In this month’s issue:
1)
2) Military leaders devise programs for moving-target munitions
3) ISR general calls for emphasis on sensors
4)
5) Army Aviation Manned/Unmanned Teaming Shortens Sensor To Shooter Time, General Says
6) Air Force Aligns Air Intelligence Agency Under Air Staff's ISR Directorate
7) JFCOM Experiment Considers Information Sharing
8) Military challenges demand rethinking of military,
9) AIM-120 Recast As Ballistic Missile Interceptor
10) New JSOW variant seeks moving maritime targets
11) ISR director: Analysis, sharing key to intel
1)
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 05/24/2007
Development of such a DF-21 version has been reported from time to time over the past few years. It would present a great challenge to naval air-defense systems, although such a ballistic missile would itself have the difficulty of getting distant targeting data before launch and, as its maneuvering warhead descended, discriminating one ship from another.
Special concern
The combination of cruise-missile carrying Tu-22Ms and ship-homing DF-21s is a particular concern. A simultaneous assault by both types of weapon would present special problems for any single defending ship if its radar could not handle low and close threats while at the same time looking for high and distant
ones - a reported limitation of the U.S. Navy's Aegis system. But several ships working together could each attend to a different threat sector. Fixed-target DF-21s have been deployed since the 1980s. They are credited with carrying a 600 kilogram re-entry vehicle more than 1,800 kilometers (1,100
miles). The Tu-22M has an unrefueled combat radius of 2,000-2,500 kilometers.
- Kazuki Shiibashi
2) Military leaders devise programs for moving-target munitions
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 05/02/2007
Enemies in
"Based upon feedback from the combatant commanders in
Two programs in particular seemed directed to the effort: the Direct Attack Moving Target Capability (DATCM) and the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW). But the efforts face collateral-damage concerns, a growing issue on irregular battlefields as well as on Capitol Hill. The Navy and Marine Corps' fiscal 2008 budget requests $29.1 million next fiscal year, and $214.5 million across the five-year defense spending plan, for the DAMTC program. It would modify the existing inventory of "direct-attack" Joint Direct Attack Munition and Laser Guided Bomb weapons for a dual-mode weapon that is capable of hitting moving targets up to 70 miles per hour, Balderson and Bruce Clingan, the Navy's director for air warfare, told the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee on April 26.
An open acquisition will be carried out "expeditiously to respond to an urgent warfighter need" for a fixed-wing aircraft-based moving target weapon," Balderson said. Initial operating capability is slated for FY '09. "This low-cost, rapid integration program adds significant capability while leveraging the existing industrial base to procure 17,720 DAMTC weapons," according to Clingan.
Meanwhile, a JSOW C-1 version will provide a moving target capability to the standoff JSOW via the addition of a datalink and guidance software improvements to the JSOW-C variant, they said. The budget includes $24.9 million to continue development of the "network-enabled" JSOW-C-1 to fill a critical mission capability gap against moving ships at tactically significant ranges.
The request also outlines $131.3 million to procure 421 JSOW-Cs, which employ an imaging infrared seeker, GPS/INS and an augmenting charge with a follow-through penetrator bomb for use against hardened targets. Inventories remain below approved Non-Nuclear Ordnance Requirements, they said.
But production of other JSOW variants are still being deferred as the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the services try to resolve unexploded battlefield ordnance issues that are a concern to U.S. officials and allies, the officials testified. In February, Democratic Sens. Diane Feinstein (
3) ISR general calls for emphasis on sensors
Air Force Times
By Paul Richfield - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 25, 2007 5:30:04 EDT
Speaking Thursday at the first 55th Wing ISR Symposium in
“We can’t imagine what perils await us in the future,” Deptula told the gathering of intelligence officers, flight crews and defense contractors. “All we’re certain of is that the magnitude and speed of change will be the defining aspects of the future.”
“The enemy is evolving and adapting, and is highly malleable, like a liquid that gravitates toward our weakest points and defies our efforts to hold it in our grasp. Infesting urban areas and hiding among the civilian population, just finding the enemy has become our greatest challenge.”
Meeting this challenge, he said, will require a decisive shift from a Cold War mind-set, which placed ISR in a distant, supporting role: “Then, we had the luxury of an adversary that was monolithic and predictable, and peering over the Iron Curtain was all we had to do.”
