USAHEC: Virtual War: ISR

Big Data

“The A-Rating: Improved Data from Depot to Unit”
Coleman, Amber.
Marine Corps Gazette 103, no. 3 (March 2019): 24-26.
"The Big Data Imperative Air Force Intelligence for the Information Age"
Hamilton, Shane P. and Michael P. Kreuzer.
Air & Space Power Journal 32, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 4-20.
Command Decision: Ethical Leadership in the Information Environment
Giles, Keir.
(Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2019).
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“Big data amplifies a classical problem of military leadership, namely, making critical decisions based on limited and often unreliable information. This monograph considers three leadership models that provide an alternative to an overreliance on technological solutions to address new challenges emerging at the various stages of the intelligence process.”
"Continuing the Big Data Ethics Debate: Enabling Senior Leader Decisionmaking"
Lester, Paul, Pedro Wolf, Christopher Nannini, Daniel Jensen
and Delores Davis.
Joint Force Quarterly 89, no. 2 (2nd Quarter, 2018).
Could DNA be the Future of Data Storage?
IEEE Transmitter
“Data-Driven Logistics: Transforming Logistics from Exploitable Vulnerability to Lethal Competitive Advantage”
Spangenberg, Kirk M., et al.
Marine Corps Gazette 103, no. 3 (March 2019): 19-23.
“A Data-Driven Organization: Developing Data and Information Competency”
Humr, Scott A.
Marine Corps Gazette 103, no. 3 (March 2019): 16-18.
"Data_Flood: Helping the Navy Address the Rising Tide of Sensor Information"
Porche, Isaac R. III, Bradley Wilson, Erin-Elizabeth Johnson, Shane Tierney, and Evan Saltzman.
Washington, DC: National Defense Research Institute, RAND, 2014.

The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can't Do by Edward Tenner
Call Number: Root T58.8 .T45 2018
Publication Date: 2018-04-17
(New York, NY: Knopf, 2018)

"Five Examples of Big Data Analytics and the Future of ISR"
Kimminau, Jon A.
Joint Force Quarterly 77, no. 2 (2nd Quarter, 2015).
"Framing the Big Data Ethics Debate for the Military"
Schneider, Karl, David S. Lyle, and Francis X. Murphy.
Joint Force Quarterly 77, no. 2 (2nd Quarter, 2015).

Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict by Eli Berman; Joseph H. Felter; Jacob N. Shapiro; Vestal Mcintyre
Call Number: Root U240 .B48 2018
Publication Date: 2018-06-12
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018)

“You Need Clean Data: Higher Data Quality Standards Are Needed to Improve Marine Corps Decision Making”
Coleman, Amber.
Marine Corps Gazette 103, no. 3 (March 2019): 12-15.

How Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Works

NATO continues to develop key capabilities to protect the security and freedom of its members. Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JISR) is one of these capabilities. It is a combination of processes, systems, and people, including air, ground, maritime, and space assets, which feed into one “fused” report. JISR is vital for all military operations, it provides information and intelligence to decision-makers and action-takers, helping them make informed, timely and accurate decisions. This animation demonstrates how JISR works. This video was published by NATO on August 29, 2014.

