A Culminating Point for Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

Abstract

In 2012 Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) finds itself at a culminating point a place where the demand, disposition, and development of current capabilities, arrayed against future requirements, force some critical decision making. After a decade of war, the service is well postured to operate in permissive environments, deploying sufficient airborne ISR with up to 65 combat air patrols (CAP) and enough processing, exploitation, and dissemination (PED) capacity to meet war-fighter and national-level needs. However, in the absence of objectively determined joint requirements, continuing demands for additional CAPs are unsustainable. Additionally, a variety of the Department of Defense's (DOD) independent ISR projects driven by joint urgent operational needs to satisfy a considered shortfall for today s fight calls for review. Funding is becoming scarcer, and evolving defense strategy mandates an accounting of capabilities necessary across the spectrum of military missions, especially the ability to characterize nonpermissive environments. If that were not enough, the information architectures (also known as info-tectures ) that must support previous investments are daunting and may not measure up to undergird the newest capabilities, particularly the need for bandwidth and information sharing.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA570163

Entities

People

  • Jon Kimminau

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Analysts
  • Command And Control
  • Computing System Architectures
  • Cyberspace
  • Environment
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • Information Operations
  • Military Operations
  • Military Science
  • Reconnaissance
  • Remotely Piloted Vehicles
  • Security
  • Surveillance
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.