U.S. Navy accelerates setup of ISR organization
By Ben Iannotta
November 23, 2009
The U.S. Navy has been planning to establish a bureaucratically powerful “information dominance” organization since at least June, but a Navy document shows that key ISR positions within the new group remained unfilled shortly before its Nov. 2 official start-up.
The Navy is now moving at a “rapid pace” to fill the positions, and as of Nov. 25, just one director and two branch chief billets remained open, said Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez. Filling the positions may have been complicated by “the need to fill high priority overseas contingency operations billets,” he said.
The new Information Dominance (N2/N6) organization based in the Pentagon is supposed to “deliver deep multi-intelligence penetration” and coordinate “resource investment” into Navy unmanned systems, space sensors, networks and cyber security, according to an internal Navy administrative notice. The organization merges the responsibilities of the Navy’s N2 intelligence operations staff with those of the N6 communications and network staff.
As of Oct. 30, the Navy had not named a director for the ISR capabilities directorate; a director for the cyber, sensors and electronic warfare directorate; a senior intelligence analyst; and a branch head for human intelligence within the intelligence analysis, collection and operations directorate.
The organizational structure is outlined in a 33-page document provided to C4ISR Journal. Eight of 27 top positions listed on the document were described as vacant.
Vice Adm. Jack Dorsett runs the organization as deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance (N2/N6).