As documented in Sibel Edmonds’ book Classified Woman which documents her account of working as a language specialist with the FBI, the US intelligence agencies rely on people who can speak the language and understand the cultures of the countries that are the subject of their attention. They act as the critical first line of analysis and interpretation of data that comes through the intelligence agencies.
In my first article on recruitment of spies through CACI, a company that contracts to support US defense and intelligence agencies across a range of support functions, I provided a window on how the current jobs advertised tells us about current defense and intelligence resourcing needs, as well as providing information about the nature of the roles and where they are being used. Following on from Sibel’s example, one of the many things that come out of analyzing this data was the sourcing of specialists to provide language and area training for agency personnel.
Among its many other services to the defense and intelligence agencies, CACI has been involved in language training since July 2011 when it was one of four companies contracted under the US Department of Defense Language Interpretation and Translation Enterprises (DLITE) arrangement, the other three being Mission Essential Personnel, Global Linguist Solutions and L-3 Services. DLITE was a five-year, $9.7B contract to “provide foreign language support services and capabilities needed to meet ongoing, new, and/or changing mission requirements of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).”
As it happens, it appears that CACI has recently won another contract to supply language and country specific training. As at early Feb 2018, the list of CACI job adverts includes nearly 40 roles being sought for language training and area studies specialists to resource this new contract. As with the other listings, a job advert for an Area Studies Instructor-2 Slavic Languages declares as follows:
"Newly Awarded Multi-million dollar prime 5 year language contract now Hiring." If you are working or aspiring to work in today's United States Intelligence Community...NOW is the time to join CACI National Security Solutions! The Intelligence Solutions Team has an immediate opportunity for a Slavic Area Studies Instructor at Ft. Meade, MD.
- Area Studies Instructor
- Cryptologic Language Training Developer
- ISO-Immersion Language Instructor
- Language & Area Studies Training Consultant
- Language Development Program Coordinator
- Language Instructor
- Language Course Developer.
Table 1: Language Instructor specialties by location
| Location/Language | Augusta | Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardso | Linthicum | San Antonio | Grand Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | 5 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Farsi | 5 | 5 | |||
| Hebrew | 1 | 1 | |||
| Pashto/Dari | 1 | 1 | |||
| Pashto-Pakistani | 2 | 2 | |||
| Russian | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Russian/Ukrainian | 1 | 1 | |||
| Urdu/Punjabi | 1 | 1 | |||
| Grand Total | 14 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 19 |
Many of these roles require a very deep understanding of both the language and experience in a SIGINT environment. For instance, Language Course Developers are expected to be speakers with native capability and a minimum ILR proficiency level 4 in reading, listening and speaking in the standard form of the language to be taught and a minimum ILR proficiency level 2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening in English, or a speaker with native capability in English and a minimum ILR proficiency level 3 in reading and listening in the standard form of the language to be taught. Applicants for the role are expected to have at least three years (preferably ten years) SIGINT or Intelligence Community experience as a language analyst or language instructor.
An Area Studies Instructor needs to have a Master’s degree in language, areas studies, education, education technology, ISD or other directly related discipline, or five years’ experience the last ten years in teaching or developing training on topics of interest to the government and intelligence community. Such topics include history, technology, finance, economics, military, geopolitics, transnational issues and social organizations. They also need to have five years’ experience within the last fifteen years in SIGINT, military intelligence or intelligence community operations performing work directly concerning the areas of specialty (eg Far East) and the Americas, Europe, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and global issues.
Conclusion
Although it is difficult to tell how many resources CACI already has due to its past involvement in providing language training services to the US Department of Defense, the new contract appears to have a strong emphasis on resourcing language expertise in Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu/Punjabi and Russian. Arabic aside, this tends to indicate that their new customer is, at least initially, focused on expanded language capability to support operations in relation to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia.