I was in a strange city, much of it foreign to me and my guide, who
was leading our convoy. Moving through crowded, winding passages, I
thought it would not be possible to meet our rendezvous time. The guide,
however, seemed quite relaxed as he linked to the communications
satellite and Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation with his
handheld device. On the moving map, he identified our location, showing
where we had made the wrong turn, and found our objective in moments.
Texting the other half of our party at the rendezvous location, he
immediately established a new meeting time. Then, pulling in the latest
video feeds on the same device, my guide confirmed that the planned
route was clear. Another vehicle joined our convoy en route, and we
rendezvoused silently as the GPS device updated both of our locations in
real time on the moving map. As we neared our destination, he used the
same handheld device to check the latest intelligence postings for the
area, noting that his buddy had been here a couple of days ago. His
friend had left a posting, warning him to avoid the place on the corner
across from our destination, and had marked several other postings
showing not only shops with helpful owners but also places to avoid. I
was amazed at the amount of data available at his fingertips, easily
accessible in near real time.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Of course, all of this transpired on his smartphone, and we were
merely trying to maneuver three cars across Boston to meet some friends
at a local restaurant. Nevertheless, I was struck by the seamless
integration of multiple forms of what I termed intelligence (but what my
civilian friends called common information). Starting with several
independent applications, they easily integrated full-motion video
(FMV), human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and
communications into a single, intuitive device with a common display--a
feat that many people in the military would envy. (1) That amount of
information, shared so easily and constructively, made me wonder what it
would take to provide the same kind of integration for our
forward-deployed forces. What prevents us from developing an intuitive
program that would allow the user, a Soldier on the battlefield, to
acquire needed information?
To do so, we must treat intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) holistically. The Department of Defense (DOD)
should empower a single agency to address the development and deployment
of new technology, consider the overall architecture and standards,
examine service culture as it relates to ISR, and work with partner
nations to advance their ISR capabilities in a manner that augments the
overall intelligence picture. These actions can improve our ISR posture
and position us to better incorporate developing technology as new
sensors, processing equipment, storage devices, and means of
dissemination become available.
Background
One of the most common questions heard at senior levels in the
military is, Why is ISR still a high-demand, low-density capability
after several years of needing it? We have done much to boost the number
and quality of assets in combat, such as flying more sorties on the
battlefield and standing up the ISR Task Force within the DOD to
expedite the fielding of ISR platforms and sensors. Since 2009 the
number of ISR sorties in Afghanistan alone has quadrupled, and in just
the last year the Air Force has fielded wide-area surveillance systems
such as Gorgon Stare that represent a leap forward in technology, taking
ISR from the proverbial "looking through the soda straw" to
maintaining surveillance across an entire city. (2) The Air Force has
even developed an independent training pipeline for operators of
remotely piloted aircraft to help address the demand for their
surveillance platforms. Despite this effort, the Air Force still cannot
meet the demand. (3)
The service is addressing the imminently correctable shortage of
physical assets even if the results are not as forthcoming as many would
like. Issues include the development of better sensors, fusion of
multiple forms of intelligence into an integrated picture, automation of
analysis, expansion of bandwidth, and storage of data. Granted, these
efforts entail technological difficulty, but much of the work is already
under way and reflects significant progress. (4) The ISR Task Force has
cut through much of the bureaucratic red tape, rapidly fielding programs
such as the MC-12 Liberty aircraft for manned ISR and helping to
expedite the introduction of Gorgon Stare wide-area video surveillance
to the battlefield. (5)
Remotely piloted ISR assets will continue as one of the primary
tools employed by the international community, as seen in the recent
unrest in Libya during which Predator aircraft have conducted both ISR
and air strikes. (6) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization considers
remotely piloted ISR a critical component of its efforts in the
ungoverned regions of Pakistan, having conducted 117 attacks in
2010--more than in any other year. (7)
Even beyond the current usage of ISR, we will experience greater
demand to help track fleeting targets. Already in the counter-terrorism
manhunt, we've had difficulty tracking targets as they hide within
the noise of society. Identifying terrorists or collaborators and then
tracking them to fix their location will continue to represent the most
difficult challenge to any nation that attempts to counter
terrorism--and ISR is crucial to this effort. (8) Finding and tracking
other types of fleeting targets such as mobile missile launchers or
submarines will also amplify the demand for information generated by ISR
assets. (9) The real effort here will not involve gathering the data so
much as coordinating across multiple sources and domains to display
information on a usable, real-time interface that allows us to observe a
target continuously from one asset to another without blinking. In
short, not creating but bringing many eyes together to form a coherent
picture is our challenge.
