Early Warning

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently completed a report on maritime and air domain awareness.

Titled "Global Maritime and Air Communities of Interest Intelligence Enterprises" and first obtained by the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News, the report describes "the level of integration and collaboration achieved" since the inception of the maritime and air domain awareness mission. It warns that the threat from terrorists or other non-state actors remains high, specifically with efforts to cripple the various elements of the global supply chain.

According to the report:

The key to successfully achieving persistent domain and cross-domain awareness goals, and efficiently defeat adversaries, is to improve all-source analysis focused on illicit trafficking net-works to effectively narrow the search to a specific vessel, aircraft, container and/or person that represents a threat. Our adversaries take advantage of the relative anonymity of the global commercial environment to accomplish their objectives. Each conveyance carrying humans and/or cargo is vulnerable to this threat, yet tracking all conveyances and cargo alone will not provide insight into the potential for hazard. Understanding the networks of human beings behind the cargo and conveyance is a valid means and more resource efficient method of ascertaining the threat. Actions taken by the IC since 9/11 demonstrate that information on illicit and other criminal activity in the global transportation network affords critical insights into the intentions of those who would do us tremendous harm. Examining smuggling networks, front companies, and "gray" actors and transactions have resulted in successful interdictions of people and cargo who clearly pose national security threats. Notably, much of the data necessary for this intelligence production resides outside the traditional IC, existing within law enforcement, regulatory, private sector and foreign organizations in the global communities of interest.

There is a growing consensus that urgency has waned since 9/11, and we are still not able to rapidly "connect the dots." It is therefore imperative that we accelerate efforts to create a globally networked and unified intelligence enterprise steadily focused on maritime, air and intermodal mission sets, with the means to integrate and leverage federal, state, tribal, local, private and foreign entities to support the common goal of shared attentiveness to potential threats. Persistent domain and cross-domain awareness grants time and distance to detect, deter, interdict and defeat such threats. Only through an inclusive, collaborative approach can we gain the critical information that lies outside of traditional intelligence collection that will create the incisive understanding and decision advantage necessary for anticipatory and proactive measures.