FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. — The U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence has published a new analytical framework that helps to standardize a wide array of excuses intelligence professionals can use during future failures, sources confirmed today.

The Standard Military Intelligence Justifications doctrine frames how military intelligence soldiers operate on the modern battlefield, and articulates their capabilities and limitations, according to defense officials.

“To know the enemy, you must know yourself,” Maj. Gen. Robert P. Walters, Jr., the center's commander, emphasized at a recent forum with the SMIJ doctrine writers attended by new military intelligence captains in training. "We want to get to a world where commanders are so aware, they can reject their own JSTARS requests."

“Our old doctrine says the commander asks his intel guy where the enemy is, and we tell him where,” Walters continued. “But we don’t fight that way. The new doctrine in a nutshell is: tell your story. When you don’t know where the enemy is, help the commander visualize how weather stopped drones from flying, the CIA won’t share key information, and S-6 can’t even get your email working. The bottom line is shared understanding. SMIJ gives us language to build that.”