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Today's world has moved into an electronic information age. This information age provides the basis for examining how intelligence professionals operate within the global environment, across the spectrum of conflict from war to antiwar.1 The virtual explosion of communications-- related technology demands that the intelligence community not only keep pace with changes, but that we anticipate new directions, adapt our intelligence doctrine, and stay flexible to further change. Army XXI and Intel XXI operations require an intelligence force that is truly proficient-one that "can do" rather than one that merely understands in abstract terms what needs to be done. Intelligence professionals will have to demonstrate their proficiency under unprecedented, significantly more challenging conditions.
As part of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca (USAIC&FH) Commanding General's comprehensive training strategy for the 21st Century---- Intelligence Training XXI: Ready Now-we are addressing the challenges of changing technology in the 98K military occupational specialty (MOS). The 98K (Signals Collection/Identification Analyst) performs and supervises collection, identification, exploitation, and analysis of digital and analog communications, to include voice, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, facsimile, computer-to-computer traffic, and telemetry. (See Figure 1 for a more specific listing of the required 98K skills. The glossary on page 62 expands the acronyms.)
Now, that is the "book" definition of a 98K. For the real message here, read digital Signals Collection/identification Analyst.
Background
The 98K soldier traditionally focused on teleprinter and conventional non-Morse analog signals throughout the radio spectrum. Such was the target environment of the Cold War. The training these soldiers are now receiving has shifted to the meet digital signal and computer information age. Essentially, 98Ks will "break" digital signals into a recognizable form so that the 98C (Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Analyst), 98G (Voice Interceptor), 98H (Communications Locator/Interceptor), and 98J (Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) Interceptor/Analyst) soldiers can further exploit the intelligence within the "digital envelope." As the communications environment continues to change rapidly from analog to digital, the 98K mission requirements have migrated...