It's DIA, Not CIA...a history of the Defense Intelligence Agency

When examining the history of the United States’ intelligence community, one three-letter agency stands out above the rest in terms of its notoriety: the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency, created in 1947 as part of the National Security Act, has long overshadowed the rest of the intelligence community in terms of its public profile. This is no doubt due in part to the history of the agency’s (now very public) covert action abroad during the Cold War, together with the glamorous depictions of CIA spies in fiction, such as Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne. However, what is often forgotten is that the CIA is only one of 16 other agencies that make up the US intelligence community. It could be argued that the emphasis on the CIA’s covert interventions in countries such as Guatemala, Cuba and Iran have to some extent obscured the role of other agencies involvement in clandestine, or covert, action. One such agency is the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

The DIA’s current remit is to produce, analyse and distribute military intelligence to “…warfighters, defense policymakers and force planners in the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, in support of U.S. military planning and operations and weapon systems acquisition.”[1] The agency is also responsible for supervising and executing intelligence operations during “…peacetime, crisis, and war.”[2] The DIA employs around 16,500 people (the exact number is classified, as is the DIA’s annual budget), which include a mix of military and civilian Department of Defense employees.[3]

The significance of the Defense Intelligence Agency in US national security over the last 50 years was recently reflected in remarks by former President, Barack Obama. In a letter to the DIA to mark the agency’s 50th anniversary in 2016, President Obama commented that throughout its history the agency had been, “…in times of war and peace alike…….a critical component” of the United States’ national defence.[4]

Foundation

The Defense Intelligence Agency was set up in 1961 during the Kennedy Administration, by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara based on recommendations made by a Joint Study Group, to improve and ‘streamline’ the production of military intelligence.[5] “Longstanding problems” had occurred within military intelligence, which had resulted in the different Department of Defense units producing duplicate and sometimes contradictory intelligence reports.[6] The establishment of the new agency was an attempt to promote a “greater unity of effort” and also to strengthen the “…overall capacity of the Department for collection, production and dissemination of Defence intelligence information.”[7] The first director of the agency was former Inspector General of the US Air Force, Lieutenant Joseph Carroll, who held the position until his retirement in 1969.

The DIA in the Cold War

The DIA really ‘came of age’ during the late cold war period of the late 1970s/early 1980s as the ‘second Cold War,’ began to heat up again and the agency was involved in assisting US efforts to rollback communism in hotspots around the world. Unlike the CIA however, the DIA is not technically legally authorised to conduct covert action that goes beyond intelligence collection. Nonetheless in its role as a combat support agency, it has played an important part in assisting the CIA, and special operations forces in action on the ground, for example in Operation Urgent Fury (the 1983 invasion of Grenada). The DIA’s involvement in providing intelligence support to field commanders on the ground later earned the agency praise for its successful role.[8] The Defense Intelligence Agency was also involved in the first Afghanistan war in 1979, in setting up special task forces to monitor what was happening. As author John Prados notes, the operational insights gained during this war furnished “many new insights” applicable to the second Afghanistan conflict in the 2001 ‘war on terror’.[9] Three years later during the 1982 internal coup in Guatemala, the DIA provided intelligence to the Reagan Administration regarding human rights abuses by the Guatemalan military.

The DIA today

After the end of the Cold War in the late 80s/early 90s, the Defense Intelligence Agency went through a period of restructuring as the United States went from dealing with conventional Cold War threats to grappling with the challenges posed by the new ‘unipolar’ world, and regional conflicts in places like the Middle East.[10] Over 2000 DIA employees took part in Operation Desert Storm during the First Gulf War, with the agency supplying most of the intelligence used by the Coalition allies to destroy key Iraqi targets.[11] A decade later, the agency was once again involved in the Middle East conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, in response to 9/11 attacks.[12]

In the post 9/11 era, the DIA continues to play an important part in US national security, particularly in dealing with asymmetric threats such as terrorism and insurgency, for example in the fight against ISIS.[13] Perhaps most significantly, as part of this strategy, the agency has sought to expand its HUMINT (human intelligence) capability. Although HUMINT has long been considered the sphere of the CIA, the DIA is seeking to challenge their dominance in this area, as the establishment of the Pentagon’s new ‘spy unit’, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), in 2013, demonstrates. The DCS (which replaced the Defense Humint Service and various other counter-terrorism and operational support branches), is an arm of the DIA that works with both the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of the military.[14] The DCS represents part of the Pentagon’s plan to increase spying operations against countries like Iran and send hundreds more spies abroad in an effort to rival the CIA’s spy network.[15]

With Donald Trump in the White House, it will be interesting to see how the DIA evolves under his tenure, given that his relationship with the US intelligence community to date hasn’t exactly been harmonious. Even before he was sworn in as President, Trump criticised US intelligence agencies for claiming Russia was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee during Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.[16] The new POTUS has also riled officials by previously stating that he didn’t need to receive their daily intelligence briefings.

Either way, with the agency set to expand their operational capability, expect to be hearing a lot about the DIA in future. Whoever is in the White House...

Endnotes

[1] “About DIA,” http://www.dia.mil/About/

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Frequently Asked Questions, ”http://www.dia.mil/About/FAQs/

[4] “President Barack Obama Recognizes DIA's 55th Anniversary,” http://www.dia.mil/News/Articles/Article/960790/president-barack-obama-recognizes-dias-55th-anniversary/

[5] Defense Intelligence Agency, 50th Anniversary: An Illustrated History, 2011, 8.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Defense Intelligence Agency, History Office. At the Creation, 1961-1965, 2002, 58.

[8] Defense Intelligence Agency, 50th Anniversary: An Illustrated History, 2011, 42.

[9] John Prados, “U.S. Analysis of the Soviet War in Afghanistan: Declassified,” October 9, 2001,

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us.html

[10] Defense Intelligence Agency, Office of Historical Research. A History of the Defence Intelligence Agency, 2007, 33.

[11] Defense Intelligence Agency, 50th Anniversary: An Illustrated History, 2011, 48.

[12] Ibid, 65.

[13] Defense Intelligence Agency, Office of Historical Research. A History of the Defence Intelligence Agency, 36-40.

[14] “Defense Clandestine Service: HUMINT compliment to National Intelligence,” October 13, 2016, https://sofrep.com/65643/defense-clandestine-service-humint-compliment-to-national-intelligence/

[15] Greg Miller, “Pentagon establishes Defense Clandestine Service, new espionage unit,” The Washington Post, April 23, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-creates-new-espionage-unit/2012/04/23/gIQA9R7DcT_story.html?utm_term=.61652401d717 and “DIA to send hundreds more spies overseas, ” The Washington Post, December 1, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dia-to-send-hundreds-more-spies-overseas/2012/12/01/97463e4e-399b-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_story.html?utm_term=.0d558b4a7daa

[16] “Trump team has differences of opinion on shaping spy agencies: sources,” Reuters, January 6, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-intelligence-idUSKBN14Q00V