Evolving Threats and Strategies Will Require More and Better ISR

Dan Goure

Security,

 The best ISR architecture for a more complex and dangerous security environment will exploit the unique capabilities of both the U-2 and the Global Hawk.

The last 16 years of continuous conflict with multiple terrorist organizations around the world has taught the military one lesson: the importance of information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.  The ability to collect, process, exploit and disseminate vast amounts of information from multiple types of sensors is vital to successfully prosecuting the counterinsurgency fight. Now, the United States is confronting new and evolving threats with the knowledge and, in a growing number of cases, the resources to counter current U.S. ISR capabilities. In addition, the U.S. military is pursuing new operational concepts such as Multi-Domain Battle and distributed lethality. As a consequence, there is a pressing need for more and better ISR capabilities.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan saw a revolution in ISR platforms, sensors, analytic capabilities and organizations. The Pentagon invested massively in many different unmanned aerial systems, or drones, such as Predator, Reaper, Shadow, Wasp and ScanEagle. These were backed up by fleets of specialized manned platforms like the MC-12W, essentially a commercial aircraft loaded with sensors.  The protection of U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan was enhanced by the deployment of both fixed towers and aerostats equipped with electro-optical sensors. Even systems developed during the Cold War such as the Navy’s EA-6B Prowler and P-3 Orion were pressed into service.

The advancement in sensor technologies has been even more dramatic than that in platforms. The demand for continuous visual identification and tracking of targets drove the development of ever more compact, higher resolution video cameras. To these were added sensors operating in other portions of the electro-magnetic spectrum creating a capability for multi-spectral ISR. In addition, the military developed wide area surveillance systems such as Gorgon Stare that can provide a continuous city-sized overall picture with high resolution “chipouts” of individual views, each of which could be streamed in real time to multiple viewers.

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