Executive Summary
This study addresses how efficiently our collectors work
together ("synergy"), the budgetary balance between collection and
"downstream" activities, and ways to reduce collection costs,
primarily in the satellite area.
Regarding collection synergy, the study concludes that we are
only beginning to look at how different forms of technical, human
and open collection could be developed, budgeted and operated to
work together cohesively and efficiently. If we proceed as now
planned, progress will be very slow. Recommendations, therefore,
include opting for a "revolutionary" rather than evolutionary
approach. We should develop technical work-arounds for existing
systems, and through an independent body establish as soon as
possible the common standards and protocols to provide for intra-
and cross-INT interoperability, based as much as possible on
commercial standards. There should be much greater attention to
cross-cueing our collection through integrated collection
management using improved, common data bases. We must also better
manage the balance between crisis and longer-term target
priorities.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and despite the exploitation
and dissemination problems revealed during the Gulf War,
collection, especially satellite-based collection, is taking an
increasing share of the budget. We should be shifting more money
into processing, exploitation/analysis and dissemination. This is
possible without sacrificing collection capability and even as we
make greater efforts to overcome denial and deception, because
technology and streamlining offer the potential for large cost
savings. Numerous areas, other than synergy, where we could reduce
collection costs are listed, and study of the feasibility of a
"market" approach to collection budgeting is suggested.
COLLECTION SYNERGY
Scope
This paper is weighted toward satellite collection issues,
although it addresses the interaction between satellite, aircraft
and other collectors.
Issue Summary
There is no doubt that U.S. intelligence collection capability
far surpasses that of any other country, particularly with respect
to technical collection, and that this capability has been the envy
of both allies and enemies. Questions regarding collection have
focused on whether we could sustain and improve collection
capability at greater efficiency and lesser cost, and whether
existing trends should be maintained or altered in order to
preserve the US collection advantage for the future.
The following have been identified as problem areas relating
to collection, and will be discussed further in subsequent sections
of this paper:
1) Collection management lacks the accessibility,
flexibility and dynamism necessary for the post-Cold War
period. At present there is an imbalance in collection
management priorities favoring near-term crises at the
expense of baseline capabilities and future needs. The
erosion of regional data bases is expected to accelerate
as limited assets are focused mainly on a relatively few
top Presidential Decision Directive - 35 (PDD-35)
priorities.
2) Collectors work independently and thus at suboptimal
efficiency, in separate "stovepipes."
3) There appears to be an imbalance between collection and
"downstream" capabilities, especially in projections of
the future; regardless, it appears that significant
savings could be made in satellite collection without
sacrificing capability.
4) The Intelligence Community (IC) appears unable or
unwilling to make cross-program, cross-INT budget
tradeoffs. Budget priorities and cuts often are not
driven by requirements/users. The division of resources
between the "INTs" is largely static.
5) Proponents find greater difficulty in funding relatively
inexpensive collectors/technology than in funding high-cost
programs.
6) Spacecraft and associated systems are becoming ever more
costly and consuming more of the intelligence budget.
7) We need more, rather than fewer, spacecraft platforms for
better global coverage, more frequent revisit and reduced
vulnerability. Demand outstrips capability. Denial and
deception problems are increasing and the planned future
architecture makes us more vulnerable to them.
8) There are very long lag times in getting technology on
orbit. We need to adapt to commercial standards,
technology and processes.
9) Unrealistically low spacecraft life calculations
exacerbate problems of cost, fielding timely technology
and maintaining the industrial base.
"Synergistic" or "Fused" Collection
At present, collection platforms normally are "stovepiped" to
operate independently from other collectors, including completely
distinct processing systems, and usually unique exploitation,
dissemination and receive systems as well. While in the best cases
a coherent "end to end" system is created, usually this involves
considerable inefficiencies in collection tasking, and in achieving
an "all source" intelligence picture that meets user requirements
and that gets to the deployed military user in a timely way.
Synergistic or fused collection would make more efficient use
of collection assets through timely tipoff, cooperative
geolocation, avoidance of duplication, assignment of the most
efficient collector for a given task, and through coordinated
orbits or collection plans. There seems no doubt that collection
assets could work together far more efficiently had they been
deliberately designed to do so. However, continual technology
advances in key areas also present much greater opportunities for
end-to-end synergy than existed previously: broadband
communications, data compression, large data base methodologies and
data exploitation tools all allow broadened opportunity.
Technical and other collection assets could be employed
cooperatively rather than independently, tipping off each other
with minimal time lags. The aim should be to achieve greater
efficiencies and higher quality product through coordinated
collection, so that the total product when collectors are working
together is greater than would be the sum of their output working
separately, as they do today. Such efficiencies might also reduce
costs by allowing deployment of fewer collectors to achieve given
requirements.
It should be possible, for instance, to avoid redundant
collection and to select the most effective and least costly
collector. Cross-tipoff or "cross-cueing" of technical platforms
would allow near-real-time reaction to overcome denial and
deception tactics or to capitalize on opportunities. Likewise, key
human intelligence (HUMINT) or open-source data should be
distributed and rapidly acted upon by other collectors.
Coordinated use of satellites and of aircraft-satellite
combinations could permit greatly improved tasking and geolocation
without deploying additional platforms. During crisis or war,
efficient use of collectors becomes particularly important, because
there is great competition for limited assets.
Historically, very little attention has been accorded to
synergy in the collection area. This is partly because each of the
INTs developed in its own "stovepipe," with jealous protection of
bureaucratic turf. Even within agencies, there was very little
cross-cooperation between program managers. Rivalry among National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) components and program managers was
legendary. Aircraft and spacecraft architectures usually were
developed separately, and service rivalry impeded comprehensive
aircraft planning or division of labor. Tasking of and reporting
from sensitive CIA/Directorate of Operations (DO) human assets is
highly compartmented, as are the existence and operation of other
"black" collection programs and many of the sources managed by the
National Security Agency (NSA). Open source information often was
slighted or belated, and is distributed in separate unclassified
channels.
The habit of operating in isolation extends from collection
through distribution, each INT or program often having developed
its own idiosyncratic communication and receive system. As a
result, the systems and their collection managers usually cannot
"talk" to each other for rapid tipoff or cooperative target
geolocation (especially important to overcome denial and deception
and in wartime). Individual users receive directly only the data
for which they have procured specific receive equipment, if indeed
the communications capacity is available to distribute that data.