Current demand has already flooded the skies with aircraft and,
more critically, the communications links and intelligence analysts with
data. (10) Indeed, we now have a secondary problem--too much data.
Inundated with information, our forces either cannot sift through it all
to discern key elements or find themselves overwhelmed with irrelevant
data that does not directly support the needs of war fighters on the
ground. (11) Having more information than we can distribute and use
effectively is quickly becoming more problematic than creating more and
better ISR platforms and sensors since we cannot productively utilize
the data they collect from signals, FMV, and bandwidth-consuming radar
images. Several projects in development, however, seek to process data
on board the ISR platform itself, which would limit the amount of
bandwidth required for transmission and reduce the quantity of raw
information delivered to analysts for conversion into intelligence. In
short, significant improvements now in progress or on the horizon are
addressing the problem of technology as a limiting factor in the
exploitation of ISR data. (12)
The fact is, the creation of DOD policy and enforcement of
standards do not match the pace at which technology is advancing. This
lag in policy prevents us from fully exploiting current and developing
technology, creating a situation in which technology drives policy
instead of vice versa. Although the DOD is in a hurry to move new
technology to the fight, it has not fully addressed the formation of
better policy and reorganization to accommodate the growth of ISR. (13)
By taking certain steps, the department can keep policy ahead of
technology and shape the development of ISR assets instead of simply
reacting to the emergence of new technology.
Common Architecture
Among other critical elements, the common architecture that
underlies the system allowed my young guide in Boston to bring several
pieces of information together on his smartphone. He was able to choose
from several specific applications to create a system of information
management that gathered the information he needed and presented it in
an easily digestible form. In the smartphone market, Apple and Android
represent the only two major systems. The fact that anyone who wants to
devise an application does not have to create a separate set of
standards or communication protocols allows for rapid, cheap development
and focuses competition. Smaller applications that solve discrete
problems can then be aggregated as needed to enable greater information
sharing and exploitation. We need something similar for the ISR
community. Currently the ability to communicate and pass information
between assets exists, but a common architecture that allows
plug-and-play integration does not. An overarching architecture
outlining common standards, metadata tagging (simply defined as
"data describing data," simplified information that documents
what the stored data contains, enabling easier search and retrieval),
connectivity, and processing elements would allow the introduction of
new sensors without requiring new operating systems, user interfaces, or
protocols to permit communication with other assets currently in use.
The lack of common standards and protocols produces inefficiencies
within the ISR community; consequently, the inadequate sharing of data
results in a lack of information to the war fighter, which in turn
creates a false demand signal for more ISR assets. (14) The Government
Accountability Office has often cited the need to develop common sensors
and platforms that accommodate a plug-and-play concept which facilitates
the interchanging of sensors, regardless of manufacturer or platform;
this would also provide a framework for the development of new sensors
that would not demand proprietary equipment. (15) Additionally, the Air
Force has a goal of creating modular plug-and-play payloads with
standard interfaces across platforms. (16) Arguably the most important
element of our current ISR shortcomings is developing the architecture.
(17)
Furthermore, we must ensure that the information from multiple
types of sensors--including FMV, radar returns, and signals
intelligence--is integrated as well as tagged with the minimum metadata,
such as time and location. (18) Today not all data is tagged even with
basic metadata, thus leaving it useless for anything other than
immediate tactical applications. (19) Simply tagging the information
would form the basis of a recallable library. Despite considerable work
toward integrating FMV data and ensuring compatibility, we have done
little to incorporate either SIGINT or radar data--critical pieces to
developing a complete ISR picture. (20) As other forms of information
are integrated into a common picture, adding a baseline of certainty to
the metadata will improve its utility to both analysts and users in the
field. For example, SIGINT or radar information may only reveal the
presence of the target in a building, on the roof, or merely at a
location nearby. However, by incorporating the level of certainty of
target location into the metadata, the end users will have a better
understanding of the ambiguity of the information and can use it
appropriately when correlating multiple sources of target information.
