchy of military intelligence is operational intelligence.
All military operations focus on a specific area to target, still a broad area as opposed to the global strategic objectives, but the intelligence required while conducting campaigns at the operational level is less doctrine and logic and more about collection and assets.
The official definition of operational intelligence (OPINT) by the DoD is “ Intelligence that is required for planning and conducting campaigns and major operations to accomplish strategic objectives within theaters or operational areas.”
OPINT is still collected and disseminated at a high level, relying heavily on foreign instrumentation signals intelligence and quantitative and qualitative analysis to support the overall battle plan of the theatre commander.
Why Is Intelligence Important in Operations?
Intelligence is a response to the needs of leadership at whichever level it is demanded at. The military process (operational orders, etc.) and military objectives provide the focus where information requirements stem from.
Intelligence satisfies the information requirements. These might be about the terrain in the theatre and how it will impact vehicles and personnel (think Afghanistan versus Iraq), the disposition and location of hostiles, and the sentiments of the locals towards the occupation and conflict (gathered via human intelligence or signals intelligence).
Tactical intelligence
Tactical units are the prime movers in all engagements, and accordingly, their intelligence demands are much different than the strategic and operational levels. At the tactical level, intelligence is used to identify immediate threats to the battlegroup. It could be clandestine activities identified in the area, enemy combatants conducting espionage, and the potential capabilities of foes in the immediate AOR.
Also, tactical units are one of the best receivers of information gathered from locals, which is HUMINT.
Tactical intelligence (TACINT) relies on data that is sometimes pertinent to very short durations. Accordingly, the intelligence cycle can be extremely short. If enemy combatants are suspected to be on the move in a certain area of a city, that intelligence will be extremely short-lived and fluid.
What Is the Difference Between STRATINT and TACINT?
STRATINT and TACINT are on completely different ends of the intelligence spectrum. STRATINT is used at the highest levels of government and the military, whereas TACINT can be used down to the platoon and squad levels.
The goals of the two are completely different, too. STRATINT is not looking for combatants in DShK-mounted technicals. It is looking at who and what countries may be a threat in 3-5 years because they have a new president/prime minister and a failing economy.
TACINT is very interested in the location of those combatants in technical. Collection operations are frequently deployed in tactical operations to see what the sentiment of the local population is toward allied forces. Are they glad you’re here? Will they tell the truth about the location of the hostiles? Or are they using allied tactical forces to remove political rivals (as happened in OIF/OEF)?
What Items Are Considered in TACINT?
There are a number of considerations when it comes to TACINT, all of which bear considerable weight on the outcome of the intelligence packages produced.
- Enemy forces: no matter what level of intelligence, this is usually the #1 question asked. How many are there, and what do they have/use?
- Terrain & weather: these are the two significant factors outside of enemy combatants. Commanders must know these.
- Infrastructure: commanders need to know key infrastructure like roads, bridges, and comms. Weak road systems and bad bridges must be considered before troop movements commence, and so on.
- Civilian general population: we’ve talked about this already, but human intelligence is critical in all intelligence operations.
- Logistics and supply lines: Omar Bradley drilled home the truth that logistics win wars.
- Enemy C2 structures & capabilities: TACINT is tasked to exploit and understand the enemy’s C2 hierarchy and structure. Cut off the head to kill the body.
This list is not conclusive, but it does cover most of what TACINT sets out to do in every conflict.
Parting Thoughts
The ISR architecture is one of the smallest components of the military, yet it is one of the most widely deployed resources; just take a look at the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node. The BACN was continuously deployed for over a decade, to the point that pilots never even touched it until they were in theatre.
As long as there are threats to our national security, ISR assets will continue to work on the frontlines and will most likely be some of the first assets in the area. All levels of intelligence are important, and each one serves a different purpose.
Make sure to check out our extensive list of services for all aerial assets, especially the ever-in-demand E-11A BACN!
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