USAF’s ISR dominance strategy for A2/AD environments based on disruptive technologies and the use of multi-role, cross-domain ISR collection capabilities

Rajesh Uppal November 4, 2021 AI & IT, Air Force, Doctrine & Strategy Comments Off on USAF’s ISR dominance strategy for A2/AD environments based on disruptive technologies and the use of multi-role, cross-domain ISR collection capabilities 6,926 Views

The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. This implication by the National Defense Strategy Commission stands in contrast to the past several decades during which the U.S. possessed military power without equal. A key capability to ensure the U.S. military maintains its dominance is in its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets.

ISR is defined in Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense (DoD) Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms as “An activity that synchronizes and integrates the planning and operations of sensors, assets, processing, exploitation, and dissemination systems in direct support of current and future operations. ”The complete process includes planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination (PCPAD) capabilities linked together by communications architecture.

The Department of Defense’s (DOD) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems–including manned and unmanned airborne, space-borne, maritime, and terrestrial systems–play critical roles in support of current military operations. This is an integrated intelligence operations function. ISR is one of the US Air Force’s five enduring core missions along with air and space superiority, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. AF ISR is integral to Global Vigilance for the nation and is foundational to Global Reach and Global Power.

Future threats are expected to be increasingly complex, crossing national and Geographic Combatant Command (GCC) boundaries and occurring throughout the global commons. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities enable the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to be aware of developments related to adversaries worldwide and to conduct a wide variety of critical missions, both in peacetime and in conflict.

Today’s modern conflicts demand rapid, agile, and assured operations to meet decision support needs across air, space, and cyberspace domains, and all environments from permissive to denied. ISR is carried through a networked system of systems operating in space, cyberspace, air, land, and maritime domains.

Contested environments compress decision timelines, which make the relevance and timeliness of ISR products ever more critical. These products must be tailored to meet the requestor’s requirements in order to successfully achieve the commander’s objectives. Cross-domain challenges will require the cross-domain synergy of ISR capabilities to maintain situational awareness dominance.

Additionally, ISR requirements should be timely enough to plan and execute effective operations. Intelligence resulting from timely ISR can provide information to aid a commander’s decision-making and constantly improve the commander’s understanding of the dynamic operational environment. Air Force ISR strategy will require technology improvements to further integrate cross-domain sensing capabilities, including technology to improve automated support to analysts to shorten timelines from tasking through product dissemination.

Great power competition has returned, marked by Chinese and Russian malign activities occurring below the threshold of armed conflict, an area of competition called the grey zone, while they simultaneously advance warfighting capabilities with increased lethality, range, and speed. The Pentagon last year issued a new national defense strategy that calls on the military to prepare to fight against advanced adversaries like China and Russia. The Air Force faces unprecedented challenges in future operating environments. Emerging technology, irregular warfare tactics, asymmetric warfare, and anti-access capabilities in air, space, and cyber domains will enable adversaries to disrupt, degrade, and deny certain ISR capabilities.

The current DOD ISR enterprise does not yet possess the readiness to effectively support operations in the grey zone or support combat operations in a highly contested environment, according to senior DOD ISR leaders. To meet the demands of the new global strategic environment, the DOD ISR enterprise intends to shift from a manpower-intensive force optimized for operations within a permissive environment to an automation-intensive force capable of defeating a peer adversary within a highly contested environment.

To achieve operational success within a high threat environment, the Services have indicated they would like to invest in resilient and collaborative ISR capabilities that enhance situational awareness, aid rapid decisionmaking, and reliably find, fix, and target elusive targets deep within enemy territory. The objective is to generate an information advantage for U.S. military forces, which is paramount to effective operations both in the grey zone and highly contested environments.

