Defence ISR—Decision Confidence For The Future Force

The operational need

This paper proposes a potential operational objective for the next iteration of the Australian Defence ISR Roadmap and the numerous capability development activities that will contribute to achieving the end-state of an integrated ISR system. In the first edition of the Defence ISR Roadmap 2007-2017[1], an expression of the conduct of ISR in the future was delayed pending publication of the Future Joint Operating Concept. Instead, the ISR Roadmap 2007-2017 focuses on building capability within the existing environment and establishes the ISR Guiding Principles of Operationally focused, Integrated and Interoperable. The issuing of Joint Operations for the 21^st Century[2] and the updated Network Centric Warfare (NCW) Roadmap 2007 [3] now provide the necessary context in which to begin describing the evolved Defence ISR capability.

Defence has commenced building the NCW ISR Domain through the Defence Capability Plan and implementation of ISR Roadmap tasks. But these actions are being conducted against a background where our experiences are overtaking earlier forecasts of military operations and the doctrine underpinning them. Joint Operations for the 21st Century contains the significant statement of the need to ‘espouse and debate a new vision for the role of the Australian Defence Force in the 21st century’[4]. This paper provides a supporting view in the description of an operational environment where Defence will be using and providing information sourced from the integrated ISR system to judiciously apply capability in generating sophisticated effects across a spectrum of engagement.

Future operational goal for defence isr

The vision for Defence ISR is ‘to actively and continuously observe Defence areas of interest to the advantage of decision makers at all levels. Dominant situational awareness will bring agility to the planning and conduct of operations for the protection of Australia’s national interests’ [5]. This vision is enduring, and pertains to the use of ISR by all potential users. Within the ISR Roadmap, several development goals were identified to set the foundation of the vision, as per Table 1.

The development goals are described in terms of the functionality to be gained and the general method by which they might be achieved. These goals are predominantly in terms of systems outcomes that will require solutions to be developed that impact across Defence’s fundamental inputs to capability [5].

• What has not yet been expressed is a singular operational objective linking the ISR Vision and the ISR Roadmap development goals to the expressions of how the future ADF will operate as discussed in Joint Operations for the 21^st Century. Such an operational objective is practically necessary within the context of the Defence Capability Development Cycle and the ultimate delivery of capability systems. It also is a doctrinally necessary expression that begins the construction of the linkages between capstone doctrine and the actual employment of military forces.

The key attributes of the future joint force are to ‘reach, know and exploit’. While it can be argued that these are traits of many forces that have gone before, the context in which these characteristics exist is what differentiates them at each epoch.

For the future ADF, the context of the 21^st century is painted as a complex mix of threats and events that present opportunities for military forces to be used by Government to achieve specific outcomes. Defence, however, will not just be the blunt arm of diplomacy or the ultimate line of security, but increasingly it will be an element of the capabilities that Government blends into the solution to issues that cannot be addressed through the actions of individual agencies. For Defence decision-makers, this complex context of the possible types of operations, the various environments and the potential range of partners represents a significant challenge to achieving the superiority described in the NCW Roadmap [7]. It also poses major challenges to those who develop and deliver capability systems as the property of interoperability extends into realms previously not contemplated. Ultimately, however, the ideals of what we want our military forces to be able to do and what is provided for them to achieve that, is reduced to aspects of choice. Avoiding the debate about choice in capability development and acquisition, when commanders consider choice during operations it is in deciding a course of action from a range of viable options.

The operational objective of Defence ISR is for commanders and decision-makers to have situational understanding that leads to a course of action that will generate the required effect.

The distinction between ‘situational awareness’ and ‘situational understanding’ is made to emphasise both a purpose to the conduct of ISR as well as a maturation of users’ engagement with the outputs of ISR within the total environment. The ISR Vision retains ‘awareness’ as ISR outputs will continue, in the main, to be visualisations and descriptions of sensed phenomena that provide an overview of levels and types of activity in friendly, threat and surrounding environments. The development of ‘understanding’ is the human process that interacts with the ISR picture, draws on intelligence, constructs hypotheses that become potential courses of action, and then evolves options appropriate to the situation and the effect expected.

The national effects-based approach

The ADF characterised in Joint Operations for the 21^st Century will have grown its understanding of effects through the wide exposure of leaders at all levels to the various operations that opened this very period. The range of employment of the ADF across almost the entire operational spectrum during a few short years has shaped perspectives and presumptions that will still be in effect even twenty years from now. It also should be recognised that in this same decade, many other government departments and agencies have grown significant capabilities within an expanded security apparatus or have collaborated more comprehensively with Defence in the conduct of their operations.

Positively, these recent experiences have shown the ADF to be a flexible and widely-applicable organisation. In the years ahead, this experience will flow into doctrine and training but also will be part of the ‘living memory’ that shapes culture and attitudes manifest as the Australian way of warfighting and its professional mastery. This knowledge of ourselves will have to be matched to knowledge of the environment. Ascending from a contemporary status of information handlers, through being information managers and on to knowledge managers will be a hard-won maturation, especially within the time frames where such aptitudes will be of great consequence to how Defence is regarded as a core of national power and a source of unique inputs to broader consideration of the prevailing strategic environment.

The actions of Defence in a Whole-of-Government context will be predicated on a rich understanding of the immediate situation and more particularly, the potential impact of specific courses of action: the effect generated. With a force still likely to be at the low-end of desired numbers, selection of ADF elements for military or inter-agency forces will have to be accurately assessed against the factors shaping the prevailing situation as well as against the desired end-state. Similarly, capabilities unique to Defence will be regarded in terms of stewardship for access by Government to apply where needed in a comprehensive response. Nowhere is this truer than in the information and intelligence produced from Defence ISR operations and sources.

