FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — The U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE), and the Department of the Army G-2, hosted an Information Advantage (IA) Intelligence Doctrine Forum at Fort Huachuca May 24-26.
The three-day forum was held to kick-start the development of a new military intelligence (MI) publication, Intelligence Support to IA at the Theater Army and Corps. Over 70 participants attended including members of academia, the Army staff, and a representative from the Australian Army’s intelligence school.
Other participants included representatives from the Field Artillery Center of Excellence, IA professionals to include members of the Cyber force, and a broad range of intelligence professionals from U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, Army Service Component Command G2 staff, and corps G2 staff. The varied expertise and experiences of the participants and open and collaborative discussions helped ensure a successful Forum.
“Information Advantage is the next ridgeline for the Army, we have to give Information Advantage a hard look and get it right,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony R. Hale, USAICoE and Fort Huachuca commanding general. “We cannot take five years to solve IA issues. It is critical to get our doctrine right and to do it now.”
The Forum is a first foray into addressing intelligence support as a part of the Army’s emerging doctrine on IA.
“The Army’s emerging doctrine on IA is an attempt to better conceptualize and compete with our peer threats in the information dimension now and well into the future,” said Col. Crayton Simmons, Commandant, USAICoE. “Based on previous operations and sub-optimal results, a couple of years ago, the Army started to re-conceptualize the information dimension in order to develop a doctrine to reach an operational advantage.”
The Department of Army G-3/5/7 Operational Planning Team (OPT) is spearheading the effort to modernize the Army in terms of IA. Last year, the OPT launched phase I focused on getting Army senior leadership to develop a conceptual foundation, approve governance of the endeavor, and set a path forward. Building on phase I, this year, phase II will tackle very specific areas with Forums/working groups to include the IA Intelligence Doctrine Forum.
The forum was not a stagnant agenda of briefings and discussions. It concluded with USAICoE collecting important feedback. Participants provided written answers to specific intelligence support to IA questions and feedback on a draft publication outline.
Additionally, the Forum moderators and note takers collected and presented the most critical recommendations, areas for analysis, gaps, issues, and areas of non-consensus, back to the participants to evoke further feedback.
“The feedback will absolutely be critical to the early development of our MI publications,” said Simmons. “This level of focused field input and open collaboration is unprecedented during the development of one of our MI doctrinal publications.”
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