Distributed Common Ground System–Future Moving Into the 22Nd Century Today

Airmen balance weight of U-2 Dragon Lady, which delivers critical imagery and signals intelligence to decisionmakers throughout all phases of conflict (U.S. Air Force/Marie Brown)

Distributed Common Ground System–Future Moving into the 22nd Century Today

By Eugene Haase

hile supporting a free medical the past several weeks. After returning the village and is passed by way of secure clinic in western Afghanistan, to base, this information is passed to the joint chat rooms and product reports. At W U.S. and coalition forces ques- unit intelligence officer who annotates nearly the same time, advanced imaging tion local villagers about an increase it in an initial report that is made data from a Navy Triton unmanned in recent enemy activity. They learn of available through a shared intelligence aerial vehicle (UAV) shows unusual unusual vehicle movements and a larger database. Several hours later, a known disturbances in the same area. Shortly number of fighters in the village over enemy signal is intercepted not far from thereafter, an Army unit begins a patrol in the vicinity with a Shadow UAV performing overwatch. As the patrol reaches the area where the disturbances Major General Eugene Haase, USAF, is Vice Commander of Air Force Special Operations Command. He was formally the Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, Headquarters were noted, they are ambushed and take Department of the Air Force. significant losses.

JFQ 77, 2nd Quarter 2015 Haase 109 Joint terminal attack controller sights target with AN/PED-1 Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder to mark simulated hostile threats for air assets (U.S. Marine Corps/Devon Tindle)

While notional, this scenario high- Without this shared picture, the emerging capabilities where the PED task lights a problem: Department of Defense mission operation commander of the pro- can be quickly assigned to the most quali- (DOD) inability to conduct tailored cessing, exploitation, and dissemination fied entity to process and analyze the data data-sharing between processing and (PED) crew does not have a real-time or anywhere, regardless of the sensor, and exploitation facilities. Unfortunately, the complete view of the battlespace, which then pass it on to support any shooter information necessary to warn the patrol would have allowed them to detect the and/or decisionmaker at the right place of enemy activity is most likely available advancing ambush and warn the patrol. and time. The organization or platform in various systems and databases, along Although this scenario highlights a per- providing the intelligence should be in- with an overwhelming amount of valu- missive counterterrorist environment, the distinguishable to the customer. able intelligence not necessarily pertinent lack of PED interoperability and a shared The global federated PED concept to this specific mission. Today, DOD has common intelligence, surveillance, and would allow each joint, interagency, or limited automated tools available to pick reconnaissance (ISR) picture is a factor coalition member to continue to build on this relevant information out of the tril- regardless of the operational setting. his own core competencies without recre- lions of bits of data routinely collected. ating or duplicating the core competencies There is only a rudimentary combined in- Expanding PED Capability of others. This future PED enterprise formation-sharing architecture to ensure Operational usefulness of a shared infor- is achievable, but requires buy-in from that the right person gets the right infor- mation environment, combined with all stakeholders and more attention mation at the right time. A key missing declining budgets, new technologies, to community standards and policies. link is that the intelligence professionals and the future strategic landscape, is The Distributed Common Ground processing and exploiting data streams driving the need for more collaborative System–Future (DCGS-Future) requires a from different sensors do not operate PED. The merging of joint, interagency, proactive effort to move to this structure in a single collaborative environment and coalition partner PED capabilities now, during a time of declining budgets. where all applicable information is cross- leads us down the path of better and displayed, allowing analysts awareness more efficient warfighter support. The Value of ISR and mission synchronization between The concept of a global federated Over the past 13 years, the conflicts in collection sensors. PED enterprise builds upon existing and Iraq and Afghanistan have unquestion-