Just as we have had difficulty getting data collected by national
systems out to the field, often we are unable to transmit
collection from tactical assets back to the United States, where it
could be integrated with data from other sources and evaluated by
more analysts.
There have been some initial steps to address these problems,
but most are in their infancy. Not only is there a very long way
to go, but we should squarely face the choices between fragmented
and comprehensive, as well as evolutionary and revolutionary,
approaches. Maintenance of adequate security represents another
challenge.
Fused collection is particularly difficult in the signals
intelligence (SIGINT) world, especially when it is to be utilized
for geolocation purposes, because collectors operating at vast
distances from each other must determine whether they are receiving
the same signal at the same precise given time. One of the major
impediments to this is synchronizing (signal) time of arrival to a
specific portion of a single SIGINT electromagnetic wave. This, in
turn, requires that each collector be synchronized to precisely the
same "clock" in nanoseconds, to determine the precise receiver
location -- a feat difficult in itself, but even harder when each
system was developed independently with varying precisions,
equipment and methodologies. Ongoing R&D is addressing the timing
problem. Even if it is solved, a means of communicating the data
between collectors, especially when field-deployed or mobile units
are involved, can be a formidable task. And if the communications
lines exist, efficient operation requires that data formats be
compatible, again problematic when each of the existing systems was
developed in isolation.
The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office's (DARO) Joint
Airborne SIGINT Architecture (JASA) attempts to evolve standards,
interface protocols, hardware and software to develop coordinated
and interoperable airborne SIGINT collectors.
The apparently large disconnect between the spacecraft and
aircraft architectures should be a matter of high-level concern.
The NRO and DARO have executed a memorandum of understanding which
provides for common standards, especially in timing clocks.
However, in other areas, spacecraft and aircraft will continue to
go their separate ways unless further action is taken.
Distribution systems, data formats and data bases will not
necessarily be interoperable. Each community will develop its own
software, although much of this probably could be shared.
Developmental work on attacking the most difficult existing and
future signals should be better integrated between spaceborne,
airborne and ground systems.
Indeed, it often appears that cooperative focus on improving
performance in core present and future SIGINT competencies has
taken a back seat to one of the more difficult and even exotic
SIGINT applications, i.e. extremely precise target geolocation.
The latter has been driven by the military development of expensive
precision-guided weapons which often outstripped the ability of US
intelligence to provide highly accurate target positions. In the
process, more basic concerns -- such as the less difficult but
potentially very productive task of rapid tipoff between collectors
and the issue of whether we will even be able to find future
signals in order to geolocate them cooperatively -- appear to have
been given less priority for collaborative effort. It is also
unclear whether the NRO will, in practice, accord increased synergy
the priority it has received historically.
SIGINT has captured most of the attention regarding
synergistic collection, and the reason for this is unclear.
Imagery requires less precision and overall, is easier to "fuse."
Further, while the NRO likes to advertise its goal of creating a
"system of systems," cross-INT collection synergy does not seem to
be receiving much attention.
As other studies have pointed out, at present there is no
structured, consistent Community-wide set of requirements for the
collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination of
information. Processing includes storage, translation, scanning,
formatting, structuring, indexing, cataloging, categorizing and
extracting; there are no Community standards in any of these steps.
Therefore, tasking systems also must be "stovepiped" according to
the platform or the "INT." Archived material must be retrieved
through varying procedures, and in some cases, archive retrieval
nonetheless has been extremely inefficient. If we could achieve a
single workstation for exploitation of all INTs, we could much more
easily serve the user, address gaps in the data bases and
requirements, evaluate information sources and task collectors.
In theory, there seems no reason why this cannot happen. With
the move to digitization, "bits are bits," and data consists only
of ones and zeros. With coordinated and accepted standards and
protocols, compatible automated systems could be built which would
be able to exchange data. If these standards and protocols were
made as close as possible to commercial standards, various users
not only would enjoy independence and flexibility in selection of
vendors, but also would experience considerable cost savings both
at the outset and for upgrades.
Examples such as the cable companies' expansion into various
forms of data transmission should be an inspiration for the IC and
a partial basis for judging its efforts. Cable companies now are
creating systems to accommodate video (IMINT), telephone and fax
(COMINT) and computer exchanges. But the revolutions witnessed in
the commercial world have been slow transferring to US
Intelligence, which will increasingly lag unless it opts
immediately for a much more vigorous, ambitious and holistic
approach. Further, the problems experienced recently with Joint
Deployable Intelligence Support System (JDISS) indicate that
serious follow-up enforcement must be part of the plan.
Collection Management
It has been argued above that collection platforms should be
built and operated to function in complementary and coordinated
ways, to improve efficiency. Many of the barriers to this goal are
cultural, political and institutional rather than technical. At
present, each service or "stovepipe" controls its own collectors,
subject to the direction of standing requirements committees or, in
crisis and war, to the overriding authority of the Joint Task Force
Commander or his designee.
The Persian Gulf War illustrated the difficulty of achieving
centralized control even when one has the putative authority.
Theater collection managers found it hard to ascertain what assets
were in theater, much less to control them intelligently. With the
eventual availability of over 150 types of platforms of varying
capability, it was extremely difficult to find anyone with the
requisite knowledge to orchestrate them effectively.
Military service specialties do not include intelligence
collection management, and relatively few analysts take the time to
learn the arcane technology and requirements processes. When
overwhelmed with duties, one of the first tasks they eliminate is
collection management; and if they are assigned to a low priority
area, this increasingly is a practical decision, since their
submitted requirements often are unlikely to be filled anyway.
There are not established lists of people with such competency, so
reliance is placed upon a word-of-mouth "old boy" network to find
and reassign known experts. As a result of these deficiencies,
national collection management experts had to be seconded to the
theater, departing at a time when their skills also were most
needed at home.