Third Offset Strategy

"Assessing the Third Offset Strategy"
Hicks, Kathleen H. and Andrew Philip Hunter.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (2016).
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"On October 28, 2016, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a daylong conference, including senior defense and intelligence policymakers, military leaders, strategists, regional experts, international and industry partners, and others, to discuss the Defense Department’s Third Offset Strategy. In order to understand what the Third Offset Strategy is, it is first necessary to understand the challenges and trends it is addressing. Technological superiority has been a foundation of U.S. military dominance for decades. However, the assumption of U.S. technological superiority as the status quo has been challenged in recent years as near-peer competitors have sought a variety of asymmetric capabilities to counter the overwhelming conventional military advantages possessed by the United States. This report summarizes the discussions and analysis of the Third Offset that took place at CSIS."
"Beyond the Third Offset: Matching Plans for Innovation to a Theory of Victory"
Hasik, James.
Joint Force Quarterly 91, no. 4 (4th Quarter, 2018).
Closer Than You Think: The Implications of the Third Offset Strategy for the U.S. Army
Samuel R. White, Jr. (Ed.), (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2017).
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USAWC Integrated Research Project - “The Defense Innovation Initiative (DII), begun in November 2014 by former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, is intended to ensure U.S. military superiority throughout the 21st century. The DII seeks broad-based innovation across the spectrum of concepts, research and development, capabilities, leader development, wargaming, and business practices. An essential component of the DII is the Third Offset Strategy—a plan for overcoming (offsetting) adversary parity or advantage, reduced military force structure, and declining technological superiority in an era of great power competition. This study explored the implications for the Army of Third Offset innovations and breakthrough capabilities for the operating environment of 2035-2050. It focused less on debating the merits or feasibility of individual technologies and more on understanding the implications—the second and third order effects on the Army that must be anticipated ahead of the breakthrough.”
"Fast Followers, Learning Machines, and the Third Offset Strategy"
Sadler, Brent.
Joint Force Quarterly 83, no. 4 (4th Quarter, 2016).
“Hypersonic Weapons: Appraising the ‘Third Offset’”
Haffa, Robert and Anand Datla, American Enterprise Institute (2019).
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“Key Points:
• The US military faces a host of challenges and options in an unpredictable security environment. Global disorder has increased while elements of America’s comparative military advantages have eroded.
• The Pentagon has sought to innovate his way out of these dilemmas, embarking on a 'third offset' strategy designed to mitigate the operational challenges facing the US military and its traditional approach to power projection.
• While hypersonic weapons are technologically and operationally promising, the challenge of diminished Pentagon budgets must be solved to introduce technologies while they are new and at a scale large enough to make a difference on the modern battlefield.”
“The Impossible Transatlantic Discussion on the U.S. Third Offset Strategy”
Quencez, Martin.
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (2017).
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“The U.S. Department of Defense launched a defense initiative, often called the ‘Third Offset Strategy,’ to ensure that Washington maintains technological superiority and ‘military dominance for the 21st century.’ If the Europeans are not to be also offset by the U.S. military’s next leap forward, they will have to be engaged in this process. However, the initiative and its concrete implications remain unclear to most European partners, and even if they did understand the U.S. vision better, the lack of strategic discussions at the European level prevents Europe from developing its own coherent, complementary vision...Though the United States and its European allies do not share the same strategic starting point for a constructive dialogue around the Third Offset, they must try. Failure to do so poses clear risks for defense interoperability, deterrence policy, and, eventually, for the transatlantic security partnership as a whole.”
"The Role of the Human Operator in the Third Offset Strategy."
Biggs, Adam and Rees Lee.
Naval War College Review 71, no. 3 (Summer, 2018): 97-119.
"Twenty-First Century Information Warfare and the Third Offset Strategy"
McGrath, James R.
Joint Force Quarterly 82, no. 3 (3rd Quarter, 2016).

ISR Mission (AFA Video)

ISR is one of the Air Force’s five enduring core missions and is integral to Global Vigilance for the nation—foundational to Global Reach and Global Power. As we transition to what will likely be a highly volatile, unpredictable future, AF ISR will be the bedrock upon which the service provides freedom of action to our joint and coalition partners. ISR is the top combatant commander requirement and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Balancing capabilities across the range of military operations remains a top priority as ISR experts deliver decision advantage to commanders at all levels. Published by United States Air Force on September 13, 2015.