Deptula said the Cold War left the
“Today’s enemy is not massing on the other side of the Fulda Gap,” he said. “One of their primary goals is to deny us a target and negate our firepower advantage, so ISR now makes up the majority of our current operations.”
We still need “fifth-generation” fighters such as the F-22, Deptula said, and need to discard the idea that such aircraft are just air-to-air combat platforms. Their capabilities, in his view, run the gamut of Air Force ISR, electronic warfare and precision strike missions. “It’s not just an F,” he said. “It’s also an F/A, an EA, an AC, RC and a G.”
Systems already in the inventory, such as targeting pods used for “nontraditional ISR” are not being sufficiently exploited, according to Deptula.
“We need to capitalize on the investment we’ve already made,” he said, adding that the top priority should be to eliminate ISR as a “low-density, high-demand” asset. “A forward-leaning strategy should be our goal — ISR has never been more important than it is today.”
4) U.S. mulls ending troubled Lockheed missile
Reuters News 05/17/2007
Author: Jim Wolf
(C) Reuters Limited 2006.
WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is considering killing a troubled $5.8 billion-dollar Lockheed Martin Corp. cruise missile as well as other options "to get this program well," the service's top weapons buyer said Thursday.
"Termination is one of the things on the table" for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, Sue Payton, assistant secretary for acquisition, told a breakfast session.
"We don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water here," she said. "At this point, we do not think that we have a design flaw."
The missile, known as JASSM, is designed to destroy high-value, well-defended, fixed and relocatable targets.
Its GPS en-route guidance system and terminal imaging infrared seeker are supposed to provide pinpoint accuracy in difficult environments.
Payton said the Air Force would know more about recent flight-test problems in 30 days after reviewing data.
Lockheed Martin had no immediate comment on Payton's remarks.
But it said anomalies were experienced with four JASSM weapons test-flown in early May as part of an Air Force weapons evaluation program.
"An investigation is under way to identify the most likely cause of those anomalies," said Don McClain, a spokesman for Lockheed's Missiles and Fire Control business unit in Orlando, Florida. "Until this process is completed, it would be purely speculative to comment on potential factors contributing to the anomalies."
In a move unrelated to the test failures, the Defense Department told Congress in April that the program's costs had increased enough to require a full review of whether it should continue.
By law, the Pentagon's review must assess whether other solutions may be available to meet the mission and, failing this, affirm that the program's management is sound enough to proceed without further problems.
Lockheed has blamed the JASSM breach of a law known as Nunn-McCurdy on a range of factors, including procurement of an extended-range variant, which more than doubled the overall JASSM buy; previous Congressional budget cuts; and implementation of reliability improvements.
"Lockheed Martin has maintained its cost and schedule, and the reported budget increases have come principally from growth in the quantity of missiles ordered and additional capability requested by the Air Force," McClain said.
President Bush has asked Congress for a total of $213.3 million for the JASSM program in fiscal 2008 starting Oct. 1, including $201.1 million for Air Force procurement and $12.2 million for research and testing.
Lockheed shares were down 75 cents at $98.89 in late- morning New York Stock Exchange trade.
5) Army Aviation Manned/Unmanned Teaming Shortens Sensor To Shooter Time, General Says
Helicopter News 05/15/2007 Author: Ann Roosevelt
ATLANTA--The Army's teaming of manned and unmanned aviation assets is producing effects better than the service ever expected, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army said recently.
"We're getting persistent stare on the battlefield in ways that we never imagined," Gen. Richard Cody said in the keynote address to the Army Aviation Association of America conference here.
Back in the early 1990s, the Army was talking about teaming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with rotorcraft. However, technology was not ready.
The Army built Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify and Neutralize) to go after targets such as bomb makers, bomb emplacers and suicide bombers, Cody said. It is built around a C-12 aircraft with special mission package, and a Warrior UAV with special mission packages and command and control systems to get a common operating picture of the air and ground.
The idea was to shorten the sensor to shooter link.
What the service found out was that linking a C-12, Warrior and AH-64 Apache and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopters didn't necessarily mean helicopters in the air patrolling and seeking targets. The helicopters could be on the ground, on strip alert.