The Gulf War allowed a six-month buildup, which was fortunate,
because from the intelligence collection viewpoint, the time
cushion was desperately needed. Less than 50 intelligence experts
initially were allowed in theater. Weapons also were given
priority over intelligence collection platforms, in the view that
this would best deter the Iraqis from hostile action. Even when
intelligence platforms could be imported, those controlling them
sometimes were uncooperative, the classic case being Air Force
policy regarding the developmental Joint Surveillance Target
Acquisition Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft. Jointness and
cooperation were enforced by placing intelligence experts from
different venues side-by-side with each other and with operators,
to overcome historical barriers to cooperation. Deconfliction of
requirements became a delicate assignment, for instance sorting out
the Army and Marine desire to focus JSTARS on moving targets across
their lines and the Air Force demand for focus on deep strike
targets for the air campaign.
With requirements far exceeding capabilities, collection
managers sought to utilize non-traditional sensors, which sometimes
could be useful for tactical reconnaissance. They had great
difficulty finding out about these sensor capabilities and then in
finding out where these systems were deployed on the battlefield.
Even five years later, an inventory of such supplemental sensor
capabilities apparently has not been made.
At the national level, collection management has become
increasingly contentious, even before the number of satellites on
orbit is slashed within the future architecture.
With requirements always far exceeding collection
capabilities, some argue that program managers are largely free to
pick and choose which targets they will pursue. These targets, it
is said, often are those that will make their own INT's performance
look good and give them visibility in the crisis of the day. They
are not necessarily those that are the most difficult "enduring
challenges" or those most uniquely accessible by their particular
"INT" or collection system, it is argued, and indeed, they may not
know what others are collecting, especially in the case of highly
compartmented HUMINT or technical programs. The current system is
criticized because the stovepipes essentially control their own
budget size and allocations within that budget, although in reality
they have little idea how their requirements and capabilities
should be prioritized compared to others. And finally, the program
managers write their own "report card", with little oversight or
review by others.
A persuasive argument can be made that the best potential
requirements and collection managers are not the program managers
or INT-based requirements committees, but rather all-source
analysts with expertise in the specific mission areas who have
access to all associated collection compartments and data. Some
argue that not only should such analysts be responsible for day-to-day
collection management, but also that they should have more say
in allocating funds for new collection platforms. Taking this last
point further, some believe it would be useful to give such issue
managers discretionary funds to develop relatively inexpensive
collection techniques to fill gaps in their respective areas. On
the collection management side, the Counterproliferation Center
(CPC) has negotiated agreements whereby some of the INTs have
passed much tasking responsibility to the CPC; the result is said
to be improved collection and a reduced need for duplicative
analytic capability within the INTs, plus a freeing of the program
managers from this onus, so they can concentrate on other
responsibilities.
A contrary view recently was presented by the Intelligence
Capabilities Task Force, however, which found a high degree of
agreement between analysts and collectors that somehow system
program managers left to their own devices have managed to build
the right system and collect the right material. The Task Force
does concede that there exist many "enduring challenges" or gaps,
as well as a growing denial and deception problem which has not
been acknowledged by most analysts.
Just as there is often little control over disparate theater
operations unless a Commander-in-Chief (CINC) effectively exercises
his options during crisis, at the national level there is no
centralized collection management looking across all the INTs and
deciding which can most effectively pursue a given target. This
deficit arguably has become more problematic since the end of the
Cold War. The Soviet targets on which most of our collection
previously was focused were largely predictable and slow to change.
Most US intelligence players had a fairly set role, and relatively
infrequent differences at the margins were adjudicated at a high
level rather than on a daily working basis. Now, however, targets
are dispersed worldwide and far less predictable, and the strain on
resources is greater. Yet we tend still to concentrate on
management of static target decks, even as the need grows for far
more flexible, ad hoc, rapid reaction to changing circumstances and
opportunities -- for support of the military balanced against
enduring requirements, for overcoming denial and deception, and for
effecting synergy through rapid response to tipoff.
The new strain on collection management is especially
exemplified by the dilemmas arising from the recent development of
simultaneous military involvements in various areas of the globe.
Partly because US political culture has evolved to intolerance for
even a low level of casualties, military and political leaders are
inclined to throw all available intelligence resources against
these sensitive situations, even though their marginal contribution
there may be far less than if they were collecting in a non-crisis
area. Hence the foundation of the widespread complaint among top
civilian analysts that collection has been excessively skewed to
support for current military operations, to the fundamental
detriment of maintaining an intelligence base on non-crisis areas
and issues more fundamental to long-term U.S. security.
While support for military operations (SMO) is seen as the
culprit, however, in reality this is not a "national versus
military" dichotomy, but rather a near-term or crisis focus at the
expense of medium- to long-term requirements, the latter including
SMO. This is true for two reasons: first, the top "national"
leadership and users are clamoring for crisis coverage as much as
is the military leadership, since military involvement and setbacks
in such spots have considerable political as well as military
implications. Second, those areas from which collection has been
drawn off are also extremely important to the military. Indeed,
since military interventions have been occurring in unpredicted
areas of the Third World, failure to maintain an adequate base
probably will affect most severely our future capability to support
military operations.
When requirements outstrip capability, prioritization
obviously is needed. However, PDD-35, which established a "tier"
system for U.S. Intelligence, in some ways appears to have worsened
the problem. Analysts believe the tier system is being imposed too
rigidly. As a result, the top five or six requirements receive the
great majority of the resources so that we do them exceedingly
well, but those below, especially those beneath the top tier level,
languish with leftovers at best.
While this would not become a major issue if intensive
intelligence support for interventions or crises lasted only for a
few months, prolonged involvements have become increasingly common
and have intensified collection management conflicts. Critics of
such diversions argue that decisions such as these often have
reflected a lack of appreciation for balancing requirements, for
longer-term US priorities and needs, and for the fact that piling
on additional collection may bring only marginal value added, but
at considerable opportunity cost.
Such acrimony can only be expected to increase dramatically in
the future, if we implement plans to reduce greatly the number of
satellite collectors. And the accumulation of diverse capabilities
on huge satellites means that whatever such a satellite's
theoretical collection capabilities, in reality, severe tasking
conflicts often will develop; pursuit of one task may have to be
accomplished by excluding use of another capability, or the attempt
to execute both over a given area and time may cause
inefficiencies.
What Share for Collection ?
