How do current American ISR capabilities compare to – and integrate with – our allies?

That is one of the biggest challenges we have – the next level of integration, not just within our own organizations, but among allies. Multi-level security and sharing of information is a huge challenge that is being recognized, and headway is being made, but it needs to be done faster, more transparently, and a lot of it needs to be automated.

Equally important, what is the ISR state of the art for our known and potential adversaries?

They understand the importance of all these things, as well. However, I would say right now we’re still ahead in terms of numbers and types. But with a leveling of technology that modern telecommunications and advances in technology have allowed, those differences between what we have and what our known and potential adversaries can acquire are moving closer and closer together. They are using the cyberdomain to acquire information about what we have, then developing systems to counter that, as well as build their own systems.

The acronyms used in this arena began with C2 (command and control), then C3ISR (command, control, communications, ISR), then C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, ISR), and most recently C5ISR, with the fifth “C” being cyber. Do these changes represent a real evolution from basic command and control to a new multi-level status?

Each one of those functions has specific characteristics and capabilities that, while related, also require their own expertise. There is a lot of mixture there: Computers are hardware, intel is an outcome, surveillance and reconnaissance are activities, cyber is a domain. So right off the bat you have to be careful about how we characterize what we’re actually talking about. It is a nice, convenient acronym, but, frankly, each individual letter requires attention on its own.

Are the assets of a nation-state required to be a threat, or can non-state entities, from al Qaeda-style terrorists to international drug cartels, get there as well?

The short answer is yes. We’re not just talking about nation-state capabilities. The rapid dissemination of technologies and easy access to the Internet enable any individual with a credit card to acquire overhead imagery that less than a decade ago was classified top secret. Today you can go to Google Earth and see anything you want in a matter of seconds. I wish I had had that kind of overhead imagery when I was the air campaign planner for Desert Storm in 1991.

How have ISR combat requirements evolved since 9/11?

They exploded, growing exponentially, particularly in the demand for remotely piloted aircraft [RPVs, the term used by the USAF for UAVs], which bring persistence, staying airborne for long periods of time to stare at a particular location and develop patterns of life or go to a variety of locations.

That said, if you go back to a more macro-level evaluation, after we had mastered the ability to precisely hit any target anywhere on the surface of the Earth, in all weather, day or night, the focus shifted from the finishing part of the “find, fix, finish” equation to the finding and fixing part.

During the opening days of Desert Storm, we could not precisely hit targets because all we had for precision attack were laser-guided munitions. So when the worst weather in 14 years rolled into Iraq, we couldn’t drop any weapons.

Today, that doesn’t matter, and we have taken that for granted. We conquered the night in the late ’80s, we conquered weather by the early 2000s. Now, weather, night, distance are no longer constraints to force application; the constraint is where is the target, what do you want to hit?

That’s the find piece. The fix piece is what are the precise coordinates to engage that target.