The readiness of the Military Intelligence (MI) Corps is our first priority. Our adversaries are investing in emerging and disruptive technologies that could narrow our technological advantage or be adapted to create unexpected or asymmetric advantages. The evolving conditions of the strategic operating environment and the potential for an unbalanced multipolar global power structure could increase instability and cultivate opportunity for simultaneous multiple crises that will strain the capability and capacity of our Army. To meet the challenges of the operational environment the MI Corps must balance the demand to sustain readiness while concurrently developing the means to support an Army in ground combat against a variety of threats ranging from insurgent networks to a near peer competitor.
As the Army continues to train within the Decisive Action Training Environment, rigorous multi-component, joint, and multi-national training scenarios are required to hone our intelligence warfighting skills. US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), US Army Reserve Command, US Army National Guard (ARNG), and US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) are developing homestation training environments to provide commanders access to critical information across the entire intelligence enterprise. Our training strategy must sustain and enhance the readiness of the Intelligence Warfighting Function (IWfF) at every echelon, leveraging ground and aerial Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensor synergies across the enterprise to add depth to our capabilities and capacity.
Our multi-component, regionally aligned intelligence units will continue to employ the Distributed Common Ground System - Army (DCGS-A) to collaborate with one another, to align with their theater and regional intelligence partners and the Intelligence Community (IC). DCGS-A enables our Soldiers to develop and sustain their core intelligence competencies by leveraging multi-discipline intelligence sensor collection.
The MI Corps' emphasis is to provide Soldiers at echelons brigade and below with a simpler, easier to use, expeditionary system to operate in austere and disconnected environments that will expand situational awareness and enhance decision-making. The Army is now training and fielding DCGS-A Increment 1, Release 2. DCGS-A Release 2 addresses Soldier ease of use concerns, extends capabilities to Top Secret networks, provides improved advanced analytics, enhances cyber security, and increases systems reliability. DCGS-A capabilities are nested with the Army's number one priority -- Readiness.
To cultivate more adaptive, agile leaders and to bridge Institutional Force training with Operational Force readiness, the US Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE) is employing innovative methods. These innovations include the Digital Intelligence Systems Master Gunner (DISMG) course and the development of MI Gunnery Manuals. DISMG is a partnered endeavor between FORSCOM, INSCOM, ARNG, and USAICoE to train intelligence leaders to plan, develop, and integrate dynamic digital structures utilizing the DCGS-A family of systems within complex environments. The MI Gunnery Manuals are designed to assist MI Company (MICO) Commanders to objectively assess their MI Soldiers' readiness and to identify common readiness standards for training plan development. Presently focused on six of the Intelligence Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) found within the Brigade Combat Team's (BCT) MICO, MI Gunnery will expand to include all MICO-related MOSs and those within the larger BCT IWfF.
Our most important resource has and always will be the intelligence Soldier. The MI Corps will continue to focus its efforts on building proficient and competent intelligence leaders and teams at all levels to support deployed forces under any contingency. In addition to realistic and effective homestation training, a key enabler to the readiness and regional expertise of our multi-component intelligence forces remains the Foundry 2.0 training program. Also, in response to requests from the field and lessons learned from the Combat Training Centers, USAICoE and FORSCOM built BCT and battalion-level S2 courses that immerse Company and Field Grade officers in the fundamental and essential skill sets to effectively function in a decisive action environment at the tactical levels.
An essential measure of our readiness to function in any operating environment is our ability to integrate and interoperate with our multi-national partners. Our technology development efforts will incorporate our requirement to interact and exchange data with our partners. Whether conducting combined collection or Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (PED), our technology and enabling policies must enable our requirement to share resources and work together. Throughout the Army Service Component Commands (ASCC) and Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF), our intelligence Soldiers and Civilians are forging enduring relationships with our allies and partners through regional exercises that enable combined intelligence training and operations, exchanges of best practices and lessons learned, and collaborative production efforts that increase interoperability.
Facilities such as the Multi-National Intelligence Readiness Operations Capability in Germany, provide Army, joint service members, and our allies the ability to function as one team to develop and implement common practices that address the exercise scenario requirements and provide a template for how we will collaborate in any global operating environment. Our ASCC, G-2 staffs and INSCOM's ASCC-aligned Military Intelligence Brigades -- Theater (MIB-T) continue to seize opportunities to interact with their partners. Shared with the Regionally Aligned Force intelligence staffs, this partnership promotes common core intelligence relationships that develop adaptive leaders, enhance combined unit readiness, assure our allies, and create a unified effort against any adversary.
As we look to 2030, we are conducting a holistic assessment of our ISR strategy from the ground up. After five years, the modernization efforts outlined within our aerial ISR strategy remain on track. As we focus on the terrestrial layer's ISR requirements we are modernizing legacy ground Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) systems that include enhanced signal processing and increased collection range against rapidly evolving threats. As we look forward, we are developing a capability that will converge SIGINT, Cyber, Electronic Warfare (EW), Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and Counterintelligence into one common terrestrial system of systems within the BCT MICO and Corps-level Expeditionary-Military Intelligence Brigade (E-MIB).
These platform and sensor upgrades continue to expand the Army's mix of aerial and ground ISR capabilities in response to increasing demand in an ever-more complex operating environment; however, as the Army's collection capabilities increase so must its capacity to process accumulated data. Therefore, in a resource constrained environment, we must explore and develop technologies that reduce the burden imposed by the vastness of available sensor data on our analytic force.
As the home of the Army Global PED Center, Fort Gordon is the heart of Army service-retained PED for sensors supporting operations around the world. While the Army expands its PED enterprise to federate with E-MIB PED at homestation, our homestation mission command architecture will remain tailorable to support diverse mission sets, possess the capability and capacity to project expeditionary PED to underdeveloped theaters, minimize forward presence by providing reach-back, and interoperate with ARSOF, joint service, and allied PED centers. Our PED capability remains an essential element of the IWfF and it will continue to evolve to adapt to complex, rapidly changing operational environments.
As we field technologies and capabilities essential to inform and enable mission command, we must also field a force with the correct mix of intelligence disciplines (SIGINT, HUMINT, Geospatial Intelligence, Open Source Intelligence) and capabilities (Cyber, EW) within their formations to access data collected by their organic sensors as well as reporting from the IC. In FY 2017 we will execute a bottom-up review of our force and its architecture, from Company Intelligence Support Team to Echelons Above Corps, to assess how we are optimizing our organizational and capabilities framework to meet the requirements of an expeditionary Army to engage in the full range of military operations. Our intent is to identify areas where we need to invest resources to balance the MI force to meet the Army's future requirements.
In out pursuit of technological and human domain advantages, we will explore and cultivate the functional relationship between Soldiers and technology to generate a ready force that is expeditionary and agile -- an MI Force that thrives in a complex and multi-faceted environment across the full spectrum of military operations. As we modernize our ISR capabilities, we will explore how capabilities such as micro drones and ad-hoc, cognitive, on-demand networking can defeat Anti-Access/Area-Denial environments. In partnership with USAICoE, academia, and industry we will study the impacts of the ubiquity of social media, emerging cyber environments, and evolving urban areas (Mega-Cities).
In these endeavors we will field capabilities and train Soldiers and Civilians to support the tenets of the Army Operating Concept and Force 2025 and Beyond. Whether the Army is engaged in the full spectrum of operations around the globe, posturing for Decisive Action and Hybrid Warfare, or countering Insider Threats, the MI Corps will continue to invest in the readiness of its most important asset -- its' Soldiers and Civilians, and empower them with cutting-edge technology to defeat any adversaries, now and in the future.
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