Global Commons and the Role for Intelligence

• Author: Lowell E. Jacoby
• Position: Vice Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.)
• Pages: 51-56

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Global Commons and the Role for

Intelligence

Lowell E. Jacoby*

Introduction

This article attempts to answer four questions concerning the global com-

mons and the role for intelligence in the evolving circumstances in which

transnational terrorism has replaced the military capabilities of asmall set of po-

tential adversarial States to become the primary threat to the United States and its

interests. First, how broadly should the global commons be conceived (space, air,

surface, subsurface, seabed, cyberspace)? Second, what are the primary threats em-

anating from the global commons? Third, what role should elements of the intelli-

gence community play? How will they be integrated into aplan for command of

the commons? Finally, the Chief of Naval Operations and the National Strategy to

Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness1call for apersistent intelligence, surveillance,

and reconnaissance (ISR) capability in the global maritime commons. What ob-

stacles will we face in achieving that? Are any of those obstacles legal ones?

Domains of the Global Commons

In amore rule-driven time, one or more ofthe space, air, surface, subsurface, seabed

and cyberspace domains might be excluded from the commons. Concepts such as

sovereignly, control of airspace or the seas, nation-State identity and prerogatives,

Vice Admiral, United States Navy (Ret.)