George w. casey jr. - Federation of American Scientists

Major Gualberto J. Marrero III
In past rotations, the Military Intelligence company
(MICO) of the brigade special troops battalion
(BSTB) has struggled to make full use of its intelligence
collection assets as part of a mission rehearsal
exercise (MRE). Rotation 11-01 was not
an MRE; it was the first full spectrum operations
(FSO) rotation in eight years at the Joint Readiness
Training Center (or any of the combat training centers).
Nevertheless the MICO encountered the same
difficulties that plague a MICO from effectively providing
and synchronizing intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance (ISR) assets.
When the MICO struggles, the brigade it supports
cannot see the enemy clearly or maintain an accurate
picture of the battlefield. MICO commanders
and brigade combat team S2s must work together
to synchronize and manage MICO assets. Otherwise
systemic issues will disrupt MICO efforts to provide
synchronized assets. These issues beginning with
poor MICO integration with the brigade (BDE) S2
shop, are exacerbated by an ineffective primary, alternate,
contingency, and emergency (PACE) communications
plan, and brought to full effect by a
poor understanding of their collection capabilities
in general. The result is a severely degraded collection
effort. The BDE intelligence warfighting function
does not fight as a team, cannot communicate
effectively in that fight, and cannot agree on what
to collect because it does not understand how. The
first indicator of just such a failing collection effort
is a MICO that cannot manage and track its assets
for the BDE. Fixing that issue is therefore a great
leap forward for the MICO in bridging the gap with
the BDE Staff, thereby enabling intelligence to drive
BDE operations.
The effort begins with a common understanding of
collection capabilities and the requirements necessary
to make full use of those capabilities. The MICO
must clearly define its assets and capabilities by
mission roles to the BDE Staff, not just the BDE S2.
The MICO sections should analyze their capability
and recommend how best to employ that capability
for the BDE S3 as well as the BDE S2. Such recommendations
must include operational requirements
and limitations. For example, each section should
analyze the terrain to identify possible locations
that will allow the best emplacement for collection.
This will, in turn, allow the MICO commander to
clearly articulate the capabilities and limitations of
the respective systems and the second and third order
effects of diverting an ISR asset away from its
recommend location. The MICO commander must
continue to provide a clear task and purpose to every
ISR asset so that effective ISR feedback is provided
to the BDE. Once the assets are emplaced, the
MICO command post (CP) must track all systems in
a running estimate updated with specifics on:
Current status of asset (location, personnel, and
system.)
Information the asset can provide (its intelligence
collection “foot print.”)
Requirements needed to be able to provide that
information.
How the current task organization impacts collection
capabilities.
Tracking must be done carefully and consistently.
When more than one shop tracks the same equipment
you end up with an erroneous picture of system
status within the BDE. Keep it simple. The
MICO owns the equipment; the MICO CP should
track its status and provide it to the BDE Staff on
a daily basis on trackers. Trackers allow the BDE
Staff to synchronize ISR assets across the BDE.
These trackers will ensure the BDE S2 has a clear
picture of its intelligence collection “foot print” and
identify any intelligence gaps across the BDE’s lines
of effort (LOE).
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