During the 1980s, critics argued that US intelligence had a
largely peacetime orientation toward arms control and other
"national" issues, and that it was not designed to serve the
warfighter well. With an orientation on collection and a focus on
distribution to national users located primarily within the
Washington beltway, it did not demonstrate the agility, rapid data
fusion or dissemination to far-flung areas which was needed to
support field operations efficiently. Although the Gulf war was a
far less stressing scenario than we might one day face, and
although US intelligence performed well overall, the legitimacy of
these critiques largely was confirmed in 1990-1991.
The need for more investment in processing and exploitation
has deepened as collectors are being designed to amass far larger
volumes of data.
Critics also long have contended that expensive satellites are
not being used efficiently, especially during the early deployment
phase of new and upgraded systems, because requisite processing and
exploitation capability on the ground are given short shrift and
developed only belatedly and sometimes halfheartedly. As a
result, billions of dollars routinely are spent on collection
systems that have for long periods of time been used suboptimally.
The data available to date have indicated that the tendency to
favor collection has grown stronger rather than weaker. Since
1992, the budgetary priority and dominance of collection apparently
has increased rather than decreased. As the intelligence budget
has declined, collection has taken fewer cuts within both Tactical
Intelligence and Related Activities (TIARA) and National Foreign
Intelligence Program (NFIP) budgets, and hence consumes a larger
share of available resources than previously.
The NFIP collection budget is dominated by the National
Reconnaissance Office, whose budget has climbed fairly steadily and
is projected to continue doing so. The requested National
Reconnaissance Program (NRP) share of the NFIP, therefore should
continue to rise within a static or declining overall NFIP budget.
Satellites and associated ground facilities also were taking more
of the reduced collection portion of NFIP funds. Nonetheless, the
overall collection budget has been faring better than other
portions of the NFIP. The TIARA budget is weighted less toward
collection, probably in part because many intelligence
dissemination systems must be financed within the services.
Comparison of 1989-91 figures with 1995-97 projections also show
that collection has fared well within TIARA.
With respect to TIARA, it should also be noted that unmanned
aerial vehicles currently developed as prototypes under Advanced
Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) programs are not funded
for production, and collection budget increments for this purpose
might be necessary beginning in FY 1998-2000. Likewise, there is
a potentially large unfunded processing, exploitation and
dissemination bill for these systems; attention and funding to date
usually has concentrated on the collection portion, despite
historical neglect and inadequacies in other areas. Overall, TIARA
investment in imagery collection has been increasing, but imagery
processing and dissemination admittedly are not funded adequately
under current TIARA projections.
Many in both the Executive Branch and Congress, including this
Committee, increasingly have objected to the traditional budgetary
dominance of collection and believe we could achieve more value for
the marginal dollar by shifting funds to processing, exploitation,
analysis and dissemination. This consensus has grown since DESERT
SHIELD/DESERT STORM highlighted deficiencies in "downstream"
activities, notably dissemination. The aforementioned Intelligence
Capabilities Task Force also has provided a dissenting note on this
issue, however, finding that collection and production/analytical
capabilities have been pretty well balanced, and that if anything
a slightly greater emphasis on collection may be needed. It should
be noted, however, that at present we often collect significantly
less than our capability, since platforms are built with capacity
excess to projected normal operating requirements to allow for
surge capacity.
Regardless whether collection and downstream capabilities
other than dissemination were well balanced in the past, many would
argue that there will be a future imbalance favoring collection if
action is not taken. They fear that it will be difficult to make
efficient use of large prospective increases in data, to be
collected by technical platforms now planned or under development
as well as by "open source" methods. Indeed, some top analysts
believe the community already fails to exploit adequately the
imagery and signals data currently being collected and processed.
While inevitably we will always collect significantly more data
than we use, some wonder whether we can continue to explain or
rationalize the collection of large excesses, especially since only
a very small part of what is collected is actionable. Prominent
experts have voiced to the Committee worries that in the future it
will become more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff,
and that we could become overwhelmed with data and unable to reduce
it to the information we really need. Some have wondered whether
we will need a new class of data sorters, to cull information to
forward to data users.
On the other hand, however, users -- and builders --
sometimes have been loathe to reduce collection platform
requirements, which might in turn reduce costs. Some also note
that arguments over intelligence assessments usually are resolved
definitively only by acquiring more data, not by more analysis.
The Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence (HPSCI) has adopted a position that fundamentally
transcends this argument about whether there is an imbalance
between collection and downstream activities. It is his view that
satellite collection and ground systems, which as noted above
account for approximately half the NFIP collection budget, probably
could be accomplished for far less money, thus freeing up large
sums of money for more innovative collection schemes, for greater
investment in downstream activities, and/or for reductions to the
intelligence budget. This reduces us to the proposition that we
can do it smarter, that technology allows the future NRP to collect
as much as or more than now planned, for much less expenditure.
The aim should be to reduce substantially the cost of some or most
"baseline" NRO systems in order to free up money for other
purposes. Moreover, we should attempt simultaneously to decrease
satellite system vulnerability and increase our capability to
counter denial and deception.
In its FY 96 authorization bill, the Committee advocated
immediate and aggressive development of prototype small spacecraft
imagery alternatives, including associated rapid acquisition
practices and perhaps completely modernized ground facilities. The
authorization conference referred this proposal to an independent
panel established by the Director of Central Intelligence, which is
to report back this spring.
Potential savings could contribute greatly to containment of
collection costs, with the added benefit of providing more
platforms, thus decreased vulnerability and greater coverage or
revisit. While small satellite applications have to date
concentrated on imagery platforms, their potential for SIGINT and
communications applications also should be accorded high priority.
Regardless whether the panel decides to proceed with development
now, we believe that smaller and cheaper satellites are the
technological wave of the future, and that the IC also will adopt
them eventually, if belatedly. Secondly, the Committee initiative
already has spurred the admission that far lighter and less
expensive "medium satellites" could be built, confirming our view
that considerable reductions could be made to the NRP spacecraft
budget. To date, there has been less study and movement regarding
ground systems.
Thus far, the NRO's reaction to rising costs has been the
opposite of what we have recommended. Acknowledging that space
system costs were becoming prohibitively expensive, the NRO
accepted the recommendations of a 1992 panel to reduce the number
of spacecraft on orbit by nearly half, compensating for this by
loading up still more investment and capabilities on the remaining
upgraded platforms. The theory behind this was that after initial
investments, constellation costs would come down. Instead,
however, it appears that, at best, expenditures would level out at
higher levels that previously. In effect, we have roughly doubled
our costs per spacecraft, as well as increasing our vulnerability
to denial and deception and to accident or attack.
