Book Description

To assist in moving intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) planning and execution forward from a fixed target and deliberate planning focus to one centered on emerging targets, the authors propose enhancing the collection management process with a strategies-to-tasks and utility framework. By linking collection targets to operational tasks, objectives, and the top-level commander's guidance with relative utilities, planning for the daily intelligence collections and real-time retasking for ad hoc ISR targets could be enhanced. When current tools are modified to provide this information, planners will be able to link collection targets to top-level objectives for better decision making and optimization of low-density, high-demand collection assets. Similarly, on the Air Operations Center (AOC) floor, intelligence officers will be better able to deal with time-sensitive, emerging targets by rapidly comparing the value of collecting an ad hoc collection with the value of collecting opportunities already planned. To handle the ISR demands posed by the rapidly changing battlefield of the future, this new, more-capable framework may be needed for making the best use of intelligence capabilities against emerging collection opportunities. Future research will focus on quantifying the advantages of this approach in comparison with the current process.