Rear Admiral Gilbride has promulgated the Concept of Operations (CONOP) for the National Maritime Intelligence Center (NMIC), effective 19 August 2009.
It is quite good and serves as a model for all others. it is, as of now, the single best attempt to truly integrate the concerns and capabilities of the inter-agency community of interest.
A few shortfalls are easily corrected. The Department of Agriculture and food security, for example, are not embraced. That needs to be corrected. The CONOPS is also too focused on security and avoids both protective and enabling opportunities for maritime intervention. Environmental Impacts, for example, focuses only on weather and the opening of the Northwest Passage, not on pollution or other maritime dumping activities that further toxify 75% of our Earth.
The greatest weakness of this document, which is very, very good from a traditional Industrial Era point of view, is its failure to truly grasp the urgency of making “Sustainability of the Sea” the central guiding principle for the U.S. Navy and all maritime powers. Pirates and terrorists are traffic accidents, nothing more. The Sea is 75% of the Earth's surface, the next frontier (apart from the human brain), and until the U.S. Navy sees the Sea as Mother Sea, it will continue to mis-direct its policy, acquisition, operations, and intelligence.
See also the October 2005 National Plan to Achieve Maritime Domain Awareness which is itself an excellent model that misses the 50% represented by Mother Sea herself. And for vision, 450-Ship Navy Peace from the Sea
