Marine Corps Intelligence Activity
The Marine Corps Intelligence Activity ( MCIA ) is the military intelligence service of the United States Marine Corps, one of the four branches of the armed forces of the United States, and is part of the Defense Intelligence Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Order
The Marine Corps Intelligence Activity obtained and analyzed information for the Marine Corps and other U.S. intelligence services regarding the potential operational areas of the U.S. Marines.
It supports the development of operational doctrine, the force structure, training and procurement of arms and feedstock by providing information on application areas ( coastal areas, port facilities, defense installations and settings), enemy troops and the strengths and weaknesses of their weapons, skills and operational tactics.
The MCIA notes by providing information and analysis that is needed to carry out the missions of the Corps and what training is required for a successful implementation of planned operations (example: Are coastal areas mined, provided with technical barriers, warning systems, what troops are where what weapons to defend etc. ) MCIA maintains a close partnership with the Office of Naval Intelligence, the intelligence service of the Navy and the coast Guard Intelligence, the intelligence service of the U.S. Coast Guard at the National Maritime Intelligence Center and the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia.
Integration
As the intelligence services of other branches of the armed forces provides the MCIA one hand militarily relevant information, as necessary, to the other services (in particular information in application areas of joint operations ) and to the central intelligence agency of the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, which does not collect messages themselves, but the information from the intelligence services of the armed forces evaluates and combines with findings of other intelligence services like the CIA or the spy satellites of the NGOs and the code breakers at the NSA situation reports and analyzes and forwards them to the military and political leadership.