 Newsmaker
Profile: Christopher Jackson
Spy thrillers take readers into a world of international
espionage, heroic adventure, and intelligence collection,
all conducted against overwhelming odds in a matter of
minutes. Despite this genre that portrays intelligence
as spine-chilling drama with immediate results, real world
intelligence professionals take more time, with less drama,
but with lasting results in supporting the warfighter.
Christopher Jackson, responsible for Intelligence Surveillance
and Reconnaissance (ISR) transformation at USJFCOM, shares
his views of ongoing efforts to optimize military ISR capabilities.
By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(NORFOLK,
Va. - April 19, 2005) -- With the intent to optimize
ISR capabilities in support of
military operations, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)
works on intelligence collection, management, and dissemination
initiatives that will provide joint warfighters with precise,
timely, and relevant information.
As the chief of the intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance
(ISR) transformation division, Christopher Jackson and
his staff work to make ISR-derived information as broadly
available with minimal delay, and as user-friendly as possible.
Jackson has worked at the command more than 20 years -
he has seen it change from the Atlantic Command (LANTCOM)
to USJFCOM - and has been a part of the transition from
a command with a geographic focus to the current emphasis
on transforming how joint forces are trained, integrated,
and provided new concepts and capabilities.
He recently discussed how the ISR transformation division
works to solve intelligence information integration challenges
and strategies for accomplishing goals in 2005 and beyond.
Q: As a member of an organization touted as the "transformation
laboratory" of the military, what does the word "transformation" mean
to you?
A: Transformation doesn't necessarily mean breaking current
models and capabilities just for the sake of change - rather,
I view it as a pathway to a recognized goal, which builds
upon existing knowledge.
For
example, I bought a home computer in 1995 and another
one last summer in 2004. While the
difference in the two computers was mind-boggling - with
respect to capability, number of applications, and speed
- the skills I acquired in setting up and using a computer
in 1995 meant I could set up and use a new computer in
2004 in a fraction of the time - and take advantage of
the improved technology in minutes rather than hours.
Transformation is like that - a continual pathway, building
upon the status
quo, leading to better capabilities.
Our role in transformation is in understanding where emerging
ISR technology is going; in developing the concepts which
best exploit these technologies for warfighting; and
in conducting analysis and experimentation leading to
quantifiable evidence that these new capabilities deliver
value.
Our
critical path deliverable in ISR - leading to increased
force protection and faster, more precise
force application - is enhanced battlespace awareness
of the adversary's disposition and options, driven
by the information needs of the joint commander.
Q: In your role as ISR lead for the command, what do you
bring to the joint warfighter out in the field?
A: I bring to the command an understanding of how the
massive ISR investment by the services and the intelligence
community can be shaped, both in size and architecture,
to support the joint warfighter.
I bring to the service ISR programs and to their intelligence
community counterparts awareness and an understanding of
joint warfighter needs and expectations.
Further,
I like to believe I've been effective in getting these
programs
to support joint requirements. A forcing function we've
developed is to bring common interfaces and standards
to service ISR programs, and to demonstrate how these
commonalities
can lead to a network-based intelligence architecture,
where information is readily shared across the joint
force. ISR programs tend to build things in a stovepipe;
we're
trying to change that.
Q: What is the biggest challenge you face in ensuring
you deliver the best product possible?
A: Well, one is the propensity for the ISR program offices
of the services and intelligence agencies to look at their
particular problems as being unique, thus leading to a
stovepipe mentality. It may be Navy requirements levied
against a Navy program - but there are Army and Air Force
equities which need to be considered as well - particularly
as the operational employment of these service capabilities
will be in a joint context. The program offices have to
look at the ultimate goal -- to better support the warfighter,
who will, by definition, be joint.
Two, thanks to popular fiction - where you have Tom Clancy-type
scenarios where intelligence operatives use a joystick
to manipulate satellites in orbit, and have total access
to an infinite number of collection resources -- there's
a misconception that the job of providing intelligence
information is easier than it is.
There's
a belief that resources, and therefore information, is
being held back
for some reason. Not true -there are an almost endless
number of information requirements, and only a finite
number of resources - which include both collection platforms
and the analysts needed to make sense out of raw data.
Q: You work in a diverse organization, both in individual
missions and people from other countries; how do these
factors enhance or benefit your outlook and goals toward
getting the mission accomplished?
A: There's real dedication throughout the command. Everyone
sees we can no longer afford to do business as usual.
The
nature of the threat has changed from the days when we
used to track Soviet submarines in the Atlantic Ocean
and Cuban troop rotations in Angola.
Now,
our adversary is
less constrained by doctrine and geography and is better
able to exploit areas of vulnerability. We have to
get into that mindset - which means getting many different
points-of-view from personnel with different backgrounds
and experiences. Thus, the diversity of the command
plays
a major role in helping to address today's threat.
On the coalition side, there's a lot of interest in what
we are doing to maximize use of the high-demand, low-density
assets alluded to earlier. In particular, our activity
with the Multi-sensor Aerospace-ground Joint ISR Inter-operability
Coalition (MAJIIC) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration
has a lot of interest. MAJIIC is a horizontal fusion initiative
with potential to provide coalition warfighters - which
includes the U.S. -- with near real-time data that's been
collected from U.S. and multi-national manned and unmanned
air platforms.
