Commander's Comments

When asked to write the command section comments for this April edition of the SPOKESMAN, I welcomed the opportunity to share my observations and comments on several subjects affecting you – the men and women of Air Intelligence Agency.

Last year the Air Force published Air Force Doctrine Document 2-5, Information Operations.

A key aspect of this landmark doctrine is its definition of Information Operations. Many of us frequently use this definition, but since it applies to every mission area of AIA, and is, therefore, important for everyone to understand, I’m quoting it here. “Information Operations comprise those actions taken to gain, exploit, defend or attack information and information systems and include both information-in-war and information warfare.”

Our Commander, Maj. Gen. John Baker, is making a concerted effort to educate the broader Air Force and joint community about information operations, what it is, and what it is not. A focus area for the next six months is to continue that educational effort and to highlight the complex role AIA plays in simultaneously supporting national, operational and tactical customers. This includes the critical role AIA operators play in offensive and defensive counter-information missions.

A number of you who heard me speak about civilian career issues when I was in my previous job on the Air Staff, know that I have talked about the paradigm shift in the role of civilians in the Air Force. Specifically, the concept of the civilian being the continuity factor is changing. Our future senior civilian leaders will be those who have had career broadening assignments, have masters degrees, worked in various facets of their career field, and have been mobile in their assignments.

Various Department of Defense, Air Force and Intelligence Community programs are now underway to provide these career growth opportunities for our civilians.

In September 1997, the Air Force initiated an Intelligence Career Program for civilians, the twentieth functional career program in the Air Force. The program is designed to provide a best-qualified candidate list to hiring authorities, to broaden training, education and career opportunities, and to hire a limited number of recent college graduates as interns.

An outgrowth of the SECDEF’s Commission on Roles and Missions is the Defense Leadership and Management Program. This two-year old effort is a joint leadership, training, education and development program across the Department of Defense to provide a framework for developing civilians for 3,000 key leadership positions Department of Defense-wide. The position I previously occupied on the Air Staff is one of those positions. The program is open to all career fields, but to date has been open to only GS/GM-14s and 15s. However, GS-13s will be eligible when the next board meets in October.

The Intelligence Community Officer program is similar to DLAMP, but its scope goes beyond Department of Defense to the entire intelligence community. A key feature of ICO is the Intelligence Community Assignment Program, which is open to all job series in the intelligence community. Openings for this program are advertised quarterly on INTELINK and applicants must apply for a position outside their parent service/agency. While not yet firmly codified, it is anticipated that within three- to- five years, those aspiring to the Senior Intelligence Executive Service will be required to have served in an ICAP or DLAMP assignment.

Another program is the HQ USAF/XOI and AIA Civilian Career Management Program. There is a separate article in this issue of the SPOKESMAN outlining the goals and objectives of the CCMP. I encourage all interested civilians to contact the AIA Civilian Personnel Office for more details on all of these programs.

Earlier I mentioned that educating the broader Air Force and joint community is one of our commander’s focus areas for the next six months. While certainly not all inclusive, we will also focus on our continuing efforts to remove barriers between intelligence stovepipes in order to improve efficiency, minimize duplication, and create greater trust in our ability to provide timely and accurate intelligence products and services. We will also be working to obtain Air Staff corporate support to give our airborne linguists the same recognition other enlisted flyers are receiving … career-enlisted flight pay.

We will highlight the shortage of Air Force electronic warfare expertise and recommend consideration of creating that expertise within the intelligence community to keep EW credible as a major element of our core competencies. Additionally, we are working to shore up shortfalls in technical ELINT collection, processing and analytical tools to support development of both offensive and defensive EW tactics, techniques and procedures.

We plan to develop an intelligence officer career plan that rewards field duty and field command assignments on an equal basis to staff duty assignments. We want to leverage AIA’s three funding sources to further national, joint, and Air Force goals, to include making the U-2, RC-135, UAVs, and other collection systems work as a synergistic whole. We will continue to embed AIA expertise in all Air Operation Centers and nurture our development of a training program at the 39th Intelligence Squadron intelligence operations schoolhouse to ensure we fulfill our commitment to the Combat Air Force.

Our future will be challenging and exciting. I have been impressed with the demonstration of enthusiasm by the men and women of AIA and the tremendous impact all of you are making to the security of our nation. It’s great to be a part of AIA.

Dennis Alvey
AIA Executive Director