Building an Integrated Intelligence Network: Challenges and Opportunities

Our adversaries, ranging from nation states to terrorist groups, take full advantage of information available on the internet and have deployed many networks to conduct their operations. In todays information technology IT world, we must fight their networks with an intelligence network much more powerful than anything available to them. People often state it takes a network to fight a network but I contend it takes much more than that, it takes a more powerful and fully integrated network, with increased access, enhanced content, and reduced timelines. The National Reconnaissance Offices NRO vision is a fully integrated Department of DefenseIntelligence Community DoDIC network, where information is virtual, assured, available on demand, and globally accessible to authorized users empowered with the tools and services necessary to generate tailored, timely, trusted, and actionable intelligence products. This architecture must operate as efficiently as the best commercial IT and knowledge service networks, and enable authorized users to receive, task, and query trusted information on-demand to improve the speed and execution of decisions from anywhere in the world. This article describes the challenges the NRO faces as we develop information products and services for use across the DoD and IC that ride on this powerful network with accurate and timely intelligence information on any problem of interest. Additionally, the article describes the tremendous opportunities available as we build this integrated intelligence network.