To achieve an information advantage, each military service has highlighted a number of initiatives unique to their specific primary missions and in support of creating an all-domain sensing and sense-making capability. In other words, the aim of the future DOD ISR enterprise is to gain access to data from multiple domains (space, air, land, sea, and cyber); make rapid sense of that data; securely deliver that data to weapons, weapon systems, and commanders; and possess a workforce that can execute its mission in competition and combat, at a pace greater than the enemy.

USAF new Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) dominance strategy

In August 2018, the US Air Force released the Next Generation Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Dominance Flight Plan, an encompassing strategy about how the service maintains and enhances decisive advantage amidst the reemergence of great power competition and rapid technological change in the digital era. Aligned with the National Defense Strategy (NDS), the Flight Plan reorients the ISR Enterprise by aligning ends, ways, and an initial assessment of means to shift from a manpower-intensive permissive environment to a human-machine teaming approach in a peer threat environment.

More specifically, the Department of Defense (DOD) aims to connect ISR sensors across all warfighting domains (space, air, land, sea, and cyber) directly with commanders and weapon systems, sharing data at an accelerated speed. This will enable U.S. and allied forces to outthink, outpace, and outmaneuver its adversaries.

AF ISR relies heavily on space-based assets for collection and global airborne ISR operations; ISR collected from space greatly enhances our ability to characterize the battlespace through all domains and is critical to success across the full spectrum of operations.

In the next two to four years there will be “tens of thousands of commercial satellites providing electro optical, infrared, radar and hyper spectral imagery that will be mapping the globe in minutes, available for anyone to purchase,” she said. Kenneth Bray, acting Air Force associate deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance said the ubiquitous coverage provided by commercial satellites is a huge opportunity the military should capitalize on.

“For decades we had dozens of satellites able to attribute what our adversaries are doing. At the same time, however, our adversaries have been willing to go through the effort to hide from us what it is that they’re developing.”They can’t do that as easily when there are hundreds of satellites in space, Bray noted. “When you reach thousands, you get to something truly interesting. That’s what we want to bring to this game.”

A significant challenge for Air Force ISR concerns operations in anti-access/area denial environments (A2/AD). These challenges can be addresses through improved sensing, processing, exploitation, data integration, and dissemination technologies. This includes reaching across domains in order to combine the information received from air, space, and cyber sources. Synchronizing forces across the three domains in time and purpose for effect is paramount for mission success and a major S&T challenge. The air, space, and cyber domains possess dramatically different characteristics with respect to speed, time, distance, and governing physics and forces.

Our aim is a ready Next Generation ISR Enterprise possessing decisive advantage for key potential warfighters while remaining competent across the entire spectrum of conflict. To meet the challenges of a highly contested environment, the future ISR portfolio will consist of multi-domain, multi-intelligence, government/commercial-partnered collaborative sensing grid that utilizes advanced technology; it will be resilient, persistent, and penetrating to support kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities.

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) dominance strategy implementation

Driving the strategy are three pathways: pursuing disruptive technologies and opportunities; using multi-role, cross-domain ISR collection capabilities to bolster readiness and lethality; and investing in the foundational capabilities of people and partnerships to drive culture change.

Supporting these pathways are ten lines of effort, each with an associated annex. The pathway to disruptive technologies and opportunities, for instance, is supported by advancements in Machine Intelligence (MI), new approaches to leveraging data, and agile capability development.

The pursuit of disruptive technologies and opportunities will involve three lines of effort, including advancements in machine intelligence (MI), new ways to leverage data, and agile capability development. “To accomplish the Flight Plan aims, we must have the architecture and infrastructure to enable machine intelligence, including automation, human-machine teaming, and ultimately, artificial intelligence; these initiatives will define how the ISR Enterprise executes operations.”

“Space was not the biggest thing we saw. It was the machine intelligence piece,” said Kenneth Bray, acting Air Force associate deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “Machine intelligence will enable our humans, our sensors and our platforms,” he said. “It’s going to be the center of what we do.”