Technology Allows More Capability at Less Cost
Two Committee IC21 hearings on technology trends reinforce our
conclusion that commercial technology and practices hold the key to
relatively painless reductions in collection costs. Witnesses
agreed that commercial technology is much cheaper, is widely
available, leads government R&D in many areas, and is characterized
by rapid (six to 24 month) generational turnover. The challenge
for government, they said, will be to concentrate government R&D in
key niche areas with little commercial use or interest, and to
change radically our acquisition philosophy and processes. Success
will be dictated by our ability to concentrate on swift application
and fielding of commercial standards and the latest commercial
technology, allowing us to maintain a qualitative and cost
advantage over adversaries. This will also permit a more robust,
competitive and easily maintained industrial base.
Of all the technology advances, perhaps the most important is
in processing and microelectronics, or "information technology."
Rapid generational advances in this area, with turnover every six
to 18 months, have important applications throughout the
intelligence spectrum, from "upstream" collection through
"downstream" processing, exploitation and dissemination.
These continuing revolutions in processing capability, for
instance, help permit fielding of spacecraft that are not only
lighter and cheaper but also smarter, allowing greater on-board
processing of information. The latter, in turn, could permit
direct dissemination to the field and communication between
satellites. For some applications, eventually "micro-satellites"
deployed in "clouds" and communicating with each other and possibly
with a larger mother satellite might feature distributed collection
and division of labor, thus allowing inexpensive reconstitution or
selective parts replacement.
Rather than embracing the advancing technology, however, the
NRO opted to continue making very large satellites, which are very
costly in themselves and also are extremely expensive to launch.
Partly, these decisions traced to an assumption that we could not
get all intelligence assets off the TITAN IV, and if we could not
do so, we might as well put a lot of NRO spacecraft on TITAN IV in
order to avoid increasing the already enormous costs per launch.
Therefore, for example, despite major advances in composites
and lightweight materials, spacecraft bus often remain very heavy.
Similarly, electronics often are much heavier than current
technology allows. Examples of major technology advances which
could be incorporated to reduce spacecraft size and cost while
retaining capability include: gimballed or phased array antennae;
high efficiency solar arrays and high density batteries; high
performance computers and digital commercial DRAMs; and more
advanced attitude control systems such as Inertial Measurement
Units (IMUs), Star Trackers and Global Positioning System (GPS)
receivers. Even where the NRO has pioneered new technology, its
baseline programs have not always moved to put it on orbit quickly.
In processing, too, better adaptation to commercial standards
and rapid technology advances should revolutionize the way the NRO
and others do business. In the NRO, ground processing policy often
has mirrored the approach to associated satellites. Usually we
have resorted to very expensive upgrades of custom-built, vendor-
specific, old and inefficient technology. This is one reason why
ground processing now can represent two-thirds of space system
costs. With dramatically improved processing power and software
based as much as possible on commercial standards, tremendous
efficiencies and cost savings are possible. This is why some of
the small satellite proposals advocate redesigning processing
systems with "a clean sheet of paper" approach. Because individual
satellite programs currently use different contractors with system-
and proprietary-unique processing, this must be changed before we
can fully acquire cross-platform, cross-INT collection synergy.
This also reinforces the need to integrate ground facilities based
on common standards and protocols and on commercial technology to
the fullest extent possible.
Smaller satellites could potentially feature life cycle costs
less than half those of some current satellites, freeing up
billions of dollars. Often, smaller satellites also offer
important advantages other than financial savings; one major point
is that we could put more platforms on orbit, allowing better
revisit time, more flexible worldwide coverage, decreased
vulnerability and more a efficient industrial base.
Advanced technologies such as those allowing increased
processing aboard even lighter weight spacecraft now render it
possible to disseminate selected data direct from the satellite to
simplified, distributed ground stations. This might gratify users
by sending some data directly to the field, and it could also
reduce our vulnerabilities due to chokepoints in these systems.
And, once again, it is commercial technology which has led the way
in developing concepts for direct dissemination to individual
users.
There has developed a belief that "direct" or "global"
broadcast is a better option than direct download, since it allows
processing and fusion of material in the US and distribution of
culled information to military units that might otherwise be
overwhelmed. However, it appears that global broadcast and direct
downlink (DDL) from collection platforms should be considered
complementary rather than competing alternatives, so long as DDL is
executed in a cost effective manner. Field ground units could
collect from tactical assets and broadcast processed information up
to satellites for transmission back to the US. They could task and
collect from satellites via direct downlink only the most important
data for their purposes, and would have only themselves to blame if
they got too much to handle. DDL would ensure their timely receipt
of the most important data, the ability to view high priority "raw"
product fully, protection against possible communications
interruptions or priority problems, and provision of a minimum
backup against satellite system vulnerabilities.
In general, this study argues that the NRO should eschew a
policy of extremely expensive, evolutionary upgrades and instead
seek revolutionary leapfrog technology based mostly on commercial
technology wherever feasible and prudent. However, affordability
also will require a change in acquisition philosophy similar to
what others have urged for Department of Defense (DoD) programs.
Systems will have to be produced quickly, competitively, and in
larger quantities, in order to control costs and get technology on
orbit promptly. DoD directives to minimize military specifications
on existing and planned systems will have to be taken seriously.
Management superstructure should be minimized, and personnel
reduced to the minimum needed. This is contrary to current trends.
Further, NRO "base" or support costs constitute fully one-third of
the NRP, and have not been delineated well for outside or
Congressional scrutiny.
Streamlined acquisition philosophy also focuses on
requirements rather than contract specifications, allowing the
contractor to determine how to meet those requirements. Fixed
price contracts should replace cost plus contracts wherever
feasible. In the past, NRO contractors were incentivized primarily
to extend satellite life, with profits increasing accordingly.
Hence, intelligence satellites have become very long-lived. This
philosophy, too, probably should be reconsidered, because as
technology advances ever more rapidly, it has complicated efforts
to get new technology on orbit.
Despite these advances in longevity, the NRO continues to
resist altering artificially low "mean mission duration" (MMD)
estimates, according to which acquisition schedules are planned.
