Photo By Cpl. Alora Finigan | U.S. Marines with 3rd Intelligence Battalion, III Marine Expeditionary Force...... read more read more
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CAMP HANSEN, Okinawa, Japan – No greater place exists for maneuver warfare than the gray zone, where operations take place below the threshold of armed conflict. In this environment, intelligence battalions can leverage the ability to win without fighting and help the Marine Corps gain the advantage.
On Feb. 23, 2023, 3rd Intelligence Battalion was named the Marine Corps’ 2022 Intelligence Unit of the Year. Among the service’s nine standing intelligence commands, the Okinawa-based battalion stood above the rest in gray zone operations to merit this prestigious award.
Lt. Col. Allan Chiu, the battalion’s commanding officer from Beltsville, Maryland, pointed to the “ingenuity, sense of urgency, and teamwork” of his Marines as the leading contributors to the unit’s achievement of this award.
“It has everything to do with empowering Marines to work as a team in developing and executing creative solutions to complex problems. As a part of the Stand-in Force, our Marines compete and grapple against the Pacing Threat every day, which makes us truly appreciate and understand the seriousness and importance of our mission. It is also amazing how some of our best ideas come from young, first-term Marines. None of this would be possible without the leaders at III MIG, III MEF, and the greater Marine Corps enterprise who support us with resources and trust us to execute,” said Chiu.
The battalion was officially designated as the 3rd Intelligence Battalion on April 2, 1999. That October, it was assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) Headquarters Group, which was redesignated to the III MEF Information Group (MIG) in 2017. The battalion has participated in various operations and exercises throughout the Indo-Pacific region during the course of its history.
3rd Intelligence Battalion’s mission is to provide intelligence and counterintelligence support to the III MEF command element, major subordinate commands, subordinate MAGTFs, and other commands as directed.
“We sense and make sense of the environment. That may sound simple, but it’s incredibly complicated in execution. How do we deploy and maintain camouflaged and concealed sensors for extended periods of time? How do we collect sensitive information from human sources while keeping them safe? How do we generate and publish target-quality adversary tracks for the joint and combined forces to close the kill web? How do we establish secure communication in an expeditionary, austere environment in order to access the most highly guarded intelligence collected by our national organizations, while simultaneously concealing our electromagnetic signatures? How do we counter the adversary’s attempt to find and kill us? How do we protect our secrets from adversary exploitation? How do we create timely, relevant intelligence assessments to inform targeting, planning, and decision making? These are the problems that 3rd Intelligence Battalion is tackling and solving every day,” said Chiu.
The battalion’s recognition was accompanied by individual and unit accolades of the same caliber. Capt. Lauren LaChance, the Intelligence Fusion Officer for III MEF, won the Intelligence Officer of the Year award, and the battalion’s Battlespace Surveillance Company was named the recipient of the Marine Corps Information Environment Enterprise award. Top-tier production drives the pace of the battalion, across the board.
“These Marines — you give them a mission, you give them a task, and they always perform higher than what our expectations are; that’s what makes our Marines special,” said Sgt. Maj. Erick Richburg, a Temple Hills, Maryland native and the battalion sergeant major. “They truly believe in what they do.”
Richburg added that the Marines understand the importance of intelligence in this area of operation and they take ownership of what they do from day one. This sentiment of purpose resonates from the highest level of the command to the individual Marine.
“I know how important [our work] is to the greater intelligence community,” said Lance Cpl. Sarah Zimmerle, a Fort Worth, Texas native and senior imagery analyst with the Signals Intelligence Operations Company. “So that, in itself, is a lot. It's really motivating to know that I'm actually making an impact.”
The battalion sergeant major explained that what amazes him is how their Marines, even from the junior ranks, are capable of varsity-level responsibilities like briefing generals. Their ability to go above and beyond what is expected is the key to the Marines’ success.
“I think just our mere existence in the battalion is very innovative, something that the Marine Corps has not done on this scale at all,” said Lance Cpl. Joshua Cardwell, a native of Bastrop, Texas and an assistant team leader with the Battlespace Surveillance Company. “It really sets the innovation tone for what we're doing.”
Innovation is at the forefront of the Marine Corps’ future plans and has been a keynote topic in recent years. 3rd Intelligence Battalion leads these innovative efforts through their experimentation with artificial intelligence (AI), as AI has become a cutting-edge resource around the world.