Each line of effort has an implementation plan with goals and corresponding benchmarks. Some of the goals include: operating a data-centric enterprise, fielding new technology development from idea to execution via DevOps, and transitioning industrial-age constructs into digital-age approaches. The associated benchmarks will shape implementation over the course of the next decade.

It also envisages investment in people and partnerships to drive culture change. We will repurpose, retool, automate, and stabilize the workforce and will use the Air Force corporate process to ensure the ISR Enterprise has the equipment and personnel to achieve this vision by 2028. To that end, our target is to increase both the quality and quantity of ISR production with fewer Airmen conducting this mission by 2028 while remaining competent across the Range of Military Operations. The very innovation and technologies our Airmen have created in the field will allow our entire Enterprise to advance and posture for operations in the Digital Age.

AF ISR 2023

US Air force ‘s “AF ISR 2023: Delivering Decision Advantage,” lays out a strategic vision of “Full-Spectrum Awareness” and “World-Class Expertise” which combine to the ultimate vision of “Delivering Decision Advantage.” AF ISR Vision 2023’ demand for an “…ISR enterprise that seamlessly ingests data from an even wider expanse of sources, swiftly conducts multi- and all-source analysis, and rapidly delivers decision advantage to war fighters and national decision makers.”

The challenge for AF ISR is to maintain the impressive tactical competencies developed and sustained over the past 12 years, while rebuilding the capability and capacity to provide the air component commander and subordinate forces with the all-source intelligence required to conduct full-spectrum cross-domain operations in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments around the globe.

The US Air Force (USAF) has assembled a cross-functional team to explore electronic warfare (EW) throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. Known as an enterprise capability collaboration team, the cross-functional group is led by Cyberspace Operations and Warfighting Integration director, Office of Information Dominance and USAF chief information officer brigadier general David Gaedecke. Gaedecke said: “The airforce and our nation need to maintain superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum. “The spectrum is so broad, relied upon by all, and increasingly congested, so the first challenge of this effort is to scope the issue.” “Superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum is fundamental to the new National Defense Strategy. “To be a lethal force of the future, we need to lead in research, technology, and innovation. Superiority in the spectrum underpins all of these.”

“We will not be able to maintain the size and composition of the current ISR force, yet we must prepare for operations which will range from humanitarian assistance to major contingency operations in highly contested environments. This strategic vision enables us to achieve national goals while tailoring our ISR force to best meet future challenges.”

Our ability to provide dominant ISR depends on well-trained, well-led professional Airmen who have strong analytical skills along with a high state of readiness, agility, and responsiveness. These characteristics, along with continued innovation and integration of technological advancements, will combine to make our Airmen experts in their trade.

Additionally, we will not rely solely on our own capabilities; it is imperative that we fully leverage the vast array of national capabilities along with those of the Total Force, our sister Services, the Intelligence Community (IC), and our international partners.

World-Class Expertise

Providing world-class expertise as an integral part of air component and joint operations requires ISR Airmen who are masters of threat characterization, analysis, collection, targeting, and operations-intelligence integration. Empowered to innovate, ISR Airmen will lead the way in the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) that will compress OODA loops, produce actionable intelligence, and provide the intelligence needed to complete the kinetic or nonkinetic targeting equation.

Delivering Decision Advantage

The fundamental job of AF ISR Airmen is to analyze, inform, and provide commanders at every level with the knowledge they need to prevent surprise, make decisions, command forces, and employ weapons. Maintaining decision advantage empowers leaders to protect friendly forces and hold targets at risk across the depth and breadth of the battlespace—on the ground, at sea, in the air, in space, and in cyberspace. It also enables commanders to apply deliberate, discriminate, and deadly kinetic and non-kinetic combat power. To deliver decision advantage, we will seamlessly present, integrate, command and control (C2), and operate ISR forces to provide Airmen, joint force commanders, and national decision makers with utmost confidence in the choices they make.

