GEOINT Goes Joint
NGA, USJFCOM INITIATIVE SEEKS TO IMPROVE SHARING OF DATA AMONG USERS AT ALL LEVELS.
With geospatial intelligence more critical than ever in national defense, one of the most pressing needs is to improve the currently limited capability to share GEOINT among national and tactical users.
Given these facts, the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA) are working to implement a formal memorandum of understanding signed late last year to develop a Joint Geospatial-Intelligence Activity (JGA) to enhance GEOINT among all types of users.
To work more effectively and efficiently, several NGA representatives are located in USJFOM workspaces along with the command’s workforce of military, government civilians and contractors. Cross-directorate participation in JGA has been critical to its early successes, including the development of a concept of operations and the development as “as is” and “to be” architecture documents.
The undertaking is still in its early stages, and the only concrete decision that has been made at this point is to form a partnership between the USJFCOM and NGA to improve information sharing for warfighters around the globe who today do not necessarily have access to information such as accurate and timely imagery, geospatial information and fused GEOINT products.
“We are now well on our way of doing just that—the decisions on how to do the tweaking to get the most efficient and effective process in place. That decision will probably not take place for the next couple of months,” said Frank Jones, NGA lead for the project
The issue is sensitive since it involves providing information, within classification constraints, to warfighters and their commanders around the world.
For the time being, data already collected is being analyzed to see what options might exist for data sharing. As a consequence, later this year decisions will be made on just how data sharing can be improved. One thing that is certain, analysts say, is that national, operational and tactical lines have blurred to the extent that what’s good information for commanders at the highest levels might also be important to the leader on the ground—and vice versa.
“Occasionally you have to step back and take a look at the changing environment and advancements in technology,” Jones said. “This is what NGA is doing. We are taking a step back and taking a look at the geospatialintelligence capabilities that we currently have across the community.”
The ultimate goal for the USJFCOM and NGA is to focus or tailor geospatial-intelligence capabilities on the needs of the warfighter with the purpose of saving lives, officials say.
“We are trying, in no uncertain terms, to improve the flow of information to the warfighter so he or she has better access to all geospatial intelligence out there,” said Navy Commander Joe Ellenbecker, USJFCOM lead on the JGA. “We also recognize that the warfighter contributes to the GEOINT process and can provide GEOINT support.”
COMMON PICTURE
For the first time, USJFCOM and NGA are also addressing issues regarding how to get geospatial intelligence and information produced at the tactical level back to all levels of the chain of command. All need to have a common, accurate picture of what is currently going on so to make the best decisions.
Since warfighters cannot necessarily access all GEOINT information from which they could benefit, the USJFCOM and NGA partnership is setting out to change that. Commencing on the effort, the USJFCOM and NGA expect short-, mid- and long-term solutions to result from their efforts.
“A lot of things that are nonmaterial, such as doctrine and training, can be done in a relatively short term,” Jones said. “Once the decisions are made that we are on the right track late this year, there will be changes made almost immediately.”
For example, this summer USJFCOM and NGA have been exploring proposed concepts and procedures in exercise environments to see what they have learned so far and to determine what changes can be made soon.
“We need to know what the shortfalls or the gaps are in the geospatial process right now. But we also need to have long-term, lasting changes,” Ellenbecker said.
Consequently, USJFCOM and NGA will take the lessons learned from this summer’s exercises and put them into a formal process where they will be documented and bought to the joint capabilities negotiation and development process.
“The good part is that if we get our recommendation approved in that process then, they have lasting implications,” Ellenbecker explained. “Again we are trying to take a twoprong approach to make an impact.”
The actions that are needed will be determined largely by Vice Admiral Robert B. Murrett, recently appointed director of NGA.
“He provides the leadership across the community for GEOINT,” Ellenbecker said. “There will be a certain amount of decisionmaking on his part, such as which way he wants to steer the services and the rest of the community.”
USJFCOM’s integration will come into play to determine how to use the solutions to do joint force fighting in the field.
“They will be helping with the services to make things happen at that level,” Ellenbecker said.
While the USJFCOM has been responsible for providing leadership across the intelligence community, the mapping, charting and geodesy (MC&G) arena and the integrated intelligence arena have, up until now, operated in a vacuum. But today, with fastchanging technology, many mapping and MC&G products have gone digital. This has presented additional opportunities and challenges.
“We have not had a good way to distribute those products and data electronically,” Ellenbecker said. “But with advanced technology, that capability exists. We need to start working on procedures to make getting those products and data to the warfighter in as flexible a fashion as imagery intelligence has been in the past. We need to continually work toward getting the most efficient method to support the tactical warfighter.”
After all, not only does technology change quickly, but also the nature of warfare has changed dramatically since the Cold War.
“It is not necessarily a country we go after now,” Ellenbecker noted. “We look for terrorists. That changes the equation on how we prepare to fight and how we do the fighting. The concepts surrounding geospatial intelligence have to dovetail with those changes and how we support those changes.”
Traditionally, geospatial information has not been easily shared between the branches of the military. One reason is much of the data is created at the tactical level. Technology constraints have restrained this data from being readily available to leaders at the national level. In the same vein, while technological advancements accommodate the moving of large files over distances, the closer this information needs to reach the warfighter in the field, the more difficult transferring the data becomes. This is because of the size of data that needs to move back and forth.
“Everybody recognizes that GEOINT data is out there,” Jones said. “But it is difficult to get to. There is not a one-stop-shop or an easy way to do it. Plus, there’s the problem: You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Therefore, warfighters at the JTF level do not always know where to go to get the data, how to use it, how to add value to it, and how to take advantage of it. If they did, they would have a tremendous advantage and be able to add value to all those concerned.
“Hopefully when JGA finishes up, it will make that process easier,” Jones predicted.
When that happens, a major benefit will be the creation of a common operational picture (COP) that will offer a situational awareness of the battlespace. Not only does COP provide features of the terrain, sea or air space, but also shows the position of all forces in that space.
“Think of it like layers of data sitting on your computer that shows who you are and what your mission is,” Jones explained. “With COP, you can access and turn on that data. You can exploit it or use it.”
In layman’s terms, Jones said, it is a bit like the growing number of geospatial and mapping services available to consumers over the Web, such as Google Earth, that provide the ability to easily obtain data such as where the closest ATM or what houses are for sale.
RESEARCH GOALS
While several offices within USJFCOM and NGA already do research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) on GEOINT, the new partnership is looking through NGA to group some of the assets and capabilities together into a single process so that research can focus across the community. Again the goal is to meet the most significant needs of the warfighter.
“The warfighter would actually help to prioritize what they would be working on in the way of new GEOINT capabilities,” Jones said. The joint forces have been conducting integration testing in Suffolk, Va. In addition there are testing labs at NGA, one at JFCOM and others across the country and the world. “These could be linked together to provide a coordinated effort toward reaching these new capabilities,” he added.
Other efficiencies are being realized, the biggest of which is cost effectiveness.
“If we leverage current capabilities that have been developed by services or other agencies in the community as well as our commonwealth partners, a lot of those can be brought to bear, rather than redoing them,” Jones pointed out. “You can leverage what they have already done and build a new capability from what has already been done.”
Ultimately, focusing on creating command- level visibility for the warfighting commands is what the partnership is trying to accomplish.
“We are really trying to give them additional capability and gleam from them the geospatial intelligence and information that they create,” said Jones. “Commands will see what others are doing during this process and we will leverage every thing that is out there. Everyone gets together and we see the capabilities and we piggyback on each others programs to realize what is going on. This makes them aware of a lot of things they may not have been aware of before.” ♦