(21) This baseline tagging of information would provide the foundation
for pulling these currently disparate data streams together and
overlaying them onto a common picture. Bringing video, radar, and SIGINT
together into an easily digestible display would allow greater
situational awareness to command and control elements as well as enable
us to rapidly track and fix fleeting targets. Moreover, it would permit
virtual time travel; that is, video surveillance of a meeting between
two vehicles might not trigger any action or even be noticed, but the
video would be coded with time and location. Later, after other sources,
possibly HUMINT or SIGINT, correlate one vehicle as a known target, the
video could be rewound to the original meeting. With wide-area
surveillance, both targets would be recorded, and the analysts could
then track both vehicles as they fast-forward the data to real time,
thereby locating them. From there, we could continue tracking or strike,
as required. Fully compatible forms of intelligence that come in with
common metadata dramatically reduce the time spent correlating and
displaying the data to build a common picture. Such correlation is
possible now, but it demands a significant effort in manpower and assets
and is therefore reserved only for high-level targets such as Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi in Iraq.
Beyond the common architecture, we must solve several technical
issues, such as the overwhelming requirement for data storage and the
increasing demand for bandwidth. However, we have no reason to believe
that technology will not continue to progress and eventually solve these
problems. In the meantime, we should establish an overarching
architecture to guide this development and assure the integration and
easy presentation of data; otherwise, it will have only limited
usefulness, even if the other issues are resolved. In addition to
interoperability and ease of sharing, a common architecture will reduce
costs by combining redundant programs, decrease the amount of money and
effort put toward the production of proprietary systems, and facilitate
the development of software to share data more efficiently and
effectively. By creating a common architecture to enable a
smartphone-type interface, the military will revolutionize mobile
communications, moving from voice to data and transforming World War
II-era radio/telephone operators into battlefield information managers.
Establishment of the Architecture
ISR has become not only a critical element to the conduct of
operations but also a minimum force requirement. (22) Given the
intelligence-intensive nature of both counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism, the proliferation of FMV has greatly enabled the
effectiveness of US forces. This has led to enormous demand for ISR
assets, eventually resulting in former secretary of defense Robert
Gates's establishment of the ISR Task Force to speed the
development and deployment of ISR platforms for contingency operations.
The main priorities of the task force include rapidly fielding and
sustaining ISR initiatives; ensuring that adequate processing,
exploitation, and dissemination exist; and ensuring that joint and
coalition forces can share ISR data. (23) The task force, which has
proved quite successful in operating outside the standard Pentagon
procurement channels, will become a permanent part of the DOD's
Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. In order to
proceed in an orderly manner, reduce redundancy, and establish an
overall framework for data sharing, the DOD needs to expand the task
force's charter and empower it to bring together current guidance
and standards, define a single vision for ISR that will articulate its
operational use, and form the strategic architecture to provide for
future growth.
Establishing the ISR Task Force as a permanent organization is a
step in the right direction toward empowering it to act beyond its
initial charter and set the vision for ISR development across services,
creating guidelines that will become an overall architecture for ISR
data sharing. Rather than merely rushing more assets to the theater,
having the task force define what ISR should do and how it should fit
into the overall future of operations from the DOD level could produce
synergistic effects. This will help industry and research institutes
focus their efforts and improve productivity. The task force can also
help enforce a common set of existing standards and require the
compatibility of information for sharing. This function of the task
force would prove especially valuable in terms of taking advantage of
numerous platforms already in existence by efficiently fusing various
types of data collected from radar returns, SIGINT, and FMV to offer a
common picture. (24) By having a common database and architecture, we
can write the software and applications that meet the ultimate goal of
allowing Soldiers in the field to pull or request information in usable
form and tailor it to their requirements. (25) Giving the ISR Task Force
the authority and budget to generate the overall architecture that will
push information to the operational level constitutes a crucial next
step.
Because ISR is incorporated into joint concepts such as AirSea
Battle that will further drive demand for integrated ISR, the task force
would be the natural choice for supplying the overarching guidance.
AirSea Battle will rely on integrating Air Force and Navy assets, of
which ISR is a key component. (26) This particular joint concept also
highlights the need to look beyond the traditional domains of air and
space for ISR. Remotely operated ISR platforms for underwater
surveillance, now in development, will track submarines, give us
time-critical offshore strike capability, and place stay-behind devices
that can monitor traffic through strategic choke points. (27) These
assets allow access to denied areas or those that pose unacceptable
risks to manned ships (such as shallow or mined waters). Again, to build
a common picture with a truly unblinking eye, we must bring such
platforms--as well as land-based stay-behind devices for monitoring
roads, compounds, or other high-interest areas--into the same
architecture and planning system. At present there is little integration
of remotely piloted aircraft, underwater vehicles, and other stay-behind
devices because of the lack of overlap and the overwhelming amount of
data. (28) However, as the ISR field develops and more information from
various domains becomes available, we will rely on the integration of
information driven by common standards and an overarching architecture
to compile a usable database that brings together and displays both
real-time and historical information.
