Task Force 165 Military Intelligence Battalion – Building a Capability

Task Force 165 Military Intelligence Battalion – Building a Capability

September 07, 2007

Task organizing to create battalion/task force configurations is not a new method to provide operational support. Armor, Infantry, Aviation and other maneuver unit battalion/task forces are a standard organizational practice. However, bringing together a divisional-level Military Intelligence (MI) battalion/task force using a corps-level MI tactical exploitation (TE) battalion as the core element for focused, decentralized brigade-level operations support requires a nontraditional approach.United States Army, Europe (USAREUR) was tasked to provide a divisional-level MI battalion/task force to provide intelligence support and combined/joint staff coordination to the Southern European Task Force’s (SETAF’s) 2005–2006 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) VI rotation. USAREUR did not have an available unit of this type and executed rapid planning to use existing units, and support from other major commands, to build this MI unit.USAREUR brought together active Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve elements from Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), U.S. European Command (EUCOM), Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) and within USAREUR to task organize the divisional support MI battalion/task force known as Task Force (TF) 165.The core unit of TF 165 was V Corps’ 165th MI Battalion (TE). TF 165 comprised Soldiers, civilians and equipment from active component divisional, corps and theater-level units, staffs and National Guard elements. Although TF 165 was a provisional unit in makeup, the process is the focus of this paper. This process can serve not only as a model for transformation and modularity, but also as a way to augment transformed units that may have less capability to meet current requirements.