"We've been able to increase the survivability of our aviation fleet and our ground convoys because of the quick sensor sharing and common operating systems," Cody said.
While Cody wouldn't cite specifics, nor share tactics, techniques or procedures, he has seen the effects on videos, read the reports and talked to the soldiers.
"Suffice it to say, the routes they looked at, the enemy doesn't know they're up there," he said. The enemy can't hear or see the UAVs.
In the tactical operations center, the combat aviation brigades have situational awareness and understanding of what the manned or unmanned system is saying, and knowledge of where aviation assets are.
"I'm going from sensor-to-shooter killing in less than five minutes," Cody said.
"We are on the cusp of fully understanding how to get persistent stare," he said.
6) Air Force Aligns Air Intelligence Agency Under Air Staff's ISR Directorate
Defense Daily 05/16/2007
Author: Michael Sirak
The Air Force's Air Intelligence Agency (AIA) will formally have a new name and parent organization come June 8, the service announced on Monday.
As part of sweeping changes that the Air Force announced earlier this year to optimize its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) functions, AIA will become the Air Force ISR Agency and report directly to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for ISR (A2) in Air Force headquarters as a field operating agency, the service said. Previously, the AIA was aligned under Air Combat Command.
"The realignment of the newly designated, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency under Air Force A2 will underscore the nature of ISR as an Air Force- wide enterprise," Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for ISR, said in a statement.
The move will give the agency direct access to the Air Force's senior intelligence officials, the service said.
Deptula said the agency "will now be responsible for broadening [its] scope beyond the signal intelligence arena to include all elements of ISR. The intent is to provide unmatched ISR capability to our nation's decision makers and combatant commanders."
The renamed agency will remain at Lackland AFB, Texas, but its force structure will include the 70th Intelligence Wing and the Air Force Cryptologic Office at Fort George G. Meade, Md.; the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick AFB, Fla.
The Air Force Information Operations Center at Lackland, formerly a part of AIA, was reassigned on May 1 to 8th Air Force at Barksdale AFB, La., to fall under the service's new cyberspace command.
"The organizational realignments will enable the Air Force ISR Agency to transform our approach to ISR by managing systems, programs, and personnel through a capabilities-based construct, rather than focus on ownership or myriad unconnected budget lines," said Brig. Gen. Jan-Marc Jouas, vice commander of Air Force ISR Agency.
The Air Force announced its plans to transform its ISR operations in January, although service officials say the conceptual work began internally last August (Defense Daily, Jan. 19). The goal is to make the Air Force's ISR enterprise a preeminent organization, with the most respected personnel and the most valued capability by addressing how the Air Force provides ISR to joint warfighters as well as how it is organized to do this and how it trains and fosters a cadre of ISR professionals, service officials have said.
"This realignment is the result of nine months of hard work by ISR professionals in the Air Force and civilian sector," Maj. Gen. Craig Koziol, Air Force ISR Agency commander, said of the changes to his organization. "Air Force ISR transformation will allow us to treat intelligence as an Air Force-wide enterprise, coordinate and integrate ISR capabilities, and present those capabilities to joint warfighters and national users."
Koziol said he intends for the agency to become the focal point for Air Force ISR development and modernization.
"Our team must keep one thing in mind though; this is about delivering the best trained forces and most effective capabilities and how we can conduct integrated ISR operations, with precision at all levels, for air, space and cyberspace missions," he said.
"It's also about organizing, training, equipping, presenting and integrating multi-intelligence all-source ISR capabilities for joint forces commanders through the coalition/joint force air component commander," Koziol continued. "I am also looking forward to developing even stronger relationships with the combat support agencies within the national intelligence community--these organizations continue to play a vital role across the entire warfighting spectrum."
The changes with the agency are important steps in moving toward seamlessly integrated tactical and national ISR operations, he said.
7) JFCOM Experiment Considers Information Sharing
Defense Daily International 05/18/2007
Author: Ann Roosevelt
An early insight from the U.S. Joint Forces Command Noble Resolve 07-1 experiment is how to properly balance the needs of operational security and the need to share information between the military and homeland security personnel, according to an official.
There's a need to work on this issue because there's "a dynamic tension between [operational security] OPSEC and the need to share information...especially between DoD and some of our state and local responders," Mark Wolfe, deputy director for the Noble Resolve campaign, told sister publication Defense Daily in a recent interview.