The result has been inefficient procurement stretch-outs, belated
cancellations, high satellite storage and team maintenance costs,
constant disruption to an incorrectly sized industrial base, and
attendant high overhead costs which are passed along to the
government. In addition to these inefficiencies, stubborn
adherence to artificially low MMDs has driven us to numerous
policies that otherwise would be considered illogical, if not
downright silly.
Apportioning the Collection Budget
Regardless how they are operationally used, there is
widespread agreement that there is little logic in the process for
deciding which collection capabilities we most need and should
acquire in the first place. Not only are there few means for
trading off the value of one potential platform against another,
but there is little mechanism for trading off collection against
other priorities.
It is striking, for instance, that the division of resources
among the INTs has remained largely static over the years,
especially within the NFIP, which is less volatile as a whole than
is TIARA/Joint Military Intelligence Program (JMIP). This static
-- or stagnant -- status persists despite vast changes in world
politics, targets, and technology.
Measurement and signatures intelligence (MASINT) also presents
a perplexing case history. Difficult to understand and often
without an established constituency, under the current budget
allocation system, it will have a hard time coming to its own due
to declining budgets. Indeed, MASINT budgets have shrunk we rushed
to shut down traditional radar collectors on the theory that they
no longer were needed for the post-Cold-War period. Yet many
believe that MASINT collection could become the most exciting
future intelligence technology if properly managed, and if these
and other potential new initiatives were not considered primarily
as threats to the financial viability of expensive existing
programs.
Non-technical collection capabilities considered relatively
cost effective sometimes also have had difficulty maintaining and
increasing budget share. HUMINT, for example, sometimes has been
cited as potentially far less expensive than technical platforms as
a means of collecting the most highly focused and sought-after
intelligence requirements, e.g., on enemy leadership and
intentions. This could be particularly true if civilian and
military HUMINT collectors undergo the cultural change of realizing
that their future is brightest if they wholeheartedly marry HUMINT
operatives to technical collection, something now made possible by
the advance of technology and miniaturization.
Open source intelligence traditionally also has had a
difficult time increasing market share commensurate with its
potential. The growth of open source material should allow a
further refinement of collection strategies and an ability to
concentrate the limited number of technical collectors on the truly
"hard targets." However, the burgeoning availability of open
sources has complicated the IC's ability to manage the amounts of
data now available. In addition, there is a bias among some in the
intelligence and policy communities against open sources, stemming
from the erroneous belief that no information that is valuable is
likely to be easily accessible or unclassified. This prejudice
severely undercuts the utility of open sources and can only be
overcome through positive action. Moreover, the under-utilization
of open sources -- and HUMINT -- may be due partly to a lack of
understanding among users about their potential and how to use
them. The IC has been addressing these problems for the past
several years and should devote more resources to them, given the
savings this may create in terms of overall collection costs.
Such collection budget allocation problems apparently derive
partly from the observation above that each stovepipe or program
determines its own budget and writes its own report card. There is
little mechanism at the top level for judging between them, and
some argue that it would be virtually impossible to maintain in one
decision-maker or centralized location the detailed knowledge of
all the diverse intelligence programs and capabilities that would be
needed to inform centralized management over a sustained period.
The only current institutional mechanism for effecting such
trades within NFIP has been the Community Management Staff (CMS),
which sometimes has been directed not to interfere with program
managers. Moreover, program element monitors within CMS are
detailed from elsewhere in the Community and eventually must return
to their old positions, so are in a poor position to issue
judgments which might be unpopular with their parent organizations.
Some argue that both collection management and program trades
at the margins can best be effected by the all-source analysts
located in centers, by task forces or by issue management teams.
These persons are read into most or all relevant collection
programs, know their capabilities, access and current operations,
and can judge past performance and cooperation compared to other
collectors.
One suggestion is that these groups be given some "seed money"
of their own, so they can pursue low-cost collection programs which
now languish as large, expensive programs receive the attention and
money. It can be confirmed that on Capitol Hill as well,
allocations of a few million dollars often are scrutinized far more
carefully than large programs, although their sums amount to less
than the rounding errors of the latter.
These seemingly intractable problems regarding allocation of
the collection budget might be approached in a novel way by
considering development of a "market" approach to apportioning
collection monies, rather than the current system. The market
approach would seek to avoid the problems of the "command economy"
alternative most often considered; for objective, long-term
expertise in these many and complex programs probably is at best
fleetingly achievable in an all-powerful DCI or collection "czar"
or centralized staff. A market system might also present numerous
other advantages, although implementation could be difficult, at
least initially. The following exemplifies the outlines of such a
system, which requires further thought and development of detail.
One way in which a market system might be implemented would be
to apportion among intelligence users money or monetary "chits" for
the coming and out years, which they could divide and allocate
among potential collection systems that appear able to meet their
future requirements most cost-effectively. Those most successful
in allocating their money wisely would not be punished by taking
away savings, but rather would be free to use those savings for
additional collection benefiting themselves.
Under this example, a method would have to be devised for
fairly apportioning money or monetary "chits," representing non-
baseline dollars, among users/consumers, with flexibility for
changes in perceptions of need/fairness and in national security
priorities over the years. On the military side, for instance,
consumers could include the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
all-source analysts, CINCs, services, joint staff and the Director of
Military Intelligence; on the civilian side, they might include the
DCI, departments and agencies, the National Security Council (NSC)
and CIA all-source analysts and centers. If necessary, a means
could be found to weight a portion of these votes towards "enduring
challenges" or long-term gaps and for collection to overcome denial
and deception, e.g., by requiring individual users suffering from
such gaps to expend a percentage of their chits in this area or by
setting aside a bloc of DCI and DMI chits for this purpose.
Core or "baseline" capabilities would be determined and
maintained for program stability, but would be thoroughly and
critically reviewed both initially and yearly thereafter for cost
effectiveness and operational responsiveness to consumers. Any
questions or discontent surfaced by either an independent staff
permanently assigned to a CMS-style organization or by Congress and
consumers would be aired thoroughly and periodically reviewed by
the consumers, with budgetary adjustments made accordingly.
An accumulation of enough "chits" could either finance a fully
designed and costed system as presented to users or, in planning
and requirements stages, represent the cost and requirements/users
for which a system should be designed. Program managers would have
to market their proposed product among potential
users/payers/voters. A truly independent CMS (not using agency
detailees) could serve not as the DCI's resource to grade and
prioritize programs, but as a "truth in marketing" organization for
technology risk and cost estimates, to which users could refer (cf.