Distributed Targeting

Over the past two decades, our deliberate targeting competence has stagnated. To ensure AF readiness across the full range of military operations, we will refocus on satisfying the air component commander’s air, space, and cyberspace deliberate targeting requirements by: adopting a distributed targeting concept of operations and TTPs; integrating and automating targeting capabilities across the enterprise; integrating kinetic and non-kinetic targeting TTPs; and establishing more comprehensive targeting training. Targeting is a critical enabler of Global Vigilance, Global Reach and Global Power; we will ensure that AF ISR is ready to provide this highly perishable skill when required.

Multi- and All-source intelligence

In addition to the tactical intelligence mission, the AF ISR force of 2023 must also conduct strategic intelligence collection in peacetime—Phase 0—and provide world-class, multi- and all-source intelligence in highly contested, communications-degraded environments across all domains.

Since 9/11, there has been an explosion in space and cyberspace capabilities, with corresponding prominence on the national stage. Additionally, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in renewed, sustained emphasis on human-derived intelligence (HUMINT and open sources) by all of the Services. To execute the AF ISR mission, we must be better collectors, enablers, and integrators of information derived from space, cyberspace, human, and open sources

Social Media

Intelligence gathering in future will also involve monitoring and mining social media in real time via an automated artificial intelligence is another way the Air Force and other military branches can obtain information, said the head of the service. The Air Force on some level does monitor social media already. The service’s only non-offensive air operations center, known as “America’s AOC” at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

But social media is just one aspect, said Col. Robert Bloodworth, chief of combat operations. It is also the technology of “refining the analysis” through AI to reach the operator, pilot or airman in a decisive and streamlined way is what the Air Force desperately needs to conduct missions in the future. “Before you get to artificial intelligence, you have to get to automation, and what does that mean? It means we’re really developing algorithms, so we then have to build trust in the algorithms,” said Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamieson, the service’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance on the Air Staff during an interview.

Cyber Warfare

Cyberspace, a relatively new and rapidly evolving operational domain for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the military services, is defined as “a global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.”

ISR sensors can be augmented by the ability of cyber information to provide geolocation information and movement information on adversarial and friendly systems. This capability can allow sparse assets to be deployed elsewhere or to obtain information more effectively, allowing rapid, minimal observations.

There is a multidimensional relationship between the ISR and cyber missions and capabilities. There are three missions from a cyberspace perspective: support, defense, and force application. ISR is a crosscutting capability that can be applied holistically with other core functions to enable cyberspace missions. Conversely, Cyberspace Superiority supports and is supported by all of the other Air Force core functions. In the case of the Global Integrated ISR (GIISR) core function, these relationships could be characterized as “Cyber for ISR” and “ISR from Cyber.”

The “Cyber for ISR” relationship is illustrated by the mission assurance requirement for the cyber domain in support of an ISR mission. Cyberspace mission assurance ensures the availability and defense of a secured network to support a military operation.

Conversely, the “ISR from Cyber” relationship is illustrated by considering how ISR can be executed during cyberspace operations, particularly during cyberspace force application (exploitation). This can be characterized as situational awareness during and in support of cyberspace operations.

By 2023, AF ISR and cyber forces will be an integral partner to the joint team that operates in cyberspace to meet air component commander, joint force commander, and national needs. We will also forge service-specific cyber capabilities that provide specialized applications across the domains.

Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) will continue to be a crucial enabler for Offensive Cyber Operations (OCO), Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO), and Department of Defense Information Network (DoDIN) operations, but ISR will also be a prominent and critical product of those operations, meeting Air Force, joint, and national decision maker requirements.

Space Control and Protection

In the early stages of conflict in a contested, degraded environment, ISR from space may represent our most viable collection capabilities. But the space domain is increasingly congested and contested. Therefore, to maintain this capability, we need to identify non-kinetic and kinetic threats to space assets and architecture; identify adversary intent and capabilities to use space; and conduct target analysis that enables offensive and defensive counterspace operations.

