|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 (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.
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? 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? 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? 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? 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? Q: If you were able to speak to one of your customers
right now, what would you ask? 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? Q: What is the next step for your division? 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? 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. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||