Maritime Security—The National Maritime Intelligence Center

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by CAPT Paul Crissy, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, National Maritime Intelligence Center Plans and Policy Staff.


The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 authorized the Director of National Intelligence to establish national intelligence centers to provide all-source analysis. In January of 2009 he established the National Maritime Intelligence Center to coordinate the efforts of the global maritime community of interest (GMCOI) with regard to information sharing.

As a result, it is an integrated capability where U.S. maritime intelligence requirements and all maritime security requirements, including military, criminal, economic, and national sovereignty issues, threats, and opportunities are considered in aggregate.

The NMIC’s goal is to create a “decision advantage” that confronts motivated, adaptive, and determined adversaries and focuses on threats and activities including:

• Illicit activities
• Gaps and seams
• Asymmetric threats
• Disruption of the global supply chain
• Extreme climatology
• Critical infrastructure interruption
• Environmental destruction
• Safety, security, and stewardship of the maritime environment

Synergistic Efforts
The NMIC’s key functions are coordinating and integrating maritime information and intelligence in support of national policy and decision makers, supporting maritime domain awareness objectives, and supporting interagency maritime requirements.

Its four functional areas and representative initiatives are collection integration, analysis integration, architecture, and information management and sharing.

What to Expect From Your NMIC
To ensure robust dialogue from stakeholders and ensure the greatest return on investment, the Director of the National Maritime Intelligence Center will continue to aggressively engage the GMCOI. Temporary and standing working groups and communities of interest such as the NMIC interagency working group, the maritime threat working group, and the interagency advisory group have been created to advise the NMIC director and bring together expertise from the intelligence community, the interagency and international communities, and industry to address matters of shared concern in the maritime domain.


For more information:
The Maritime Domain Awareness Information Exchange: http://www.mda.gov/.

The National Maritime Domain Awareness Coordination Office: http://www.gmsa.gov/index.html.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/summer2010.

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