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Defense Intelligence Agency
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Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community (IC), DIA informs national civilian and defense policymakers about the military intentions and capabilities of foreign governments and non-state actors. It also provides intelligence assistance, integration and coordination across uniformed military service intelligence components, which remain structurally separate from DIA. The agency's role encompasses the collection and analysis of military-related foreign political, economic, industrial, geographic, and medical and health intelligence. DIA produces approximately one-quarter of all intelligence content that goes into the President's Daily Brief.
DIA's intelligence operations extend beyond the zones of combat, and approximately half of its employees serve overseas at hundreds of locations and in U.S. embassies in 140 countries. The agency specializes in the collection and analysis of human-source intelligence (HUMINT), both overt and clandestine, while also handling U.S. military-diplomatic relations abroad. DIA concurrently serves as the national manager for the highly technical measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and as the Defense Department manager for counterintelligence programs. The agency has no law enforcement authority, contrary to occasional portrayals in American popular culture.
DIA is a national-level intelligence organization which does not belong to a single military element or within the traditional chain of command, instead answering to the secretary of defense directly through the under secretary of defense for intelligence. Around 2008, three-quarters of the agency's 17,000 employees were career civilians who were experts in various fields of defense and military interest or application; and although no military background is required, 48% of agency employees have some past military service. DIA has a tradition of marking unclassified deaths of its employees on the organization's Memorial Wall.
Established in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, DIA was involved in U.S. intelligence efforts throughout the Cold War and rapidly expanded, both in size and scope, after the September 11 attacks. Because of the sensitive nature of its work, the spy organization has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including those related to its intelligence-gathering activities, to its role in torture, as well as to attempts to expand its activities on U.S. soil.
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency is an intelligence officer who is nominated by the U.S. president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He or she is the primary intelligence adviser to the secretary of defense and also answers to the director of national intelligence. The director is also the commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, a subordinate command of United States Strategic Command, which is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Additionally, he or she chairs the Military Intelligence Board, which coordinates activities of the entire US defense intelligence community.
DIA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., on Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling with major operational activities at the Pentagon and at each Unified Combatant Command, as well as in more than a hundred U.S. embassies around the world, where it deploys alongside other government partners (e.g., the CIA) and also operates the U.S. Defense Attache Offices. Additionally, the agency has staff deployed at the Col. James N. Rowe Building at Rivanna Station in Charlottesville, Virginia, National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC) in Huntsville, Alabama, Russell-Knox Building on Marine Corps Base Quantico, National Center for Credibility Assessment at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Defense Intelligence Support Center (DISC) in Reston, Virginia. Since 2012, the Intelligence Community Campus-Bethesda in Maryland serves as the location of the National Intelligence University as well as a facility for DIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Less known than its civilian equivalent or its cryptologic counterpart, DIA and its personnel have at times been portrayed in works of American popular culture. As with other U.S. foreign intelligence organizations, the agency's role has occasionally been confused with those of law enforcement agencies. DIA's parent organization, the Department of Defense, features in fiction and media much more prominently due to the public's greater awareness of its existence and the general association of military organizations with warfare, rather than spycraft.
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Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community (IC), DIA informs national civilian and defense policymakers about the military intentions and capabilities of foreign governments and non-state actors. It also provides intelligence assistance, integration and coordination across uniformed military service intelligence components, which remain structurally separate from DIA. The agency's role encompasses the collection and analysis of military-related foreign political, economic, industrial, geographic, and medical and health intelligence. DIA produces approximately one-quarter of all intelligence content that goes into the President's Daily Brief.
DIA's intelligence operations extend beyond the zones of combat, and approximately half of its employees serve overseas at hundreds of locations and in U.S. embassies in 140 countries. The agency specializes in the collection and analysis of human-source intelligence (HUMINT), both overt and clandestine, while also handling U.S. military-diplomatic relations abroad. DIA concurrently serves as the national manager for the highly technical measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and as the Defense Department manager for counterintelligence programs. The agency has no law enforcement authority, contrary to occasional portrayals in American popular culture.
DIA is a national-level intelligence organization which does not belong to a single military element or within the traditional chain of command, instead answering to the secretary of defense directly through the under secretary of defense for intelligence. Around 2008, three-quarters of the agency's 17,000 employees were career civilians who were experts in various fields of defense and military interest or application; and although no military background is required, 48% of agency employees have some past military service. DIA has a tradition of marking unclassified deaths of its employees on the organization's Memorial Wall.
Established in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, DIA was involved in U.S. intelligence efforts throughout the Cold War and rapidly expanded, both in size and scope, after the September 11 attacks. Because of the sensitive nature of its work, the spy organization has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including those related to its intelligence-gathering activities, to its role in torture, as well as to attempts to expand its activities on U.S. soil.
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency is an intelligence officer who is nominated by the U.S. president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He or she is the primary intelligence adviser to the secretary of defense and also answers to the director of national intelligence. The director is also the commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, a subordinate command of United States Strategic Command, which is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Additionally, he or she chairs the Military Intelligence Board, which coordinates activities of the entire US defense intelligence community.
DIA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., on Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling with major operational activities at the Pentagon and at each Unified Combatant Command, as well as in more than a hundred U.S. embassies around the world, where it deploys alongside other government partners (e.g., the CIA) and also operates the U.S. Defense Attache Offices. Additionally, the agency has staff deployed at the Col. James N. Rowe Building at Rivanna Station in Charlottesville, Virginia, National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC) in Huntsville, Alabama, Russell-Knox Building on Marine Corps Base Quantico, National Center for Credibility Assessment at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Defense Intelligence Support Center (DISC) in Reston, Virginia. Since 2012, the Intelligence Community Campus-Bethesda in Maryland serves as the location of the National Intelligence University as well as a facility for DIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Less known than its civilian equivalent or its cryptologic counterpart, DIA and its personnel have at times been portrayed in works of American popular culture. As with other U.S. foreign intelligence organizations, the agency's role has occasionally been confused with those of law enforcement agencies. DIA's parent organization, the Department of Defense, features in fiction and media much more prominently due to the public's greater awareness of its existence and the general association of military organizations with warfare, rather than spycraft.
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