Civilian Reserve Intelligence Program: A Fundamental Requirement for Army Intelligence Transformation

The Army Intelligence Community AIC is fully engaged in the Armys Transformation process. However, the AICs on-going transformation risks overlooking one critical, systemic shortfall - the perennial inability to provide sufficient intelligence to deploying forces under crisis- response conditions. Specifically, the AIC is hard-pressed to provide unconventional threat, cultural, demographic, and politicalsocial intelligence down to individual villages, towns, or cities in a manner that supports initial employment operations. This intelligence requires a long-term presence in order to collect and understand the relevant information - a commitment that the AIC cannot meet for all potential contingency areas due to resource and operational constraints. However, the AIC can leverage commercial and private organizations that already have a presence and a vested interest in these regions. They do maintain the long-term presence and understanding of the area as an inherent element of their operations. In this, they represent an untapped national resource. By building and sustaining formal relationships with these organizations, the AIC can leverage existing capabilities. Thus, given clear requirements and relatively minor finding when compared to conducting the collection and analysis itself, the AIC can guide these organizations in closing any gaps between their existing knowledge base and the Armys requirements. Moreover, the ArmyDoD can offer numerous incentives and benefits to make the effort worthwhile and mutually beneficial to participating organizations.