110 Features / Distributed Common Ground System–Future JFQ 77, 2nd Quarter 2015 ably demonstrated the value of ISR— exploitation, analysis and production, and As envisioned, DCGS-Future would particularly airborne ISR. Ongoing dissemination and integration).2 provide PED for all collection platforms investment and modernization by the The Air Force has concentrated its and sensors. It complements the joint Services, Intelligence Community (IC),1 DCGS capabilities on processing and ex- intelligence centers, whose mandate and our coalition partners—as well as ploitation with an emphasis on worldwide includes analysis, collection management, the increasing number and type of ISR distributed operations, reachback, and targeting, and other missions focused on collection platforms to meet future situ- minimizing its in-theater presence and a single theater. As one part of a larger, ations of national interest—reflect this. workload. The Army has focused primarily integrated, future ISR enterprise, DCGS- Airborne ISR collection has moved on the analysis and production of accessi- Future would operate across the entire well beyond the historic capabilities of ble information and intelligence previously PCPAD cycle with the intent of provid- still imagery and basic radio intercept/ tagged and cataloged (often referred to as ing all-source fused intelligence to meet direction finding. State of the art conditioned data or metadata tagged in- joint warfighter requirements. In this development has led to multi- and hyper- formation) with the intent of embedding future integrated ISR enterprise, DCGS- spectral sensing across a broad range of advanced intelligence analysis capability Future, Service intelligence elements, the electromagnetic spectrum, wide- within combat units. Both the Navy and the intelligence combat support agencies area motion imagery, high-definition Marine Corps DCGS concepts, while (CSAs)3, other IC elements, and coali- full-motion video, light detection and including PED, emphasize analysis and tion partners would deliver foundational ranging, advanced radar-sensing, and fusion of intelligence in support of tactical intelligence and specialized expertise advanced motion detection and tracking. and operational commanders’ needs. This for incorporation into customer-centric Optimal use of ISR now requires much is partly driven by having a limited num- products. A robust capability to process, more innovative exploitation skills and ber of sensor systems requiring remote exploit, and disseminate a wide set of raw accompanying PED technology improve- PED. However, as both the Army and ISR data from varied collection platforms ments. However, enhanced skills and new Navy increase their inventory and type of and the ability to manage PED capability technology will not automatically provide airborne ISR systems, overall demand for and capacity across the entire collab- more cost-efficient PED. Appropriate PED is likely to increase. orative DCGS enterprise are the core organizational structure changes are advantages of DCGS-Future. required to successfully leverage ISR Moving Forward Jointly DCGS-Future would also deliver in- manpower and technical capabilities. Uncertainty of future operational situ- creased operational effectiveness and cost Now is the time to use existing PED ations will force DOD to explore new savings within the realities of declining infrastructure to combine ISR capabilities approaches in the way it manages, budgets, changing strategic environment, and deliver more than what the Service processes, and presents ISR data to the and technological advances. It recognizes components can provide individually. The warfighter. Increasing PED manpower that each Service DCGS was has been Armed Forces have historically focused in existing organizations is not an driven first by Service needs. DCGS- on providing intelligence and analysis in option in a resource-constrained envi- Future, however, seeks to take advantage direct support of each military Service’s ronment. Instead, some tout advanced of Service-specific specialization and ex- core missions. Currently, each Service technology as providing the path pertise to reduce redundancy and improve provides PED of Service-centric sensors forward. Unfortunately, the successes overall ISR capability. For example, the with limited joint commonality, little mu- of social media and Google searches do Air Force would bring unrivaled imagery tual support, and varying implementation not translate to automated support for processing and metadata tagging and a concepts (such as reachback, in-theater, imagery and signals processing under distributed and federated approach via and reach-forward PED). militarily relevant conditions. In reality, reachback, while the Army would bring in- It was originally expected that the technology to solve issues such as auto- depth analysis and fusion, robust linguistic DOD DCGS concept would provide a matic change detection and machine- capabilities, and a tactical mindset to the vehicle for standardizing PED compe- only target recognition to ease PED fight. In other words, each Service would tencies across the Services. This would challenges remains years away. There- bring the best of what it does now to help ensure efficiencies and operational fore, DOD needs to continue robust the joint effort, providing real-time joint necessity leading to a natural synchroni- research and development in this area, warfighter support. Admittedly difficult zation of best-of-breed ideas, processes, but it cannot solely plan on technology to achieve, this vision of DCGS-Future technologies, and organizational struc- for near-term success. These challenges, is long term and represents only part of a tures. It was not foreseen that significant combined with a downsizing force, will larger future ISR enterprise. Fortunately, differences in operational requirements drive us toward collocation, integration, efforts are already under way to attain it. would drive each of the Services to focus and information-sharing. This article Air Force DCGS currently has a on separate parts of the intelligence cycle, discusses another alternative—a single, worldwide distributed exploitation model commonly called PCPAD (planning integrated, joint, coalition, and IC PED with global reachback capability. It is and direction, collection, processing and construct—DCGS-Future. fast, efficient, operational, and proven