Cultural Change
Culture is one of the obstacles to fully exploiting the data
gathered by ISR assets. Many individuals and organizations have not
fully kept up with the rapid shift in data sharing, distribution, and
ways of thinking about and treating information. As we saw in the
scenario that opened this article, a 20-year-old has a vastly different
relationship with, and expectation of, technology than people just a
generation older. Rapid changes in information technology have altered
the paradigm of experience. No longer does experience necessarily equate
to knowledge when it comes to employing information technology. The
military needs to embrace emerging technology culturally, engage with
the younger generation, and change how it looks at intelligence and ISR
by fully incorporating intelligence into operations. (29)
The most urgently needed cultural shift is the fusion of operations
and intelligence, two functions that we can no longer consider separate
entities that work independently. The special operations community has
fused these two functions to great effect in the counter-terrorism
effort, with ISR a critical component of operationalizing intelligence.
(30) The cultural shift is beginning to take place within the services
as well, as evident in the Navy's merging of the intelligence and
command and control career fields. (31) The Air Force has also addressed
the rising importance of ISR by creating the Office of the Deputy Chief
of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance in 2006 to
manage the service's ISR effort. This position has helped expedite
the fielding of new technology and has pushed a cultural shift within
the Air Force to integrate operations and intelligence as well as
operationalize the employment of ISR. (32) A significant cultural shift
is already occurring, especially within the intelligence community, but
it needs to be institutionalized and expanded within the Air Force. (33)
Intelligence is no longer solely a support function. Often, the purpose
of a mission is to gather information, develop patterns of life, and
locate targets. We can take additional steps to further the integration
of operations and intelligence and thereby fully exploit the data
collected by ISR platforms by giving intelligence the operational assets
to develop realtime intelligence. For instance, the Air Force can put
ISR on par with its strike and mobility assets by forming a major
command responsible for ISR and making intelligence and data sharing an
operational function. Such an agency already exists and has much of the
structure needed for success. The Air Force ISR Agency is a two-star
command within Air Combat Command (ACC), but as a subordinate unit, it
is often overlooked when ACC faces more pressing issues such as bringing
on two new platforms--the F-22 and F-35. The fact that much of the
infrastructure for a major command exists within the agency would limit
the costs and personnel necessary to establish a smaller two-star
headquarters similar to Air Force Special Operations Command.
A separate ISR command would highlight the Air Force's
commitment to ISR and lead its development, integration, and operations
within the DOD. We could then present ISR as a cross-domain capability
including both operational assets and multi-intelligence capabilities.
Intelligence would take on an operational focus so that the command
would have the purpose of managing operational intelligence gathering.
This command would be able to prioritize ISR and the development of the
technology as well as the organization, dissemination, and fusion of
intelligence with operations. Intelligence would support other ongoing
operations and targeting efforts, and the gathering of intelligence
would be an operational goal in and of itself. Having its own command
would allow the development of an ISR culture outside ACC--one that
would fully exploit ISR capabilities and operationalize intelligence for
use across the services. (34) Also, an ISR command would serve as the
single voice for ISR issues and present a unified vision for the future
of Air Force ISR--something currently missing. (35) Furthermore, this
command could become the basis for future development of a larger
command that encompasses intelligence and both airborne and space-based
ISR platforms, thus creating a cross-domain organization that leverages
the synergy among operations, intelligence, and eventually
communications; it would also speak to the combatant commands as a
single voice for Air Force ISR.
