Defense Clandestine Service

The Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) is an arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which conducts clandestine espionage, intelligence gathering activities and classified operations around the world to provide insights and answer national-level defense objectives for senior U.S. policymakers and American military leaders. Staffed by civilian and military personnel, DCS is part of DIA's Directorate of Operations and works in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations and the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command. DCS consists of about 500 clandestine operatives, which is roughly how many case officers the CIA maintained in the early 2000s prior to its expansion. Contrary to some public and media misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" intelligence agency but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense HUMINT activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as the Defense Human Intelligence Service. In 2012, the Pentagon announced its intention to ramp up spying operations against high-priority targets, such as Iran, under an intelligence reorganization aimed at expanding the military's espionage efforts beyond war zones. To this end, the DIA consolidated its existing human intelligence capabilities into the Defense Clandestine Service, with plans to work closely with the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command. The Defense Clandestine Service consolidated several of the DIA’s military-intelligence elements, including the Defense Human Intelligence and Counterterrorism Center, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the Strategic Support Branch, and the Defense Attaché System. This has created an internal intelligence network within the US military so powerful that some officials have described it as a second CIA. The plan was developed in response to a classified study completed in 2011 by the Director of National Intelligence, which concluded that the military's espionage efforts needed to be more focused on major targets beyond the tactical considerations of Iraq and Afghanistan.