We
need to keep looking outside the command, to academia
and industry, where there are inherent structural reasons
to seek new ideas and ways of doing business. The (USJFCOM)
chief of staff has been extremely active in looking outside
the staff and going to industry and academia and asking "What
are we (USJFCOM) doing right? What are we doing wrong?" That
way we don't get fixated on a single solution, a single
way of doing business.
Ideally,
we should move towards a much more flexible model --
have a great idea on Thursday,
test it on Friday, do the analysis over the weekend,
and determine on Monday how the original idea was good,
bad,
or in-between. That means we need to be prepared to say
on Monday, 'What was I thinking?'
Q: You've worked here 22 years, what have been some of
your personal highlights or successes during that time?
A: I've been in same billet since June 1982 when I was
hired to do collection planning and, as a collateral duty,
was tasked to manage the Atlantic Theater's HUMINT (human-resource
intelligence) programs. The highlight of the first few
years was Operation Urgent Fury, when we sent troops into
Grenada in 1983 - there was a lot we could have done better
with respect to providing intelligence directly to the
operational forces. In retrospect, we took advantage of
what tools and capabilities we had at the time, then used
lessons learned to help develop new ways and means of collecting,
processing, and disseminating intelligence.
The
result of that effort - which really was a precursor
to our current
focus on transformation - led to a much more capable,
much more responsive intelligence architecture by the
time we
went into Haiti in 1994.
Another
success during the 1980s was the integration of national
technical intelligence sources and methods into
the operational level of war.
Our
current capability to access and task these sensors and
sources is a quantum
leap beyond how it was when I started working collection
programs. It's no longer a "we vs. them" attitude,
referring to national intelligence agencies and the operational
use of intelligence; it is very much a coalition of ISR
capabilities working towards the common goal of warfighter
support.
We really have made great strides in being able to share
intelligence-derived information with coalition partners
- in large part because we have separated out sources and
methods from the data provided by systems and programs.
We
are moving to the paradigm where data is source-agnostic:
it doesn't matter where the intelligence data comes from,
only that it gets distributed horizontally and vertically
with minimal delay - the goal being zero latency from
collection to dissemination. That's what the operators
want -- and
their requirements are really the driver for what we
do.
Q: Who or what do you see as your biggest motivator?
A: The forces in the field, in daily contact with the
enemy. At the end of the day, I need to believe that someone's
son or daughter came home alive because of my actions.
Two of the folks in my division are fathers of soldiers
who are currently in Iraq. If I fail in my job, it is going
to be tougher on them.
Q: If you were able to speak to one of your customers
right now, what would you ask?
A: What intelligence have you gotten? How has it helped
you do your job? How could we make it better? What is the
trade off? Do you need intelligence faster, even if it's
not 100 percent accurate?
I suspect the answer would be: It doesn't have to be perfect
intelligence, just give me what you have now then follow
up with greater precision as the processing and analysis
refines the initial ISR data.
Q: If your program were discontinued, what would that
mean or what impact would that have on the joint warfighter?
A: We are the guys who are speaking for the joint warfighter.
We've looked at the lessons learned from previous conflicts
and what it means for ISR efforts and how that translates
into specific actions that our folks can train against.
We are unique in that we do all that here. We are the spokesmen
for the joint warfighter, translating those needs to the
ISR community. That's not happening anywhere else that
I'm aware of.
Q: What is the next step for your division?
A:
One: we are bringing in our industry partners up front,
and ensuring they understand operational ISR requirements.
Two, it gives me flexibility to pull in ISR subject matter
expertise from industry for concept and architecture development
on an "as needed" basis, and to release these
contractor personnel once the specific task has been completed.
We've
started moving towards this organizational model and
I expect this movement will accelerate as we acquire
better understanding of the end state for ISR transformation.
I guess my most important job is to set clear and understandable
goals, to find and hire the best people to meet these
goals, and to clear away any obstacles they may encounter
as they
work towards the goals.
Q: What are some of your priorities for 2005?
A:
First, we have what I call the "ISR Troika." The
Joint Operational Test Bed System UAV program is being
coupled with our two ISR ACTDs (advanced concept technology
demonstration) -- MAJIIC (Multi-sensor Aerospace-ground
Joint ISR Interoperability Coalition) and AJCN (Adaptive
Joint C4ISR Node) -- to develop better, more precise, more
integrated ISR information, and make it available faster
and to more customers.
While
not a program of record per se, the ISR Troika will help
provide us the quantitative
and qualitative data we need to drive ISR programs into
a more operationally oriented structure.
Another priority is the Distributed Common Ground Station
(DCGS) joint concept. Each service has its own variant
of DCGS, which is the service ISR processing, exploitation,
and dissemination capability.
Our intent is to develop business rules and procedures
by which each individual service DCGS can share ISR data
and processing requirements in support of the joint commander.
For example, if the Air Force DCGS and all its imagery
interpreters are busy doing something else, then we should
have the ability to have ISR aircraft - regardless of service
-- downlink to, say, the Army's DCGS and get the data distributed
to where it needs to go without delay.
The
priority this year is to keep pressing on the idea that
ISR data should be made available to whomever needs
it, and in whatever format they need it in - regardless
of source. The goal with the ISR Troika, is to open up
the aperture on that concept - and to ensure that ownership
of ISR sources and sensors is divorced from ISR data ownership.
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