The role of Defence ISR in achieving the National Effects-Based Approach (NEBA) [8] will be to supply high-quality information from increasingly diverse sources and across an expanded variety of themes. The recipients will be an enlarged set of customers within Defence as well as in other government departments, our allies and partners. The key enablers will thus be:

• Operation of, or access to, collection systems that can detect the phenomena of interest.
• The ability to generate or receive data in formats that can be directly inserted into systems to automatically convey valid information that is fit for purpose.
• The capacity to transform information into intelligence, and of both into understanding.
• The ability to hold information and intelligence in locations and formats that facilitate access and application by a diversity of users.
• The doctrine, training and procedures that enable the available personnel to achieve these tasks.

Mission command and multi-dimensional manoeuvre

The capacity of the ADF to conduct operations will be determined by the capabilities available at a given time. The ability of the ADF to conduct successful operations will be determined by how well these capabilities are selected and applied.

The culture and size of the ADF provide good reason for adoption of the mission command philosophy. The successful employment of mission command, however, is highly reliant on commanders at all levels having access to the information that lets them evaluate the situation at hand against the purpose of their mission and the intent of their superiors. It is unlikely, however, that every piece of desirable or even required information will be available for each situation. In the worst case, this lack of information may lead to a mismatch between intent and situation resulting in a poor decision and the generation of an undesirable effect. So, while mission command gives permission for agility, it is information and intelligence that enables its successful application.

To minimise the chance of making a poor decision, commanders must have an understanding of the relative value of available information such that they can determine how directive they need to be in guiding the achievement of their intent. Similarly, subordinates should be able to determine what level of risk they are facing when confronted by a situation for which there is apparently little or no information. These are different attitudes to accepting the ‘fog of war’ and speak to educating military personnel in assessing the operational environment in a sophisticated way to consider attaining effects rather than just completing a task.

The capacity to sustain an advantageous tempo is strongly related to situational understanding: having the information available to decide when and how to act to deny the enemy a course of action or otherwise shape the battle space. This principle governs both the successful application of multi-dimensional manoeuvre (tactical and operational action) as much as it does the strategic NEBA.

Achieving the operational objective: reach, know, exploit

The integrated ISR system will need to access source data over, within and about locations where the ADF might be deployed or be expected to exert Defence-related influence. The continuing challenge will be how this simple needs statement is translated into the various means of fulfillment. Undoubtedly, this will involve an increased capacity to access the ISR systems of allies and partners, inferring significant collaboration in building systems that are ‘born interoperable’. Progress on that course alone would bring a quantum change to the conduct of ISR as so many technical, policy and procedural concerns would have to be resolved. Accepting that such whole-scale change is unlikely, identifying elements that contribute to such an outcome may bring focus to capability development areas that are within reach.

In ISR terms, the manoeuvre principles of ‘reach, know, exploit’ can be considered as a cycle, the repetition of which describes a process of detecting an event or theme, analysing that data, and applying it judiciously while moving along a line of operation. The cycle is applicable to all levels of operation as well as within intelligence processes, acknowledging however that there are more comprehensive doctrinal models for these domains. That aside, the cycle can be broken out as described in Table 2 to provide capability and outcome linkages between ISR and the future joint operating concept. Table 3 sets out indicative systems to provide the required outcomes. Neither of these tables is exhaustive but they do set out the functional aspirations intended to deliver the ISR Operational Objective.

Underlying all of this will be the need to train an expanded range of users to various degrees of expertise, ultimately bringing ISR into the toolset of resources and skills included in the basic training of many more ADF personnel. Emanating from that is a likely review of structures and organisations: fully implementing a ‘sensor-to-actor network’ will shift the balance of command and control towards the front line, reinforcing the cultural imperatives of mission command and the agile implementation of appropriate control mechanisms throughout the hierarchy.

Conclusion

Joint Operations for the 21^st Century identifies a future Australian Defence Force that must become more proficient in the conduct of missions on the interfaces of military and civilian jurisdictions. The National Effects-Based Approach clearly places Defence as a partner to other government agencies in the achievement of strategic outcomes as well as in the performance of tactical tasks. To perform well against that expectation, Defence must be able to present cogent options for the employment of specific military capabilities that address the tangible need as well as contribute positively to the higher-order effects required by Government. The move toward the NEBA in itself describes a maturation of comprehension about the actions of nations within a current environment strongly characterised by non-state actors. The predicted endurance of those conditions puts great importance of taking the right lessons from the operations the ADF, its allies and partners have conducted in recent years. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance has widely been recognised as a key enabler for the conduct of military and combined operations now and into the future. The core manoeuvre principles of ‘reach, know, exploit’ expressed in Joint Operations for the 21^st Century correlate well with the ISR Principles of ‘operationally focused, integrated, interoperable’ given in the Defence ISR Roadmap 2007−2017. Together, they provide the current generation of capability developers clear and achievable guidance on building the systems that will be required by the future fighting force to exercise the agility required by Government for success in increasingly complex environments.

References

Author

Stephen Hledik was the Director for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance in the Department of Defence until November 2008. He maintains his involvement with building Defence ISR capability as a Reserve Officer in Army's Future Land Warfare Branch. e-mail: stephen.hledik@defence.gov.au.