Protecting space assets is critical to AF ISR operations and the nation’s full spectrum joint operations. Purposefully developing ISR Airmen who understand ISR for and from space is the initial step we will take to ensure this critical capability. To solidify the value of space ISR, we will also broaden and improve our ability to integrate space-based ISR capabilities across the AF ISR Enterprise.

Rebalance and Optimize Integrated ISR Capabilities

AF ISR is exquisitely equipped to operate in permissive environments is directed to be transformed into one more suited to win the nation’s wars in contested or highly contested environments.

Key to maintaining the ability to operate in both permissive and contested environments is the appropriate mix of Airmen, manned platforms/sensors, and remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). Our air, land, maritime, space, human, and cyber sensors must be able to penetrate denied space, survive to operate, and provide required levels of persistence.

The challenge is to integrate these sensors through a robust information architecture that allows highly trained multi- and all-source analysts to rapidly access and analyze all pertinent data and deliver it quickly to the war fighter and decision makers. To achieve this optimal mix of Airmen and machines, we will rebalance the AF ISR portfolio by divesting some platforms/sensors and, where possible, reinvesting the savings in information architecture, all-source analytic training, and next-generation penetrating ISR platforms/sensors.

AF ISR’s processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) capability has evolved considerably over the last decade. To continue the maturation, we will break the linear relationship between collection and analysis, where every increment of additional collection capacity requires a proportionate increase in analytical manpower. We will embrace the need for increased automation while recognizing that analysts play the critical role in synthesis, integration, and insight.

To achieve this balance we will transition the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS) to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) with an initial focus on cloud data storage, analytic and collection planning tools, and ISR visualization. To share our all-source analytical expertise across the entirety of AF ISR, we will provide our Airmen with an integrated information architecture that connects the entire Enterprise—from our Airmen

Revolutionize Analysis and Exploitation

The highly complex strategic environment of 2023 will require robust multi- and all-source analysis. It will demand focus on all phases of the intelligence cycle and capability to perform in all phases of conflict.

Second, information-age technology is advancing at a stunning pace, yielding increasingly common information architectures, data accessibility, and knowledge management—all of which have created the conditions for a leap in intelligence processes. Whether it is labeled as “big data,” data mining, activity-based intelligence (ABI), or object-based production (OBP), the vast amount of information that we collect demands a transformation in the way we process, organize, and present data. To optimize our limited manpower and resources, we will “flip” today’s larger investment of Airmen in processing and exploiting single collection streams of data to an enterprise model where ISR Airmen develop, construct, and conduct multi- and all-source analysis in concert with the squadrons, wings, Air Operations Center (AOC), Joint Intelligence Centers, joint, and national producers.

The most important and challenging part of our analysis and exploitation revolution is the need to shift to a new model of intelligence analysis and production. The growing complexity of the data we collect along with the sheer quantity of data has obviated the traditional linear model of production. The new model treats all intelligence collection as sources of meta-tagged data accessible across multiple domains, organizational, and security divides from which analysts—trained in all-source techniques and methods—can discover, assess, and create relevant knowledge for commanders and decision makers at all levels. The AF will present and implement this model at the forefront of the IC, as a full partner of the IC Information Technology Environment (IC-ITE) and Joint Information Environment (JIE).

USAF ISR enabled by data science

The characteristics of the intelligence environment since 2000 suggest fundamental change is occurring: an ever-larger volume of data; widening variety (classic intelligence sources, new sensors and types of data, and open sources); increasing velocity (more data and information in motion, every day); and more complex veracity (data duplication, identity, authenticity, and the resolution of each).

The ability of Air Force ISR analysts or “Analyst Airmen,” to deliver in this new era of intelligence analysis will be predicated in great part on a strategy to shape AF ISR Big Data into a manageable form to meet tactical, operational, and strategic mission needs.