JFQ 77, 2nd Quarter 2015 Haase 111 Air Force 711th Human Performance Wing behavioral scientist creates slides from video snapshots during demonstration of new enhanced reporting, narrative event streaming tool (U.S. Air Force/Wesley Farnsworth) in combat over the past decade in Iraq Continued Momentum work most effectively if the IC PED and Afghanistan. Air Force DCGS has organizations made their PED capa- While these all show great promise, they also matured the operational integration bilities available for tasking via a single barely begin to scratch the surface of with the CSAs to collectively share and universal method such as the Global actions needed to move DCGS-Future support both national and joint custom- Force Management Allocation Process. to the level required for tangible opera- ers. Additionally, Air Force DCGS has Each Service would understandably want tional and fiscal gains. In addition to established a burden-sharing arrangement the ability to retain a portion of its PED these early efforts, there are several areas with the United Kingdom (UK) to PED capability/capacity for Service-specific ripe for future consideration. The first remotely piloted aircraft ISR missions, requirements. However, DCGS-Future centers on the actual PED capability of optimizing the expertise possessed by would offer the remaining PED capac- DCGS-Future. Beginning immediately, each partner. This U.S.-UK agreement ity for global assignment. The amount the Services should make key personnel provides concrete proof of DCGS- and type of PED that each Service exchanges between DCGS organizations. Future’s feasibility and benefits in a contributes to DCGS-Future could vary The intent is to provide familiarization, real-world, combat-related environment. based on schedule and mission specifics. an understanding of mission-level, force- Army DCGS is developing a PED Regardless, all military PED requires unique capabilities and requirements at Center of Excellence physically collocated standardizing across the force and needs the tactical level, and to scope follow-on with Air Force DCGS and National mechanisms (technical and procedural) actions at the Service level. Anticipated Security Agency (NSA) units. This offers to manage DCGS-Future as a single near-term follow-on actions could the best of Army, Air Force, and NSA entity while respecting and integrating include physical collocation of PED PED capabilities in a single location as Service-specific requirements. The joint components, technical connectivity, and an initial joint model of DCGS-Future. Air Tasking Order process provides one the development of common training Additionally, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, model for consideration. It highlights the standards, qualifications, and certifica- and Air Force intelligence leaders are improved level of support and flexibility tions for operators and missions. fostering tighter relationships across PED achieved when this capability is aligned The second area for continued ac- organizations and finding ways together under a single manager. By pooling tion targets DCGS-Future management to move closer to the DCGS-Future PED resources in DCGS-Future, com- and operations. The concept would construct. mon management tools, processes, and

112 Features / Distributed Common Ground System–Future JFQ 77, 2nd Quarter 2015 RQ-4 Global Hawk covers intelligence collection capability to support forces (U.S. Air Force/Amanda N. Stencil) training could significantly improve asset expanding DCGS as envisioned to in- Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Office of use and operational efficiency. clude the IC and partner nations requires Naval Intelligence, Department of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Work also needs to move forward in additional scope and effort. Changing Department of Homeland Security Office of formalizing the DCGS-Future concept. the Service PED paradigms is a large, Intelligence and Analysis, Coast Guard Intel- Such an effort requires collaboration and complex endeavor that will undoubtedly ligence, Department of Justice Federal Bureau action on an agreed-upon, documented encounter challenges and suffer setbacks. of Investigation National Security Branch, vision with guidance and direction at a The endgame is a cross-domain, multi- Drug Enforcement Administration Office of National Security Intelligence, Department of sufficient level to solidify and guarantee function ISR enterprise designed to make State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and participation. Formalized documenta- intelligence available at the right place, Department of Treasury Office of Terrorism tion would include Under Secretary of at the right time, to the right end user, and Financial Intelligence. Defense for Intelligence, Chairman of regardless of who collected the data, who 2 See Joint Publication 2-1, Joint and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Service-level processed it, or where it was processed. National Intelligence Support to Military Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, agreements, funding actions to support Optimizing scarce funding and improv- January 5, 2012). common DCGS-Future efforts, and joint ing combat mission effectiveness make 3 Combat support agencies consist of the concepts of operations. To achieve a vi- DCGS-Future a logical way forward for Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security able DCGS-Future, we must base it on a current Service capabilities to meet the Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agen- solid foundation of codified and accepted challenges of the future and fully support cy, National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Defense Logistics JFQ tactics, techniques, and procedures. the joint warfighter. Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency, Implementation of a concept of this mag- and Defense Contract Management Agency. nitude requires strong advocacy across the Services. Notes Capability enhancement, guidance, 1 funding, and documentation represent Intelligence Community elements consist of the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense the initial actions needed to start down Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, the path toward DCGS-Future. They are, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Na- by no means, a complete list of the activi- tional Reconnaissance Office, Air Force Intelli- ties required. While this article focuses on gence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, the joint PED portion of DCGS-Future, Army Intelligence and Security Command,

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