Additionally, we should view ISR as a sharable asset that is
prioritized and allocated. Because we often cannot task assets outside
the owning agency, they are not fully utilized. (36) Empowering the ISR
Task Force enables it to oversee the full employment of ISR assets,
maximizing the number of sensors and platforms in use. By centralizing
the allocation of limited ISR assets, we can utilize the optimal number
of them, resulting in increased utilization rates and intelligence value
of collected data. Doing so would mean that some units and organizations
that can currently access ISR assets would have to change their culture
and thus help blend operations and intelligence. (37)
Building a Partner Nation Network
The United States should use its position of information
preeminence to help build relationships with our partner nations and
develop their ISR capabilities. The Quadrennial Defense Review Report
notes that both ISR and capable partner nations are critical to the new
security environment. (38) Although the report mentions that investments
in airborne ISR will contribute to US capacity for security force
assistance missions, it does not emphasize the key role that ISR can
play in building partner nation capacity and improving relations with
those countries. (39)
As a relatively reliable and affordable means of enhancing existing
ground and air forces, ISR presents partnership opportunities to nations
that wish to improve their capabilities in this area. The 6th Special
Operations Squadron, whose primary mission is to train foreign air
forces, is rapidly building an ISR training capability; furthermore, Air
Force Special Operations Command is looking at ways to build a modular
ISR training program around relatively cheap, light fixed-wing aircraft
that we can easily export to partner nations. These aircraft are fairly
reliable, readily available, and easily maintained and flown. A
relatively small investment in equipment and training can produce a
robust, sustainable means of augmenting a partner's capability, not
only that of its air force but also that of its ground forces and
intelligence apparatus. (Improving intelligence is especially attractive
to nations involved in countering terrorists or conducting
counterinsurgencies.)
In order to meet the demand for ISR, the Air Force should look at
both exporting older equipment and developing a program that will meet
partner nations' needs, based on an analysis of their intelligence
requirements and capabilities. (40) Such a tailored ISR program for
addressing these countries' shortfalls can include manned and
remotely piloted systems as well as old and new equipment, including
SIGINT and other technical intelligence. (41) A key component would
involve the ability to tie their intelligence into the US system to take
advantage of the data gathered and the partner nation's analysis of
that data, which, of course, would have the advantage of familiarity
with the local culture and current security situation. Despite the many
issues that accompany the sharing of intelligence and technology, we
still have an opportunity to take advantage of partner nations'
expertise and gain intelligence from areas that would otherwise go
unexplored while at the same time reduce the US footprint involved in
collecting this information.
Building our partners' ISR capabilities gives us a chance to
establish continuous engagement with their forces in an operational
environment by employing ISR platforms and interacting with intelligence
officers. By developing an intelligence-sharing relationship, we can
cultivate a more enduring engagement than the current episodic one. (42)
Doing so requires development of force structure to engage in US
Security Force Assistance to train, advise, and equip partner nations to
conduct airborne ISR and SIGINT as well as integrate the data to create
usable intelligence. (43) These interactions will create exchange
opportunities for both operations and intelligence officers to immerse
themselves in a foreign culture and move from merely gathering data to
acquiring knowledge, building trust, and, eventually, understanding the
culture, ideas, and sociology that affect decision making in relevant
populations. Ultimately the relationships and understanding that come
from working with such countries are the key to producing usable
intelligence and increasing the effectiveness of our counterterrorism
and counterinsurgency operations, with the goal of developing an
intelligence strategy that intertwines with and supports the operational
strategy. (44)
Conclusion
We can make changes now that will maximize the available ISR
infrastructure within current technological and budgetary constraints.
(45) Indeed, we can still make significant progress as we wait for
additional technology to develop and create a better environment for the
addition of new platforms and sensors. The largely unaddressed issues
that will allow further exploitation of ISR both now and in the future
include the following:
* Empowering the ISR Task Force to set the vision for ISR and
defining the capabilities that the DOD wants from ISR
* Establishing an overarching architecture that addresses ISR
across all domains
* Enforcing established standards to attach basic metadata to all
ISR products, including FMV, SIGINT, and radar images
* Addressing the cultural change required to integrate operations
and intelligence and keep ahead of the rapid pace of technology and
information
* Establishing an ISR major command within the Air Force to address
ISR as a separate function
* Developing an ISR network with partner nations
Empowering an organization to set the vision for ISR across all
domains will reduce redundancy, improve interoperability, keep the
services moving forward in concert, and ease the shift in culture to
fully exploit information technology.
We still need more sensors and platforms to meet the demand for
information, but without a means to incorporate the data that they
produce into a common database easily shared with user-friendly,
customizable displays, we will reach a point of diminishing returns and
values. It is critical that we develop a flexible architecture with
standards, structure, and commonality to exploit the data currently
available and that we have the ability to incorporate new technology
seamlessly. Even if they are not perfect, a vision and an organization
to keep the DOD moving toward that goal will go a long way to improving
the access to and processing of ISR data. Instead of reacting to new
technology and letting it drive policy, the DOD needs to have a
coordinated effort for guiding the development of technology and
exploiting ISR's capabilities to better meet future requirements.