Noble Resolve grew from an Army-JFCOM war game in 2006 finding a need for homeland defense experiments. It combined a terrorist scenario--a ship heading toward the United States from Africa with a radiological device on board, with a hurricane descending on the Tidewater area of Virginia.
The April 23-27 experiment at JFCOM facilities in Suffolk, Va., included at least a dozen coalition partners, representatives from the combatant commands, Coast Guard, Department of Energy, FEMA, Port of Norfolk, Maersk Line, the city of Portland, Ore., Defense Threat Reduction agency, University of Virginia, the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Early results can be expected by the end of the month with an executive report to follow, officials said.
Wolfe said part of the problem in studying maritime domain awareness with homeland security and homeland defense is how to share information among all the interested players, and at what level of security.
Some nations, such as Finland and Sweden, have an excellent cooperative network sharing information constantly on the Baltic Sea, he said. Others do not.
Eighty percent of the world's cargo is traded on some 50,000 ships. This trade is under regulated and not well protected, while economic damage could be enormous for a small terrorist investment.
Wolfe said one insight was that "we don't need an enormous 'uber alles' type of C2 structure to be top down driven like a U.N.-driven type of organization for maritime awareness...maybe just a system of systems," Wolfe said. "We're going to expand that look as we go into [Noble Resolve] NR 2, looking at a baseline idea on maritime domain awareness."
JFCOM's sophisticated modeling tool, called G2, looked at the processing of information among the parties involved in the experiment.
"G2 looked at all sorts of different emergency management and first responder and DoD and DHS types of information," Wolfe said.
Noble Resolve 07-1 worked with the Virginia Emergency Response Team Exercise (VERTX) fusion center, a fairly new construct, Wolfe said. There are some half-dozen of them in the United States, mostly funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The center had homeland security representatives, Virginia State Police, FBI, law enforcement, and analysts to review at all sorts of information flowing in.
Another early indicator, and a positive insight, was that "these fusion centers probably do need to have information on what's going on," Wolfe said.
Some "amazing" lessons are being learned, he said. For example, fusion centers and the information sharing that needs to go on: "a lot of eyes opened with that. You want to be able to get ahead of the threat...especially a natural threat, to plan ahead properly...and make good sound decisions before event occurs."
One benefit of an experiment like Noble Resolve is that it "frees us up a lot, not tie our hands to [tactics, techniques and procedures] TTPs, allows us to discuss freely what we think we would do as a changing situation occurs," Wolfe said.
Now, there's a fairly sophisticated effort to get the information about the experiment out, officials said, because there's high interest across the nation and among various allies in the discussions and insights that will be forthcoming.
For example, the command is working with the association of Adjutant Generals and likely all the governors within the next few months.
Among the efforts that "opened everyone's eyes" was the use of the Joint Semi-Autonomous Forces (JSAF) tool that modeled the environment in 3-D, the effects of a hurricane in Hampton Roads, Va., how a tidal surge of 10 feet from the hurricane climbed the sides of buildings in nearby Norfolk. That type of tool can be used to help "plan evacuations, how to position your first responders--firemen police, construction, to assist folk," Wolfe said.
A long term JFCOM goal is to transition JSAF to those who need it. However, while the federal government knows how to share things among agencies, how to share it with states, or mayors, for example, have to be worked out. "Everyone understands it's the right thing to do."
JSAF is just one of the planks of the modeling and simulation consortium JFCOM is building to make a homeland defense/homeland security experiment environment, Wolfe said.
A Hurricane Prediction Tracker, shared by U.S. Northern Command, modeled the path and predicts hurricane effects. Such a tool helps officials, for example, determine at what stage traffic needs to be reversed out of the area, and how defense support to civil authorities fits, and where assets need to go.
JFCOM is adding complexity to its simulations and tools so states would be able to take advantage of them for planning.
Overall, Wolfe assessed Noble Resolve 7-01 as "a big success." Now planning is underway for future experiments, to include Noble Resolve 07-2 in August, and TOPOFF 4, a Department of Homeland Security exercise scheduled for October. The multi-year Noble Resolve experiment plans two more efforts in 2008.
Essentially, JFCOM believes policy should be a guide, not a hamper, and expects to work to rapidly transition learning from this experiment to those who would benefit.
