For the first time in recent history, the intelligence community has established a common vision with common operating principles that reaches all of its disparate agencies.
“The leaders of the intelligence community about a year ago got together and we – for the first time I can recall – got together and established a common vision for ourselves called IC 2025,” Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence, said Aug. 15 at the DoDIIS conference in Omaha, Nebraska.
The vision, she said, explains what the community needs to fulfill the IC’s mission and how the community must work together. Gordon had previously discussed these priorities during a presentation at the GEOINT symposium in April.
The priorities include:
♦ Relying on Automated Intelligence using Machines, or AIM. The IC is establishing an AIM center – in concert with the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center – to help the community harness the power of technology.
Gordon said she prefers the “AIM” lexicon because she is interested in outcomes, not technology. One such outcome is the commitment that no U.S. or allied service member will ever be at a disadvantage on the battlefield because and adversary can make better use of data, she said in Omaha.
♦ Developing the right workforce. Gordon said in April that if the intel community is going to harness the power of machines to use more of the data productively, then they have to invest more in humans.
♦ Developing a comprehensive cyber strategy. Cyber is not a thing, it is a vehicle by which so many imperatives are addressed, Gordon said in April, adding that it includes cyber protection.
“If you hear about it in public it’s who’s in charge. I think that is a total misnomer,” she said. “We really have to address the cyber attack and the cyber posturing that is happening to us every day and help this administration figure out the response we need.”
♦ Creating a modern data management infrastructure. Pursing data without a purpose, Gordon said at the GEOINT symposium, is probably not going to get the community there but not understanding that data management is the key to any of the elements of success they portend will not put efforts in the right area.
♦ Increasing and leveraging partnerships with the private sector. This is an area most all leaders in the defense and intelligence space acknowledge is necessary for success.
♦ Improving acquisition agility. Part of this comes from security clearance reform, she said in April, describing security clearance reform at DoDIIS as one of the existential threats within the IC.
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
