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SPEAR is 30

Very cool read about intel influencing operations, always something I like to hear.

I do wish that SPEAR today had more opportunities for intel officers to work alongside the aviators. Aviation is such a huge portion of what the Navy does, and the primary means by which we kill bad guys, yet the intel community seems largely focused on telling the shoes where their adversaries are.
 
LFCFan said:
Very cool read about intel influencing operations, always something I like to hear.

I do wish that SPEAR today had more opportunities for intel officers to work alongside the aviators. Aviation is such a huge portion of what the Navy does, and the primary means by which we kill bad guys, yet the intel community seems largely focused on telling the shoes where their adversaries are.
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Can you expound a bit? The SWO equivalent of SPEAR (called SABER) does not have intel officers at all.

Typically, SPEAR does have one 1830 assigned (and sometimes a USMC intel O also). Unfortunately, it's not a very competitive job for mid to senior LTs, which is the main reason we don't get more 1830s.
 
HH-60H said:
Can you expound a bit? The SWO equivalent of SPEAR (called SABER) does not have intel officers at all.

Typically, SPEAR does have one 1830 assigned (and sometimes a USMC intel O also). Unfortunately, it's not a very competitive job for mid to senior LTs, which is the main reason we don't get more 1830s.
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I think more folks could spend time at SPEAR and be ok. We don't have a super rigid golden path like aviation does. Our careers are very flexible, which is not always a good thing as you can shoot yourself in the foot and not realize it if you aren't careful.

I didn't realize that about SABER, and also find it troubling. I meant in a more general sense outside of the various specialist shops at ONI: Most of the watchfloor / maritime intel focus throughout the navy intel community is on things like suspect white shipping, what foreign navies are up to, etc. So it's more at the operational and strategic levels than the tactical level, which might explain the lack of 1830s at SABER. My point is that we have dozens of 1830s and whatever ISs are called now looking at the exact same (insert vessel or surface group here) at various fleet HQs/COCOMs/ONI so they can tell some admiral about it (yes, admiral may not be a SWO) instead of learning how to support the actual operators out there. Typically this translates to sailors/1830s who don't know a J-11B from a Su-35, but similar problems exist in supporting the surface side of the house.
 
LFCFan said:
I think more folks could spend time at SPEAR and be ok. We don't have a super rigid golden path like aviation does. Our careers are very flexible, which is not always a good thing as you can shoot yourself in the foot and not realize it if you aren't careful.

I didn't realize that about SABER, and also find it troubling. I meant in a more general sense outside of the various specialist shops at ONI: Most of the watchfloor / maritime intel focus throughout the navy intel community is on things like suspect white shipping, what foreign navies are up to, etc. So it's more at the operational and strategic levels than the tactical level, which might explain the lack of 1830s at SABER. My point is that we have dozens of 1830s and whatever ISs are called now looking at the exact same (insert vessel or surface group here) at various fleet HQs/COCOMs/ONI so they can tell some admiral about it (yes, admiral may not be a SWO) instead of learning how to support the actual operators out there. Typically this translates to sailors/1830s who don't know a J-11B from a Su-35, but similar problems exist in supporting the surface side of the house.
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I don't think you really have the experience to know what you're talking about, based purely on what you've written above.

That said, there are nuggets of genuinely great innovation in this post. You should consider writing a point paper or white paper for your boss to route up his chain. Intel has a ton of very smart and dedicated guys all marching in step to the wrong drum beat. A stronger focus on direct, tactical-level URL support would probably be a good call to keep Intel relevant in the next war. I say URL- you obviously have a hard-on for pilots, that's fine, go do a tour at N7, be the best IntelO they've ever had; but try to see the bigger picture for the purpose of a white paper.
 
azguy said:
I don't think you really have the experience to know what you're talking about, based purely on what you've written above.
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People who are far more experienced than I (both on the aviator and intel sides of the house) recognize the problem and generally agree that the state of aviation intel in the navy is not where it needs to be if we're going to fight a near peer competitor, or even get the most use out of our ISs/1830s if not fighting.
I'm curious as to how your experience as a non-intelligence officer and non-aviator makes you think that I'm the one lacking the experience to speak accurately about the relationship between those communities. Without repeating myself about what intel does outside of the air wing (which might have been what you were taking issue with vice the air piece), I'll stand by what I said about the focus of naval intelligence being on maritime issues at the expense of the part of the CSG that has been doing the fighting for the last 15 years and will do a good chunk of it in the next war.

azguy said:
That said, there are nuggets of genuinely great innovation in this post. You should consider writing a point paper or white paper for your boss to route up his chain. Intel has a ton of very smart and dedicated guys all marching in step to the wrong drum beat. A stronger focus on direct, tactical-level URL support would probably be a good call to keep Intel relevant in the next war. I say URL- you obviously have a hard-on for pilots, that's fine, go do a tour at N7, be the best IntelO they've ever had; but try to see the bigger picture for the purpose of a white paper.
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I think with the new SWO WTI programs stood up in Norfolk that you can probably expect to see a demand signal from your community for that tactical level intel support. And that's definitely a good thing.
 