8) Military challenges demand rethinking of military, RAND says
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 05/21/2007
MORE RETHINKING: "Complex" military challenges facing the United States will require all four military services to rethink the way forces are manned, equipped and deployed, according to a RAND Corp. study issued May 17. "U.S forces are being called upon to perform new missions far outside their normal repertoire, from confronting terrorism spawned by radical Islam to the possibility of fighting new nuclear powers," says Andrew Hoehn, director of RAND's Project Air Force and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy. The primary roles for the Air Force and the Navy will be to conduct large-scale "power projection" operations, while the Army, Marine Corps and Special Forces will be used more to promote stability worldwide, RAND reports. Similarly, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) is pushing legislative language under the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill that would require the Defense Department to reassess its roles and missions
9) AIM-120 Recast As Ballistic Missile Interceptor
Aviation Week & Space Technology 05/21/2007
Author: David A. Fulghum
Raytheon is trying to win the international race to develop an air-launched weapon that can shoot down ballistic missiles within tens of seconds after launch. Its entry is a new, longer-range version of the AIM-120 Amraam that could be carried by manned fighters or unmanned surveillance or combat aircraft.
The missile's new second-stage, liquid-rocket motor was tested in December, and its seeker will be demonstrated this summer, says Mike Booen, vice president of advanced missile defense and directed energy weapons for Raytheon Missile Systems. The size, center of gravity and aerodynamic shape of the hit-to-kill interceptor are the same as for the AIM-120.
The concept is that long-endurance UAVs the size of the Predator B could carry adequate missiles and fly high enough to set up "launch area denial spheres," Booen says. That area of denial would be big enough to cover the missile launch complex in eastern North Korea from an orbit over international waters in the Sea of Japan. In fact, the missile could be launched from any platform that has the electrical interface for Amraam, including the F-22 Raptor or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
If you don't want somebody to launch missiles, "you can deny those launches with a UAV combat air patrol well offshore and out of the way," Booen says. The UAV would be positioned in the "launch tube" between the missile's firing point and the target.
The Amraam was initially designed for beyond-visual-range, air-to-air combat. But recent variants have been reconfigured for internal carriage by manned and unmanned aircraft. Others have specialized for head-on attacks of small stealth cruise missiles and for better maneuvering at the terminal stage of its flight. While the new missile is intended for engagements in the boost and ascent phase, it is also expected to have application for the terminal phase as warheads re-enter the atmosphere.
Researchers will test the new interceptor's seeker--carried by a fighter-fired AIM-9X--against a boosting ballistic missile in late summer at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., Booen says. Because two-thirds of the missile is already in production, he predicts the company could begin to field the new weapons for less than $1 million each in about four years. "The services or the Missile Defense Agency [MDA] can adopt these missiles [without] a large logistics bill in the future for introducing this new weapon," he says. Raytheon has offered MDA a series of tests that would leave a residual of 20 production representative missiles for more tests and a small operational capability.
The experiment is called the Network-Centric Airborne Defense Element (Ncade) because it is designed to pull real-time targeting information from many sources, including the Defense Support Program early-warning satellite constellation that provided information of Iraqi scud-missile launches against Saudi Arabia and Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Researchers have taken the infrared sensor from the company's AIM-9X short-range, air-to-air missile and integrated it with the AIM-120 Amraam missile body and solid-fuel rocket motor as its first propulsion stage. After firing, the first stage drops away.
A new liquid-fuel second stage--the advanced hydroxyl ammonium nitrate thruster--will provide at least an extra 25-plus sec. of powered flight at more than 150 lb. thrust, Booen says. A variable direction exhaust nozzle will allow rapid maneuvering, without fins, of the missile's front half at exoatmospheric altitudes of 100,000 ft. or more. The thruster was demonstrated in December. Because a liquid-fuel motor can be stopped and restarted, the burn time can be programmed for extended flight or to save fuel for extra axial velocity or maneuvering in the late stages of flight. The liquid fuel will be environmentally friendly.
Raytheon also has fabricated two prototype Ncade seekers, modified to pick a missile body out of exhaust. Their ability to track a booster has been tested in a high-fidelity simulator. The standard AIM-9X seeker has a single point modification of the filter wheel so that hard bodies can be picked out of the bright rocket plume.
