Intelligence Support Battalion

The Intelligence Support Battalion (ISB) is the battalion in the United States Marine Corps which provides military intelligence for the Marine Forces Reserve. It is part of the Force Headquarters Group. They have detachments located throughout the United States and Marines from this unit have deployed all over the world in numerous billets supporting the War on Terror.

Mission

Provide a larger force intelligence capability within the Marine Corps reserves in accordance with the Department of Defense (DoD) initiative to reshape the total force. The ISB provides over 200 new Select Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR) intelligence Marines through three companies of trained intelligence specialists to support Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) in DoD Intelligence Production Program (DoDIPP) requirements. During peace time, reservists from the ISB drill at 12 of the 27 Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers (JRICs). During times of contingencies or crises, these Marines can be activated in place, providing reach-back capability, or can be deployed with their active duty counterparts.

History

On 23 December 2004, the Marine Corps published MCBUL 5400 and officially established ISB as an operational unit. For this to occur, the Marine Corps created 286 new Active Component, Active Reserve (AR), and Reserve Component intelligence billets and added them to the original 161 Reserve Component billets, resulting in a completely transformed intelligence organization of 459 Marines.^[1]

Since its operational establishment, ISB has provided intelligence production support to a variety of customers throughout the Intelligence Community (IC) and supported numerous operational manning requirements overseas with intelligence analysts, Ground Sensor Marines, and Counterintelligence/Human Source Intelligence (CI/HUMINT) Marines.

ISB maintains General Military Intelligence (GMI) production elements at Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers (JRICs) across the United States, as well as an Imagery Interpretation Platoon (IIP) in Colorado. The GMI production elements are aligned for production along the following five geographic divisions: Eurasia, Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.

References