{"id":32862,"date":"2022-12-07T15:02:56","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T15:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2022\/12\/07\/us-militarys-national-media-exploitation-center-to-refocus-on-china\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:37:21","slug":"us-militarys-national-media-exploitation-center-to-refocus-on-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/intel-geoint\/2022\/12\/07\/us-militarys-national-media-exploitation-center-to-refocus-on-china\/","title":{"rendered":"US military\u2019s National Media Exploitation Center to refocus on China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. officials plan to shrink the National Media Exploitation Center, a hub coordinating FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency efforts to parse documents, video, audio and other information sources for defense and intelligence distribution, to better position it for a future competition with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are in the process right now of trying to define what it looks like for NMEC to succeed, when its primary focus is no longer on a terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan,\u201d John Kirchhofer, the DIA\u2019s chief of staff<\/a>, said Nov. 29 at a livestreamed Intelligence and National Security Alliance event. \u201cWe are reducing the size of NMEC, and we want what\u2019s left of it to be really hyper-focused on strategic competition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clearinghouse was established in 2001 to harmonize the receipt, analysis and sharing of documents and other information seized by the U.S. military and intelligence community. Its role now is in flux as the Department of Defense and other federal agencies move away from the counterterrorism operations that defined the past two decades and prepare for potential large-scale, technologically complex conflicts with China or Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirchhofer said there \u201cwill be a shifting of priorities and focus for NMEC writ large,\u201d including \u201cincreasing opportunities for Mandarin speakers\u201d and \u201ca corresponding reduction in requirements related to Arabic, Urdu or Pashto, just given where our focus is going to be in the future.\u201d The center can be \u201chighly relevant\u201d in a fight against China and its People\u2019s Liberation Army<\/a>, the third-ranking officer added, \u201cbecause that has become such a data-centric organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t