The IC Cloud is a main feature of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “IC IT Enterprise” (IC-ITE) program which represents a mass migration of IC data to a common ecosystem. Described by the ODNI, “…IC-ITE moves the IC from an agency-centric IT architecture to a common platform where the Community easily and securely shares information, techAs the AF ISR community integrates into ICITE,

Joint Information Environment (JIE), Defense Intelligence Information Environment (DI2E), and simultaneously maintains its own large enterprises that collect, exploit, and disseminate data, the Data Science discipline and the need for imbedded talent will become more important. Technological advances in live data streaming and correlation allow for realtime decision making on a scale never before experienced in AF ISR. We now have the ability to ingest disparate data sets, put relevant conditions and rules in place, and derive insights and prescriptive intelligence in an unprecedented fashion.

By managing and providing the Community’s IT infrastructure and services as a single enterprise, the IC will not only be more efficient, but will also establish a powerful platform to deliver more innovative and secure technology to desktops at all levels across the intelligence enterprise.”This transformation presents both challenges and opportunities for AF ISR in adopting a Data Science strategy and capitalizing on the wealth of information available from the IC Cloud.

Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS)

The Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS), also referred to as the AN/GSQ-272 SENTINEL weapon system, is the Air Force’s primary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and dissemination (PCPAD) weapon system. The weapon system employs a global communications architecture that connects multiple intelligence platforms and sensors. Airmen assigned to AF DCGS produce actionable intelligence from data collected by a variety of sensors on the U-2, RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper and other ISR platforms.

Since its early inception, Air Force DCGS has evolved from a deployable system to a distributed ISR operation capable of providing world-wide, near-real-time simultaneous intelligence to multiple theaters of operation through a robust reachback communications architectures. The system integrates data collected by ISR platforms with exploitation performed by intelligence professionals to provide critical and actionable intelligence to leadership and supported commanders worldwide. Through a federated/distributed architecture, AF DCGS can move data between multiple worldwide sites to align intelligence production to meet ISR collection demands. Over the years, the Air Force DCGS weapon system and its predecessor systems have supported ISR operations in every major conflict in which U.S. forces have been involved. In addition, AF DCGS has provided intelligence exploitation during humanitarian and coalition partner operations via specialized products specifically cleared for release.

The Air Force DCGS is currently composed of 27 regionally aligned, globally networked sites. The sites have varying levels of capability and capacity to support the intelligence needs of the warfighter. An Air Force DCGS Distributed Ground System (DGS) is capable of robust, multi-intelligence processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) activities to include sensor tasking and control. It can support multiple ISR platforms in multiple theaters of operation simultaneously.

A Distributed Mission Site (DMS) normally has specialized analysis/exploitation capabilities, limited sensor command and control (C2) capabilities, and may be limited to select platforms and/or sensors. The Air Force DCGS PED Operations Center (DPOC) and 480th ISR Wing DCGS Operations Center (DOC) provide worldwide command, control, mission management and data dissemination allowing the Air Force DCGS to operate as a federated enterprise to meet worldwide intelligence needs. DGS and DMS sites are manned by a mixture of active-duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve and coalition partner units working to provide an integrated combat capability.

Raytheon to support USAF’s Distributed Common Ground System, reported in May 2021

The $175m five-year contract will see RI&S provide signals intelligence field services for the DCGS programme. RI&S will support the USAF’s seven intelligence applications used to gather and connect data as part of the new DCGS-Signals Intelligence Field Support (DSFS) programme.

The company will merge information from airborne, ground and other systems. Raytheon Intelligence and Space Defense and Civil Solutions vice-president David Appel said: “Gone are the days of planning daily sustainment operations site-by-site. Now DSFS provides an enterprise support structure for all sustainment operations, optimising mission coverage with fewer field engineers. “We’re able to help ensure the highest level of operational availability for the system, all while reducing costs.

“With the open architecture baseline being declared fully mission capable, we anticipate greater improvement in analysts’ efficiency and the ability to manage the availability of the system for all sites.” RI&S will leverage its mission domain expertise to provide high mission availability in support of all operations related to the effort.