LFCFan said:
People who are far more experienced than I (both on the aviator and intel sides of the house) recognize the problem and generally agree that the state of aviation intel in the navy is not where it needs to be if we're going to fight a near peer competitor, or even get the most use out of our ISs/1830s if not fighting.
I'm curious as to how your experience as a non-intelligence officer and non-aviator makes you think that I'm the one lacking the experience to speak accurately about the relationship between those communities. Without repeating myself about what intel does outside of the air wing (which might have been what you were taking issue with vice the air piece), I'll stand by what I said about the focus of naval intelligence being on maritime issues at the expense of the part of the CSG that has been doing the fighting for the last 15 years and will do a good chunk of it in the next war.
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Yeah, I'm not commenting on the Intel-Air relationship. I take umbrage with your comment, "the intel community seems largely focused on telling the shoes where their adversaries are." I've been a shoe for a little while and I find intel support in that vein lacking. There are some major improvements afoot, none of which is well supported by the intel community (1830s). That's where the comment about your experience comes from; without knowing your background I don't think you're too familiar with maritime strike. I could be wrong though... Some other random thoughts:

-I agree that most IntelOs I've met are pretty good at basic maritime (surface) intel, but hey, they really ought to be...along with a basic familiarity in other domains.
-Re: the 1830/IS obsession with tracking white shipping. Yeah I don't totally get that; probably institutional inertia. The same institutional inertia that leads many IntelOs (not all) to be all liquored up on NSW support rather than blue water Navy jobs and issues. Is white shipping tactically relevant? Sometimes, but not to the extent that justifies the infrastructure we have in place to support it, IMO.
-Also agree that 1830s/IS's focus too much on big picture/strategic issues. I'm guessing it's because that's a lot easier than getting into the weeds and learning how other navies are operating down at the tactical level. I could fill a warehouse with the generic knee boards and recce books that I've been issued by intel; but I've encountered precious few briefs and reports on real-deal, no-kidding, actionable tactical assessments. I think you and yours would do well to beef up this skill set in order to stay relevant.
 
azguy said:
Yeah, I'm not commenting on the Intel-Air relationship. I take umbrage with your comment, "the intel community seems largely focused on telling the shoes where their adversaries are." I've been a shoe for a little while and I find intel support in that vein lacking. There are some major improvements afoot, none of which is well supported by the intel community (1830s). That's where the comment about your experience comes from; without knowing your background I don't think you're too familiar with maritime strike.
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My fault for not being clear here. I've recognized for quite some time that there isn't a lot of tactical intel support to the surface community. You guys get an IS, and then the DESRON staff has an 1830 as the N2, even almost every aviation squadron has more intel folks than that. So while we are both in agreement that tactical support to both the aviation and surface communities is lacking, I'm saying that this is due to the excess emphasis placed on operational and strategic level intelligence, focusing mainly on the maritime domain (hence the "shoe" comment, because the customers here are either shoes or aviators with stars on their collars making decisions about where to send the shoes). Shoes at least get the operational level support, aviators get very little.

-Re: the 1830/IS obsession with tracking white shipping. Yeah I don't totally get that; probably institutional inertia. The same institutional inertia that leads many IntelOs (not all) to be all liquored up on NSW support rather than blue water Navy jobs and issues. Is white shipping tactically relevant? Sometimes, but not to the extent that justifies the infrastructure we have in place to support it, IMO.
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I can see why a fleet HQ would care a lot about white shipping. Not really tactically relevant, but worth monitoring on the watchfloor.

-Also agree that 1830s/IS's focus too much on big picture/strategic issues. I'm guessing it's because that's a lot easier than getting into the weeds and learning how other navies are operating down at the tactical level.
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What I find bizarre is how we expect high school graduates with no real training in international relations / politics to make products that are briefed to admirals. And it is "easier" in that you don't have to have a depth of knowledge to be good enough at it, but I'd say it is just as hard to be really good at it as the more technical stuff.

The other piece here is that there is a demand signal for that stuff from the bosses. And the bosses are mostly folks that have to think at the operational/strategic levels. In a 20 year career it is entirely possible that I will only do 2-3 operational/sea tours and have a boss that is focused on tactical level decisions.

I could fill a warehouse with the generic knee boards and recce books that I've been issued by intel; but I've encountered precious few briefs and reports on real-deal, no-kidding, actionable tactical assessments. I think you and yours would do well to beef up this skill set in order to stay relevant.
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100% agree that recce is one of the most overrated things that intel does. I always told my guys that the stuff I had up in the head was more to help them look good during SFARP lectures than anything else.
 
SPEAR, SWORD, SABER are goddamned ridiculous.....don't ever glamorize it Matt. Not the pointy edge of the sword. Closer to the taint of the shaft.
 
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