Meanwhile, Israel has been flying a secret new Heron II unmanned aircraft with a wingspan of more than 85 ft. expected to carry two Rafael-designed missiles (see p. 32). A version of the Derby beyond-visual-range, air-to-air missile is being developed for boost-phase intercept, and an air-to-ground vision of the Python short-range, air-to-air missile is being eyed for attacking mobile ballistic missile launchers.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, builder of the Predator UAV family, and Aerojet, maker of the new second-stage motor, have partnered with Raytheon on the project. Initially, the program was focused only on Predator B because of its altitude performance and payload, but veteran fighter pilots "pointed out that in a conflict, fighters carrying mixed loads of ordnance will be flying around the clock," Booen says. "It would be nice to have one of these missiles on the rails, so that if the enemy launched ballistic missiles, we could do something about it." The new UAVs and fighters also will have advanced infrared sensing systems and "could take target information from anywhere."
11) New JSOW variant seeks moving maritime targets
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report 05/25/2007
Raytheon announced May 24 that a March award from the U.S. Navy to develop the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) AGM-154C1 (formerly JSOW Block III) will provide a capability against moving maritime targets.
The new JSOW variant is scheduled to be produced in 2009. The AGM-154C1 builds upon the JSOW Block II weapon by adding a weapons data link to receive in-flight target updates from F/A-18E/F aircraft. The new JSOW variant includes updated seeker algorithms designed to hit moving targets, a growing requirement identified by Pentagon program officials (DAILY, May 2). The $93.7 million Naval Air Systems Command contract stems from earlier trade studies performed by the NAVAIR and Raytheon team to develop an initial architecture and mission effectiveness assessments for the AGM-154C1, according to Raytheon (DAILY, March 20).
Earlier this year, Raytheon chose Rockwell Collins to develop and qualify a dual UHF and Link 16 weapon data link called Strike Link. Raytheon will use Strike Link in several weapons and, with the assistance of the NAVAIR team, will be the supplier of the Harpoon Block III data link, the company also said.
11) ISR director: Analysis, sharing key to intel
Air Force Times
By Paul Richfield - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 25, 2007 5:14:33 EDT
OMAHA, Neb. — Since the National Security Agency sets the technical standards for U.S. signals intelligence collection, the Air Force should look to the Fort Meade, Md.-based organization for guidance before embarking on SigInt-related hardware and software acquisitions, according to a top Air Force official.
Col. James Whidden, director of intelligence operations with the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, formerly the Air Intelligence Agency, believes acquisitions in these areas will bear heavily on two upcoming ISR programs: the Web-based Distributed Common Ground System and the RC-130, a proposed SigInt variant of the Lockheed C-130 transport aircraft.
“The current focus on sensor capabilities rather than on the old Cold War threat-based approach is fine, but we must not forget that such systems must have the ability to fight, to go into harm’s way,” Whidden said Wednesday at the first 55th Wing ISR Symposium in Omaha, Neb.
“We have to find a balance between collection and all-source analysis, and need to accept that we’re going to collect much more data than we can ever analyze,” he said. “Obtaining a particular piece of imagery is important, but understanding the history of that image — detecting subtle changes — is much more important. And the key to SigInt is providing a precise location of an emitter, right now.”
Whidden cited Air Force inconsistency in the area of intelligence sharing.
In South Korea, he said, Republic of Korea personnel work alongside Americans but this is an exception attributable to a 55-year security arrangement. In most other cases, no mechanism exists for the sharing of SigInt data with coalition partners.
“When we deploy [the RC-135] Rivet Joint, we have no means of involving our allies and this is unacceptable,” he said. “We’re never going to fight alone, and we need to do a better job with establishing the rules for sharing. And it won’t be a case of ‘one size fits all’ — the rules for sharing with the British and with the Colombians will be different.”
Reorganization of the Air Force’s ISR infrastructure is necessary, Whidden said, as the line between intelligence and combat operations becomes less clearly defined. Whidden predicts a time when Title 50 — the guidelines for intelligence agencies — become indistinguishable from Title 10, the legal framework for combatants.
“The services already have authority in both, so what’s needed are ‘Title 60’ organizations” that formalize the arrangement, he said.
