INSCOM collects intelligence information in all intelligence disciplines to provide unit commanders with intelligence for the battlefield and the focus of combat power. The organization also conducts intelligence production activities, ranging from intelligence preparation of the battlefield to situation development, SIGINT analysis, imagery exploitation, and science and technology intelligence production. INSCOM also has significant responsibilities in counterintelligence, force protection, electronic warfare, and information warfare. Additionally, INSCOM supports force modernization and training. INSCOM's stated vision for operations includes: conducting and supporting relevant intelligence, security and information operations for U.S. Army, joint and combined forces; optimizing national/theater/tactical partnerships; exploiting leading edge technology; and meeting the challenge of today, tomorrow and the 21st Century.
On January 1, 1977, the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command was organized at Arlington Hall Station, Virginia, to provide the U.S. Army with a single organization for conducting multi-discipline intelligence, security operations, and electronic warfare at the level above corps. The new organization merged the former U.S. Army Security Agency, the signal intelligence and signal security organizations previously located at Arlington Hall, Virginia, the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency, a counterintelligence and human intelligence agency based at Fort Meade, Maryland, and several intelligence production units formerly controlled by the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence and U.S. Army Forces Command. Brigadier General William I. Rolya, former commanding general of the Army Security Agency, became INSCOM’s first commanding general. On October 1, 1977, the former U.S. Army Intelligence Agency headquarters was integrated into INSCOM. The command established a unified intelligence production element, the Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center, on 1 January 1978. Additionally, INSCOM assumed command of three military intelligence groups located overseas: the 66th Military Intelligence Group in Germany, the 470th Military Intelligence Group in Panama, and the 500th Military Intelligence Group in Japan. These groups were transformed into multidisciplinary units by incorporating former Army Security Agency assets into the previously existing elements. A fourth such group, the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade, was soon organized in South Korea. All of these groups were eventually reorganized and re-designated as brigades.
