Operational Design and ISR and Zombies or How Operational Design Can Help to Re-aggregate Joint ISR at the Theater and Component Levels

Abstract

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) suffers from disaggregation. Disaggregation can cause a lack of coherence and focus in the overall ISR strategy because the challenges of managing a disparate conglomeration of assets and processes can be overwhelming. Operational design, the framework that underpins a joint operations plan, can help to re-aggregate ISR. In doing so, it can aid ISR strategy formulation in five distinct ways. It ties ISR strategy closely to the Combatant Commander's (CCDR's) operational plan, provides focus for all-source intelligence collection, provides a means to communicate more coherent ISR tasking, aids in decentralized execution and mission-type orders (MTO), and helps to determine cost-benefit analysis. This paper argues that operational design concepts can help to focus and re-aggregate ISR strategy at the combatant command level during the joint operations planning process (JOPP) as well as at the component level. The goal of this paper is to help explain the why and how of operational design in its application to ISR.The Theater ISR CONOPS proposes several ISR-specific operational design principles as well as a new ISR Operational Design Team (ODT) at the combatant command level. In many ways the proposals make great sense and offer an advantage over current ISR strategy formulation. However, a couple of changes to the elements proposed in the ISR CONOPS will provide an even more coherent strategy-to-task framework that is nested in and consistent with current operational planning. First, the ISR operational design elements should be further refined and integrated into the JOPP. Second, the ISR ODT should be tied as closely as possible to the JFC's JPG. Finally, these new ISR ideas need to be tested out and then socialized in the joint arena.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2010
Accession Number
AD1019336

Entities

People

  • Valerie A. Long

Organizations

  • Air Command and Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Defense
  • Air Force
  • Combatant Commanders
  • Command And Control
  • Department Of Defense
  • Imagery Intelligence
  • Intelligence Collection
  • Intelligence Collection Disciplines
  • Military Operations
  • National Security
  • Reconnaissance
  • Signals Intelligence
  • Surveillance
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • United States Northern Command
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Geospatial Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence Analytics
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Systems Analysis and Design