ISR has become too critical to the way we fight for us to do otherwise.
By treating ISR holistically, we can address the development of new
technology as well as the overall architecture and standards, look at
service culture as it relates to ISR, and work with partner nations to
advance their ISR capabilities in a manner that augments the overall
intelligence picture. Empowering a single agency to set a common vision
and take charge of ISR will substantially improve both the effectiveness
and efficiency of that capability. Furthermore, by taking such actions
as making the Air Force ISR Agency a major command, we can create
organizations within the services to fully address ISR issues and
integrate operations and intelligence. As technology continues to
advance rapidly, ISR will fuse operations and intelligence in a way few
other mediums can, thereby paving the way for the development,
processing, and execution of actionable intelligence by the same asset.
Again, rather than simply react to future developments, it is imperative
that the DOD be ready to guide the many aspects of ISR in concert.
Notes
(1.) These applications include Google Maps, Traffic Boston,
foursquare, and Yelp. Though not tailored to intelligence, they do
provide a great deal of information that can be combined to generate a
clear picture of what is in the area. Foursquare uses the signal from a
cell phone to send its location to a central database that then makes it
available to others. Many traffic sites allow the transmission of
real-time video from cameras in several major cities as well as other
camera applications that show surf conditions, the weather, or scenic
views. Applications such as Yelp let users leave ratings and commentary
on local businesses that others can access in real time via GPS signal,
based on their position. So simple a thing as a person's location
opens up a wealth of instantly available information that can easily be
overlaid onto a single map.
(2.) Ellen Nakashima and Craig Whitlock, "With Air
Force's Gorgon Drone 'We Can See Everything,'"
Washington Post, 2 January 2011.
(3.) Ibid.
(4.) Brig Gen Dale Waters, USAF, retired (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency), interview by the author, 19 January 2011.
(5.) Nakashima and Whitlock, "Air Force's Gorgon
Drone."
(6.) Martha Raddatz and Kirit Radia, "Pentagon Confirms First
Predator Drone Strike in Libya," ABC World News, 23 April 2011,
http://abcnews.go.com /International/pentagon-confirms-predator-drone
-strike-libya/story?id=13442570; and "U.S. Authorizes Drone Strikes
in Libya, McCain Visits Opposition in Benghazi," PBS Newshour, 22
April 2011, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/04
/syria-beefs-up-security-for-protests-mccain-visits -libya-rebels.html.
(7.) Eric Schmitt, "New C.I.A. Drone Attack Draws Rebuke from
Pakistan," New York Times, 13 April 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world /asia/14pakistan.html. Note that
some sources put the total number of strikes at 118. See, for example,
"The Year of the Drone: An Analysis of U.S. Drone Strikes in
Pakistan, 2004-2011," New America Foundation, accessed 12 October
2011, http://counter terrorism.newamerica.net/drones.
(8.) Michael T. Flynn, Rich Juergens, and Thomas L. Cantrell,
"Employing ISR: SOF Best Practices," Joint Force Quarterly 50
(3d Quarter 2008): 56-61, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location
= U2&doc = GetTRDoc.pdf&AD = ADA516799. The integration of
operations and intelligence has transformed the ability of our forces to
hunt terrorists and find fleeting targets. Moreover, the integration of
FMV has become an integral part of operations and critical to both the
development and prosecution of targets. Accounts such as the killing of
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which reflect the successful fusion of operations
and intelligence with the integration of ISR assets, are well known. The
hundreds of hours of ISR development that led to the killing of
Iraq's most notorious terrorist leader and the subsequent
dismantling of his network were only one part of the process. The
integration of ISR into an all-source intelligence system and into
operations allowed us to prosecute these targets.
(9.) Rebecca Grant, "U.S. Needs to Deter China's Mobile
Missile Launchers," UPI.com, 25 March 2009,
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside
-View/2009/03/25/US-needs-to-deter-Chinas-mobile
-missile-launchers/UPI-75531237999938.
(10.) Stew Magnuson, "Military 'Swimming in Sensors and
Drowning in Data,'" National Defense, January 2010,
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive
/2010/January/Pages/Military%E2%80%98Swimming
InSensorsandDrowninginData%E2%80%99.aspx.
(11.) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, Report of the Joint Defense Science Board /
Intelligence Science Board Task Force on Integrating Sensor-Collected
Intelligence (Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, November 2008).
