A Strategies To Tasks Framework For Planning And Executing Intelligence Surveillance And Reconnaissance Isr Operations

To assist in moving intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) planning and execution forward from a fixed target and deliberate planning focus to one centered on emerging targets, the authors propose enhancing the collection management process with a strategies-to-tasks and utility framework. By linking collection targets to operational tasks, objectives, and the top-level commander's guidance with relative utilities, planning for the daily intelligence collections and real-time retasking for ad hoc ISR targets could be enhanced. When current tools are modified to provide this information, planners will be able to link collection targets to top-level objectives for better decision making and optimization of low-density, high-demand collection assets. Similarly, on the Air Operations Center (AOC) floor, intelligence officers will be better able to deal with time-sensitive, emerging targets by rapidly comparing the value of collecting an ad hoc collection with the value of collecting opportunities already planned. To handle the ISR demands posed by the rapidly changing battlefield of the future, this new, more-capable framework may be needed for making the best use of intelligence capabilities against emerging collection opportunities. Future research will focus on quantifying the advantages of this approach in comparison with the current process.

Lingel et al. present alternative methods to (1) approach U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) tasking and assessment processes and (2) outline a methodology for assessing the benefits and costs of different ISR employment strategies. The U.S. Air Force greatly increased the number of operational surveillance and reconnaissance sensors and its ability to process data from these sensors in support of operations across a wide range of conflicts. However, along with the increased number of sensors comes an increase in the complexity of the tasking of these assets needed to prosecute either planned for or emergent battlefield targets. As part of the authors' research, they developed new assessment techniques and operational strategies to improve the command and control process for assigning ISR assets in dynamic environments. The authors also suggest tools to assist commanders of ISR assets in their decisions regarding allocating and retasking ISR assets. The report focuses on traditional target sets against adversaries whose behavior is well understood.

The RAND Corporation's Collection Operations Model (COM) is a stochastic, agent-based simulation tool designed to support the analysis of command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C3ISR) processes and scenarios. Written for the System Effectiveness Analysis Simulation modeling environment, the COM is used to study processes that require the real-time interaction of many players and to answer questions about force mix, system effectiveness, concepts of operations, basing and logistics, and capability-based assessment. It can represent thousands of autonomous, interacting platforms and explore the capabilities of a wide range of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets. Through its flexible and friendly text-based input tables, the model represents a wide array of sensor capabilities, target properties, terrain and weather effects, and resource limitations. Its final output is a minute-by-minute account of each agent's changing operational picture. Since 2005, the COM has been used to model counterinsurgency, counterpiracy, and maritime surveillance scenarios and two major combat operations, and to study ad hoc collections, sensor cueing, dynamic retasking, and resource allocation. RAND has planned a number of upgrades to the COM, including the addition of space-based assets; a more robust model of sensor data fusion; communications modules that more accurately represent the advantages of a networked force; a more realistic representation of C3ISR workflow; sensor capability to generate false positives; and agent capability to practice deception. These extensions and enhancements are intended to result in a COM that can represent the entire C3ISR process specifically and network-centric operations in general.

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities have expanded situation awareness for U.S. forces, provided for more precise combat effects, and enabled better decision making both during conflicts and in peacetime, and reliance on ISR capabilities is expected to increase in the future. ISR capabilities are critical to 3 of the 12 Service Core Functions of the U.S. Air Force: namely, Global Integrated ISR (GIISR) and the ISR components of Cyberspace Superiority and Space Superiority, and contribute to all others. In response to a request from the Air Force for ISR and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering, the National Research Council formed the Committee on Examination of the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Capability Planning and Analysis (CP&A) Process. In this report, the committee reviews the current approach to the Air Force corporate planning and programming process for ISR capability generation; examines carious analytical methods, processes, and models for large-scale, complex domains like ISR; and identifies the best practices for the Air Force. In Capability Planning and Analysis to Optimize Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Investments, the current approach is analyzed and the best practices for the Air Force corporate planning and programming processed for ISR are recommended. This report also recommends improvements and changes to existing analytical tools, methods, roles and responsibilities, and organization and management that would be required to ensure the Air Force corporate planning and programming process for ISR is successful in addressing all Joint, National, and Coalition partner's needs.

AFDD 2-0 (formerly 2-9) provides fundamental principles and operational-level Air Force doctrine for ISR operations. Discusses goal and roles of ISR operations across the range of military operations. Provides guidance for planning, coordination, and execution of ISR operations at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

"...this special study in the interest of improving Army warfighting skills in complex operational environments like Iraq and Afghanistan and reducing the confusion that has been caused by the ever-changing nomenclature coming from the joint community that has served to obfuscate rather than clarify. The concepts presented in this project have shown their value in training rotations, mission rehearsal exercises and war"--P. [2] of cover.

This provocative paper draws upon the U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan to highlight key lessons for integrating intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations into military campaigns and major operations. The U.S. military's adherence to a Cold War-era collection management doctrine creates obstacles for ISR integration. This system of managing competing requirements as a basis for ISR operations has proven ineffective repeatedly in military operations due to the emphasis on collection statistics that do not account for operational realities. In the Information Age, strategy has never been more difficult or more important. Military campaigning is now a struggle among multiple hyper-connected groups to learn and influence faster than others. Because tactical actions increasingly have strategic consequences, military forces must anticipate how their actions could influence groups and how the actions of others could influence those same groups. Generating relevant intelligence has become increasingly difficult, as the demands for both precise action and force protection multiply. Modern technology simultaneously challenges and enables intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. It provides a direct connection between analysts and consumers separated by thousands of miles but leads to ever-changing sources and methods for coping with complex operating environments and compressed decision cycles. In the last 10 years, numerous reports have highlighted many obstacles to the integration of ISR in military campaigns and major operations. The root cause of these difficulties is adherence to a centralized Cold War collection management doctrine focused on production rather than goals and objec-tives.4 This Industrial Age paradigm is not agile enough to meet the challenges of military operations in the Information Age. A strategy-oriented approach that balances ISR ends, ways, and means will more effectively meet commanders' needs and expectations.