Intelligence Community Management staff study). If high-cost but
necessary systems could not achieve funding "critical mass," a
"runoff" system might have to be developed.
Such a "market" system would appear to have the advantages of:
naturally eliminating unnecessary redundancy; favoring lower cost
systems; forcing users to prioritize their requirements more
carefully, since users would have only a limited amount of money to
spend for their particular needs and would be truly paying the
bill; forcing a debate over requirements priorities, both when
distributing and when expending chits; and presenting incentives
for cross-service, cross-TIARA/JMIP/NFIP investments, depending
upon which option would meet needs at lowest cost, since the user
would be able to retain savings for other purposes. Program
managers would be incentivized to minimize compartmentation and
program costs, and both they and users would be motivated to form
groups of multiple users who might share the bill. Once the system
was operational, collection management would be geared to satisfy
those who had paid the bills, in order to sustain their support for
the existing system and maintain consumer trust for future budget
decisions; utilization for other unforeseen customers could be
directed by the DCI or his collection deputy. As in a true market
system, the DCI and other users would be free to trade informally
some of their own chits/votes, as they saw fit.
The system would become more free-wheeling, and aspects of it
might seem undesirable to some. Consumers would have to become far
more educated on the range of collection systems and opportunities
than most are now, and inevitably would make some errors.
Political infighting and wheeler-dealing would continue to
flourish, especially over consumer "chit" allocations. Expert
marketing or salesmanship could become a program commodity as
valued as substantive expertise. However, consumers primarily
voting their own self-interest ultimately should produce a more
rational, efficient, fair and flexible system than we have now or
than could be achieved and maintained under "command economies"
overseen by the DCI/CMS, DMI and individual services.
Recommendations
Collection Synergy and Collection Management
1) Interoperability should be effected through a high-priority
revolutionary approach rather than through the evolutionary methods
now contemplated; the latter would delay achievement of extensive
synergy for a generation. This revolutionary approach would accept
more short-term risk and disruption in exchange for much larger and
quicker pay-off.
- For the near term, universal translators should be
developed and fielded to put headers on data coming from
"legacy" collectors using diverse protocols and
standards, thus providing a conversion factor for all
pulse description words.
- Over the next five years or so, comprehensive
standards and protocols (for timing, ephemerus,
frequency, geodesy, etc.) should be developed and
enforced for new systems, similar to the multi-layered
standards set for the computer science industry by an
international standards organization.
- Synergy thus should be maximized from collection
through processing, exploitation and dissemination. The
number of unique systems and components should be
minimized, and use of commercial off the shelf components
maximized. With digitization and proper standards, we
should eventually be able to disseminate, exchange and
exploit all data within a common transmission/receive
system, just as the commercial world now is leading the
way in routing voice, video, computer and fax over the
same lines.
2) An independent DCI/Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) level
board should be established which sets and enforces all necessary
standards, protocols, etc., for intra- and cross-INT
interoperability from collection through dissemination and
exploitation, basing them as much as possible on commercial
standards. (cf. Intelligence Community Management staff study and
its discussion of the Infrastructure Support Office (ISO)).
3) While we should be effecting a shift from single system
geolocation to collaborative geolocation, too much of the initial
focus of fused collection has been on what might be the most
demanding of fusion problems, i.e., the achievement of extremely
precise geolocations. Much greater effort should be devoted now
to cross-cueing and integrated collection management, with high
priority on cross-INT aspects.
4) All-source analysts extensively trained in collection
management and with access to data from all collectors relevant to
their mission area should select and task the collectors most
suited to their problems. (cf. Intelligence Community Management
staff study on CMS collection management and electronic connections
with analysts and collectors.) A concerted effort must be made to
develop and sustain this expertise at both the national and
tactical levels, through improved, centralized cross-INT collection
management training and utilization programs.
5) It seems necessary to centralize collection management in
order to: reduce duplication; effect cross-INT trades and use the
most efficient collectors; achieve desired collection synergy and
counter-denial and deception (D&D) capability; and provide improved
collection dexterity and responsiveness suited to the post-cold war
world. (cf. Intelligence Community Management staff study.)
- With improved communications and computer programming
and graphics, and with a transformation to "bits are
bits" synergism, multiple centers could exist with
independent capability and full interoperability. For
instance, there could be a national collection management
center as well as tactical command and
control/information centers in each major regional
command, plus ad hoc hoc teams for local crises or
operations.
- Computer programs could depict all available assets
and their tracks, and automatically compute the most
accessible and cost-effective collection solutions.
Interoperable dissemination could bring all requested
data from any source down to a single point -- with
digitization, "bits are bits."
6) Improved, common data bases with easy retrieval by those
at remote locations are essential for synergism in both tasking and
exploitation. (cf. Intelligence Community Management staff study.)
7) The Intelligence Community must find a better way to
manage and balance near- and longer-term priorities, which recently
have become too weighted toward support for current crises and
interventions.
Collection-Downstream Balance
8) The NFIP/TIARA budget should be broken out within the
five cross-program categories of collection, processing,
exploitation/analysis, communications/dissemination and
infrastructure. The purpose of these groupings would be to focus
policy and budgetary attention on the relationships and trends
between the five components. At minimum, overall figures with
accompanying tables of component line items should be presented in
overview books/portions of the Congressional Budget Justification
Books (CBJBs)/Congressional Justification Books (CJBs) for FY 98
and beyond. This approach could be compatible with and
complementary to mission-based budgeting. If detailed mission
based budgeting does not prove practicable, these five divisions
could form the basis for building the budget and for organization
of all CJBs/CBJBs, and could be a vehicle for forcing competition
for decreasing funds within and between the five divisions.
Categorizing the budget in this way should also incentivize
programs to reduce costs (see below).
- The collection category should include the platform
command and control portion of the ground infrastructure,
but there should be further study of whether any initial
ground processing should be included within the
collection category, and, if so, to what level.
- TIARA, JMIP and NFIP activities should be budgeted and
operated cohesively, since the distinctions between them
are decreasing or disappearing.
- Congressional budgetary oversight would best be
organized along these five budget categories as well.