(12.) Mark Luettgen, PhD (president, Systems and Technology
Research), interview by the author, 12 February 2011.
(13.) Maj Gen Blair Hansen (deputy commander, Joint Functional
Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance),
interview by the author, 2 March 2011.
(14.) US Government Accountability Office, Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: Overarching Guidance Is Needed to
Advance Information Sharing, GAO-10-500T (Washington, DC: GAO, 17 March
2010), http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10500t.pdf. This document indicates
that standards are not being evenly applied across ISR programs,
resulting in inefficiencies: "It is not clear how much of the
collected data are not being shared. Until DOD identifies what types of
ISR information should be shared and assigns priorities for sharing
data, it is unclear whether mission-critical information will be
available to the warfighter. In addition, the inability of users to
fully access existing information in a timely manner is a contributing
factor to the increasing demand for additional ISR collection
assets" (9).
(15.) US Government Accountability Office, Defense Acquisitions:
Opportunities Exist to Achieve Greater Commonality and Efficiencies
among Unmanned Aircraft Systems, GAO-09-520 (Washington, DC: GAO, July
2009), http://www.gao.gov/new.items /d09520.pdf. See also US Government
Accountability Office, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
(16.) US Air Force, United States Air Force Unmanned Aircraft
Systems Flight Plan, 2009-2047 (Washington, DC: Headquarters US Air
Force, 18 May 2009), http:// www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD =
ADA505168& Location = U2&doc = GetTRDoc.pdf.
(17.) "The architecture and compatibility piece is huge. The
more I get involved in the details of the ISR business the more I find
things that don't talk to other things. All the solutions appear to
be just 2-3 years off, but like a mirage the 2-3 years keep sliding to
the right." Konrad Trautman, director of intelligence, US Special
Operations Command, to the author, e-mail, 12 May 2011.
(18.) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, Integrating Sensor-Collected Intelligence, 63.
(19.) US Government Accountability Office, Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
(20.) Luettgen, interview; and Hansen, interview.
(21.) "A measure of certainty is important to enabling humans
and automated processing to combine information across different
sources. Uncertainty could be as simple as a CEP [circular error
probable] 50 number for the location data, or it could be a list of
possible identifiers for an object with probabilities for each (e.g.,
human 60 percent, vehicle 10 percent, animal 30 percent), or it could be
something more complex if the underlying data is more complex. Many
modern systems (e.g., next-generation GMTI [ground moving target
indicator] radars and the next increment of Gorgon Stare) can detect
multiple types of objects simultaneously (humans, vehicles, animals),
and there is often ambiguity in what has been detected. Also, with
increasingly accurate terrain models, the location ambiguity becomes
more complex (e.g., in radar or signals intelligence, it may not be
apparent if the target is on a building roof, or inside, or on the
ground), but it would be valuable to understand the nature of the
ambiguity to facilitate correlation with video. We need ISR data sources
to adhere to standard uncertainty representations in the same way that
they do for other data and metadata to enable consistency of
interpretation and simplified integration of new capabilities, which
again points to the need for DOD-wide coordination." Luettgen,
interview.
(22.) P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and
Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2009),
216-17.
(23.) Harrison Donnelly, "ISR LEADER: Ensuring Warfighters
Have the Intelligence Support They Require," Geospatial
Intelligence Forum, September 2010,
http://integrator.hanscom.af.mil/2010/September
/09232010/09232010-15.htm.
(24.) Hansen, interview; Luettgen, interview; and John T. Bennett,
"Gates' ISR Task Force to Join Top DoD Intel Office,"
DefenseNews, 7 October 2010, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i =
4863676.
(25.) "One of the benefits of the common architecture will be
the ability for users to not only pull existing information but to
request new information, subject to resource availability and priority.
Right now, the ability to request resources is very limited, but the
common architecture will make this easier and will allow us to use the
assets we have more wisely and responsively to get information to the
Soldier on the ground." Luettgen, interview.
(26.) Jose Carreno et al., "What's New about the AirSea
Battle Concept?," US Naval Institute Proceedings 136, no. 8 (August
2010), http://www.usni.org
/magazines/proceedings/2010-08/whats-new-about -airsea-battle-concept;
Greg Grant, "CSBA [Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments]
AirSea Battle Concept: More Stealth, Long-Range Strike to Counter
Chinese Battle Networks," Defense Tech, 18 May 2010,
http://defensetech.org/2010/05/18/csba-releases-its
-airsea-battle-concept/; Andrew F. Krepinevich, Why AirSea Battle?
(Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010),
http://www.csba online.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/2010.02.19
-Why-AirSea-Battle.pdf; and Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense
Review Report (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, February 2010),
33, http:// www.defense.gov/qdr/QDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10 %200700.pdf.
(27.) Singer, Wired for War, 114-16; and Hunter Keeter, "Navy
Unveils UUV [Unmanned Undersea Vehicle] Master Plan--New Capabilities,
New Vehicle Classes," Undersea Warfare 7, no. 3 (Spring 2005),
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue _26/uuv.html.
(28.) Paul Geier (chief of RPA/UAS [remotely piloted aircraft /
unmanned aircraft system] Interoperability and Future Capabilities,
AF/A2CU), interview by the author, 10 March 2011.
(29.) Hansen, interview.
(30.) Flynn, Juergens, and Cantrell, "Employing ISR,"
56-61.
(31.) Robert K. Ackerman, "Navy Builds around Intelligence,
Information Consolidation," SIGNAL Magazine, May 2010,
http://www.afcea.org/signal
/articles/templates/Signal_Article_Template.asp ?articleid =
2282&zoneid = 254; and Jim Garamone, "Intel, Ops Fusion Aids
Warfighters, Roughead Says," American Forces Press Service, 23
March 2011, http:// www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id = 63278.
(32.) Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF, retired, interview by the author,
19 January 2011; Rebecca Grant, "Actionable Intelligence: It's
the Holy Grail, and the Air Force Is Taking Big Steps toward Getting
It," Air Force Magazine 90, no. 6 (June 2007): 40-43, http://
www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive
/Documents/2007/June%202007/0607intelligence.pdf; and 17th Training Wing
Public Affairs, "ISR Leader Passes Torch to New Generation,"
Air Force Print News Today, 8 October 2010, http://www.af.mil/news
/story_print.asp?id = 123225750.
(33.) "ISR Surgeon: Finding and Fixing Enemies and Friends in
Theater [interview with Maj Gen Blair E. Hansen, director of ISR
capabilities, Air Force]," Geospatial Intelligence Forum,
July/August 2009, 24, http://www.kmimediagroup.com/files /GIF_7-4.pdf.
(34.) Dave Majumdar, "F-35 as ISR Collector: Air Combat
Command Isn't So Sure," C4ISR Journal, 1 November 2010,
http://www.c4isrjournal.com/story .php?F = 4756598; Deptula, interview;
and Hansen, interview.
(35.) Majumdar, "F-35 as ISR Collector."
(36.) Deptula, interview; and Hansen, interview.
(37.) Luettgen, interview.
(38.) Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 13,
22-23, 28-30.
(39.) Ibid., 29.
(40.) Geier, interview.
(41.) Briefing, Konrad Trautman, director of intelligence, US
Special Operations Command, subject: Intelligence Strategies for
Persistent Conflict, National Defense Industrial Association, Special
Operations, and Low Intensity Conflict, 11 February 2009, http://
www.dtic.mil/ndia/2009SOLIC/5Trautman.pdf.
(42.) Trautman, e-mail.
(43.) Trautman, briefing.
(44.) Ibid.
(45.) These include the cancellation of supporting programs, such
as the Transformational Satellite Communications System, that are
proving too expensive yet would help increase the bandwidth to transmit
greater amounts of data. See Robert M. Gates, "Defense Budget
Recommendation Statement" (speech, Arlington, VA, 6 April 2009),
http://www .globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2009/04
/dod-speech-090406.htm.
Col Dagvin R. M. Anderson, USAF
Colonel Anderson (BS, Washington University in St Louis; MIPP,
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) is the commander
of the 58th Operations Group, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. He is
responsible for the combat training for special operations and rescue as
well as for all of the Air Force's helicopter training. The group
includes seven squadrons that fly the HC/M&130P/H, MC-130J, HH-60,
UH-1N, TH-1, and CV-22. Colonel Anderson previously commanded the 19th
Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Florida; served as the
aide-de-camp and speechwriter for the commander, United States Special
Operations Command; and commanded the 319th Expeditionary Special
Operations Squadron. He was the senior Air Force fellow at
Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as an
Olmsted scholar, he studied abroad at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech
Republic. A command pilot with over 3,200 hours and 700 hours in combat,
Colonel Anderson has flown the U-28A, PC-12, MC-130E/P, C-130E, AC-130U,
Mi-17, UH-1, and KC-135R/T.