Intelligence

“The 26 Words That Guard the Open Internet and Open-Source Intelligence”
Kosseff, Jeff.
War on the Rocks (March 14, 2019).
"Activity-Based Intelligence: Revolutionizing Military Intelligence Analysis"
Atwood, Chandler P.
Joint Force Quarterly 77, no. 2 (2nd Quarter, 2015).
"Assessing ISR: Effectively Measuring Effectiveness"
Hill, Brian A.
Air & Space Power Journal 31, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 34-43.
"Defense Intelligence Analysis in the Age of Big Data"
Symon, Paul B. and Arzan Tarapore.
Joint Force Quarterly 79, no. 4 (4th Quarter, 2015).
"A Framework to Understand and Improve Defense All-Source Intelligence Analysis"
Kwoun, James S.
Joint Force Quarterly 94, no. 3 (3rd Quarter, 2019).
"Intelligence in a Data-Driven Age"
Weinbaum, Cortney and John N.T. Shanahan.
Joint Force Quarterly 90, no. 3 (3rd Quarter, 2018).
MWI Podcast: Intelligence and the Future Battlefield, with LT. GEN. Scott Berrier
Amble, John
Modern War Institute, October 15, 2019.
"Open Sources for the Information Age: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Unclassified Data"
Davitch, James M.
Joint Force Quarterly 87, no. 4 (4th Quarter, 2017).
"Purposeful Development of the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance for Space Cadre"
Overton, Mitchell R.
Air & Space Power Journal 29, no. 6 (November 2015): 31-42.
"Restructuring Structured Analytic Techniques in Intelligence"
Chang, Welton, Elissabeth Berdini, David R. Mandel, and Philip E. Tetlock.
Intelligence and National Security 33, no. 3 (2018): 337-356.
"Rethinking the Training of Intelligence Analysts"
Chang, Welton, Welton Chang, and Philip E. Tetlock.
Intelligence and National Security 31, no. 6 (2016): 903-920.
"Semper Optiones: 21st Century Intelligence"
Pendall, David.
Air & Space Power Journal 32, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 21-33.
“Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: Why U.S. Intelligence Agencies Must Adapt or Fail”
Zegart, Amy, and Michael Morell.
Foreign Affairs 98, no. 3 (May-June 2019): 85-96.

Surveillance and Reconnaissance

"A Commonsense Approach to Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Operations"
Giannetti, William.
Air & Space Power Journal 30, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 78-82.
"Asymptotically Optimal Deployment of Drones for Surveillance and Monitoring"
Savkin, Andrey V. and Hailong Huang.
Sensors 19, no. 9 (May 2019).
"Common Sense: Improving the Efficacy of Wide Area Surveillance"
McFadden, Hugh Jr.
Air & Space Power Journal 29, no. 2 (March 2015): 74-102.
"Complex Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield in Ukrainian Antiterrorism Operations"
Morris, Victor R.
Military Review 97, no. 1 (January 2017).
"Cooperative Unmanned Aerial System Reconnaissance in a Complex Urban Environment and Uneven Terrain"
Stodola, Petr; Drozd, Jan; Mazal, Jan; Hodický, Jan; and Procházka, Dalibor.
Sensors 19, no. 17 (January 2019).
"Covert Action as an Intelligence Subcomponent of the Information Instrument"
Pasquale, Charles and Laura Johnson.
Joint Force Quarterly 93, no. 2 (2nd Quarter, 2019).
"Design and Implementation of an Autonomous Surveillance Mobile Robot"
Kumar, Vikas; Sah, Arun Kumar; and Mohanty, Prases Kumar.
i-Manager's Journal on Future Engineering and Technology 14, no. 2 (Nov 2018-Jan 2019): 42-54.
"Digital Magnetic Compass Integration with Stationary, Land-Based Electro-Optical Multi-Sensor Surveillance System"
Livada, Branko; Saša Vujić; Dragan Radić; Tomislav Unkašević; and Zoran Banjac.
Sensors 19, no. 19 (October 2019).
"Improving Outcomes: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Assessment"
Haugh, Timothy D. and Douglas W. Leonard.
Air & Space Power Journal 31, no. 4 (Winter 2017): 4-15.
"Multidomain Observing and Orienting: ISR to Meet the Emerging Battlespace"
Atkins, Sean A.
Air & Space Power Journal 32, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 26-44.
"Multi-Domain Information Operations and the Brigade Combat Team"
Rodriguez, John P.
Military Review 99, no. 4 (July 2019).
"Operational Surveillance and Reconnaissance Battalion"
Fitzgerald, Brian.
Military Review 97, no. 1 (January 2017).
"Seize the Highest Hill: A Call to Action for Space-Based Air Surveillance"
McLain, Troy and Gerrit Dalman.
Air & Space Power Journal 32, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 31-46.
"A Sequential Two-Stage Track-to-Track Association Method in Asynchronous Bearings-Only Sensor Networks for Aerial Targets Surveillance"
Yang Yu, Qingyu Hou, Wei Zhang, and Jinxiu Zhang.
Sensors 19, no. 14 (July 2019).