9) The DCI and Secretary of Defense should determine
percentage allocation goals among these five components, which
would redistribute resources over a defined period of years to a
more rational and less collection-heavy budget.
- Exploitation/analysis should receive highest priority
for improvements, especially automated exploitation/data
screening; an attempt should be made to quantify the
extent to which automated exploitation improvements are
needed to cope with increased data flow and to quantify
how increases in collected and processed data and
improvements in automated exploitation should affect
analytic manpower levels. Dissemination also is a very
high priority, but more rational, cross-INT, common
dissemination of digitized information might eventually
reduce funding requirements in this area. In the
processing area, SIGINT requirements could become so
financially and technically demanding that we should now
reappraise the long-term cost-effectiveness and viability
of current approaches. Processing should be sized and
financed to ensure efficient use of new or upgraded
collection systems from Initial Operating Capability
(IOC) through Final Operating Capability (FOC), including
in these calculations the use of likely "residual" or
partially operational systems.
10) Overcoming denial and deception which we have experienced
or to which we have known vulnerabilities should be a major factor
in establishing requirements and budgetary priorities, for both
collection and downstream activities.
- The collection community should be shifting a
significant portion of its resources toward
unwarned/unexpected collection, and downstream investment
and analytical resources should be specifically devoted
to means of overcoming denial and deception.
Reducing Collection Costs
11) The following is considered a finding rather than a
recommendation, which should be further studied for feasibility and
implementation details. We should try to devise a system whereby
all types of collection, including TIARA/JMIP as well as NFIP,
human and open-source as well as technical, are forced to compete
for money from a common, reduced pot of collection money. A
"market" approach, rather than the current system or the
alternative "command economy" approach, should be developed, in
which intelligence users/consumers individually and collectively
decide which collection systems might best meet their needs.
12) Costs should be delineated as thoroughly for "baseline"
collection and other programs as for non-baseline programs. The
NFIP practice of maintaining an undelineated intelligence "base"
should be banished, both to promote needed transparency for users
and Congress, and as a logical fall-out of dividing the
intelligence budget into five parts with separate lines for each,
including infrastructure.
13) Congressional Budget Justification Books (CJBs, CBJBs)
should be written to elucidate clearly the costs, limitations and
mission applications of existing or proposed collection systems.
If the above "market" system of budget allocations were
implemented, these books would serve as the basic reference
documents for users as well as for Capitol Hill in assessing
individual programs.
14) Planned NRO funding levels should be reduced, and there
should be an immediate shift in direction toward rapid deployment
of more, smaller and cheaper satellites wherever this is
practicable, with appropriate measures to maintain large satellites
in these respective areas so long as reasonably necessary to hedge
technology and development risk.
15) We should move to supplement broad area and multispectral
collection with commercial satellite sources, maintaining a minimum
core capability but relying heavily on commercial adjuncts and
surge capability. Modernized ground stations should be made
compatible with commercial standards and capabilities.
16) Especially if the NRO does not move toward a far more
distributed, robust architecture than now is planned, the military
should consider developing inexpensive and possibly reusable
"tactical satellites" to supplement national collection over denied
areas during crises.
17) NRO ground systems should be modernized as required,
using a "clean sheet of paper" approach and employing commercially
based, interoperable technology to the greatest extent practicable,
except for necessary specialized applications. This should allow
meaningful and continued contractor competition, drastically cut
both initial and upgrade costs, and be designed to maximize synergy
between collection systems and associated ground stations. A
systems integrator should be hired to study the best way to effect
these goals, and we should consider the possibility of maintaining
updated, cohesive ground stations by contracting out to a systems
integrator (cf. Intelligence Community Management staff study).
18) On-board processing and partial data transfer through
direct downlink should be pursued as a means of better serving
customers, reducing satellite system vulnerability and potentially
reducing costs. System vulnerability and chokepoints should be
addressed as a matter of intense concern, especially if the
prospect of information warfare is taken seriously.
19) The current method of gearing acquisition strategy to an
artificially low calculation of expected satellite life should be
altered to reflect actual experience and more realistic
expectations. Spacecraft program managers should consider
elimination of a specified mean mission duration in contract
requirements and contract incentive rewards, allowing this to
remain as a "bonus" factor in evaluating contract competition.
20) Platforms and sensors built for purposes other than
intelligence collection should be used routinely for intelligence
purposes when this is possible, needed or cost effective. Sensors
built for other purposes, but which might provide data useful for
intelligence purposes, should be surveyed, inventoried and
utilized, for both strategic and tactical collection purposes.
21) Especially in the space area, the focus should be on
technology leaps with maximum utilization of commercial
developments, rather than on numerous expensive block changes and
system upgrades.
22) The NRO's industrial base policy should be closely
scrutinized. Expenditures for this purpose should be minimized in
coordination with the drive to maximize use of commercial
technology. Policies for selection, especially non-competitive
selection, of those companies which will survive, become "centers
of excellence," or receive all future NRO business, should be
revealed and externally examined for both fairness and long-term
financial sense. The industrial base problems associated with
building and upgrading few complex satellites with long design
lifes should be examined. This approach should be weighed against
the advantages and disadvantages of building many more and cheaper
satellites quickly and in larger numbers, with competitive
procurement of leapfrog technology for space and ground segments,
rather than relying on expensive block changes and partial upgrades
to old technology.
23) A much cheaper system of reliable spacecraft launch
should be developed (cf. Collection: Launch staff study.)
24) Program managers building intelligence platforms,
especially spacecraft, should immediately embrace the Secretary of
Defense's directive to adopt commercial standards for existing and
new contracts, minimizing use of military specifications and
standards.
25) Acquisition timelines, personnel and paperwork must be
reduced considerably, to get available new technology on line
rapidly and to reduce costs.
26) There should be a concerted effort to educate users on
the utility of lower cost open source and HUMINT information, and
this material (with proper safeguards for sensitive clandestine
HUMINT material) should be rapidly communicable over the same
dissemination system used by other collectors.
27) The burgeoning availability of open source material
presents both problems and opportunities. In order to take full
advantage of open sources, the IC must continue to develop improved
means of collecting, exploiting and processing open source
information.
This document is sponsored by the U.S. House of Representatives on the United States Government Printing Office web site.
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