AI and autonomous systems are having dynamic impacts on warfare, according to the Commandant of the Marine Corps General David Berger in his Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG) in 2019.
“Our potential peer adversaries are investing heavily to gain dominance in these fields,” Berger noted in his CPG. “We must aggressively research, innovate, and adapt to maximize the potential these [systems] offer.”
3rd Intelligence Battalion is identifying ways of employing artificial intelligence to help sense and make sense of the environment.
“The Marine Corps and the Joint Forces are procuring new sensors and new kinetic and non-kinetic weapons,” said Chiu. “These war-winning capabilities all require varying degrees of intelligence support, all of which are additive to the current intelligence workload. We will need to figure out how to do more with the same number of people, and AI can help with that.”
The battalion is further engaged in another service-specific priority, naval integration. The Force Design 2030 concept directed the Marine Corps towards its roots as a naval expeditionary force. Being the intelligence resource of the island-rich Indo-Pacific region, 3rd Intelligence Battalion is exploring how it can more effectively integrate with an amphibious mission, as set forth in Marine Corps planning documents.
“We’re focused squarely on the maritime domain fight in alignment with III [Marine Expeditionary Force]’s mission in the first island chain,” said Maj. Patrick McCreary, an Annapolis, Maryland native and the battalion’s operations officer. “Maritime Domain Awareness is achieved through multiple intelligence disciplines focused on sensing operations throughout the maritime environment, whether that’s close to shore or in international waters aligned with key maritime terrain…it’s ultimately meant to complement our brothers and sisters in the Navy and the Joint Force.”
According to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, regarding the first island chain, “The first comprises the Kuril Islands, the main Japanese archipelago, Okinawa, the northern part of the Philippine archipelagos, the Malay Peninsula, and Taiwan.” Operating as part of a stand-in force along the first island chain, III MEF assures the security of key maritime terrain and maintains the capability of rapid, long-range precision fires across a distributed maritime environment.
The 3rd Intelligence Battalion is subordinate to the III MEF Information Group (MIG), which works predominantly in the gray zone of the Indo-Pacific. III MIG provides communications, intelligence, supporting arms liaison, and law enforcement capabilities in support of MAGTF operations.
“We have been blessed with visionary leaders who recognize the operational relevance and the potential of what 3rd Intelligence Battalion is doing,” said Chiu, “[III MEF and III MIG] provide excellent guidance, support us with resources, and are committed to enduring our success.”
As the intelligence asset of III MEF and III MIG, 3rd Intelligence Battalion continues to test the boundaries in the information space, operating with an always-ready mindset. For this Intelligence Unit of the Year, the recognition is gratefully welcomed to recognize the hard work of their Marines, but the battalion is already determined to venture toward further excellence.
Lance Cpl. Zimmerle shared how special it is to be recognized for the unit’s hard work. She remembered all of the hours she spent tackling the latest assignments in signals intelligence and she sees how far her unit has come.
“It's good to know we are appreciated and valued in the intelligence community,” said Zimmerle.
With the rest of 2023 ahead of them, the battalion is pursuing more innovative operations to support the joint force. These include deploying new sensors within the first island chain to illuminate the maritime domain, as well as advancing new data flow techniques to create a clearer intelligence picture and close the kill web.
“Our job is to see everything they do, and to make sure that they know that there’s nothing they can do to hide from us,” said Chiu.
The keynote theme from 3rd Intelligence Battalion’s achievement of Intelligence Unit of the Year was not individual proficiency or high-profile problem-solving. While those were certainly factors, 3rd Intelligence Battalion was eminently qualified due to the caliber of its team. Together, Marines fostered a synergy grounded in teamwork, drive, and a climate of relentless ingenuity.
“I am so blessed and humbled by the opportunity to serve alongside such an excellent team of Marines,” said Chiu. “People expect the battalion commander to inspire their Marines, but I feel my Marines inspire me.”
| Date Taken: | 03.20.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.20.2023 01:46 |
| Story ID: | 440726 |
| Location: | JP |
| Web Views: | 2,030 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Dominating the Gray Zone: 3rd Intelligence Battalion Battles to Top Intelligence Unit in Marine Corps, by 1LT Samuel Barge, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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