Making Sense of Accelerated Warfare: Army’s Adaptive ISR Capability
Abstract
Army’s futures statement, Accelerated Warfare, describes a future operating environment that will be complex and uncertain. Uncertainty in the battlespace can be reduced through effective intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Yet Army’s ISR capability has not been widely debated in the context of the future battlespace. The aim of this article is to prepare Army’s ISR capability for the challenges of an accelerating environment. Using an inside-out methodology, this analysis examines why an effective ISR capability is necessary in an environment of uncertainty. This article argues the case for an adaptive ISR capability, based on the characteristics of agility and resilience. It concludes with recommendations to improve Army’s ISR capability, including building and enabling ISR professionals, enhancing ISR integration and generating a counter-ISR capability.
Introduction
While Army’s futures statement, Accelerated Warfare, does not explicitly describe the battlespace, Army’s recent strategic outlook recognises that future operations will be underpinned by increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This concept is guiding Army through a metacognitive shift to respond to the changing character of war.1 The effect of the geopolitical, demographic and technological change outlined in the statement will be most apparent to those responsible for sensing the threat and the environment. Thus, Army’s ISR capability will be acutely affected by these changes. As an ‘Army in Motion’,2 Army has been presented by the Chief of Army with an opportunity to transform the current paradigm to be ‘ready now, future ready’. Army’s ISR capability is central to that transformation.
In this article, I will argue that Army needs an adaptive ISR capability if it is to succeed in the future. I provide a survey of applicable literature regarding Army’s ISR capability and, using an ‘inside-out’ methodology, evaluate these contributions in the context of Accelerated Warfare to determine their implications for the future force. This article is organised in three parts: Why? How? and What?3 First, I identify why an effective ISR capability is necessary in ‘Accelerated Warfare’. Second, I describe how an adaptive ISR capability based on agility and resilience will meet the challenges posed in the future operating environment. Finally, I evaluate the current paradigm and provide recommendations to develop an adaptive ISR capability. These recommendations are framed using the four command themes within the Chief of Army’s Army in Motion concept: ‘Profession, People, Potential and Preparedness’.
Some important definitions underpin this paper. ISR is a collection activity that synchronises and integrates the acquisition, processing and provision of information to satisfy a collection requirement.4 Through ISR, collection requirements are answered, providing information for processing.5 Intelligence is the product of processing information to support decision-making. Thus, ISR is not an ‘end’ but rather a ‘way’ of supporting an intelligence outcome.
Why is ISR necessary?
Accelerated Warfare is ultimately about change. Army’s futures statement outlines that, although the nature of war will be enduring, the character of war is set to evolve in an accelerating environment.6 A shifting geopolitical order, increasing threat capabilities, the proliferation of disruptive technologies, and the ability to contest across domains will shape the future battlespace.7 Over the next 25 years, the confluence of these trends will result in an environment different from that discussed in Kilcullen’s Complex Warfighting.8 Justifiably, the previous operating concept did not examine Army’s response to a multipolar Indo-Pacific, advances in disruptive technologies, and environmental challenges such as climate change.
Over the long term, predicting the manifestation of these trends is difficult, and beyond the scope of this paper. For example, scholars can no more agree on the likelihood of mature general artificial intelligence (AI) systems by 20509 than on how militaries will overcome the technical, intellectual and ethical challenges of employing this technology.10 Nevertheless, the volatility of the geopolitical, demographic and technological features of future war means that the battlespace will be complex and uncertain. In this environment, Army’s warfighting challenge is to contribute to the ‘offset strategy’ of the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
An offset strategy is a competitive long-term concept that generates and sustains strategic advantage.11 In particular, Langford describes eight competencies that will guide the ADF’s offset strategy when confronted by anti-access, area denial threats in the Asia-Pacific.12 The eight competencies range from ‘Electromagnetic Manoeuvre Warfare’ to ‘Dark Systems’. Many competencies embrace cutting-edge disruptive technologies; yet all are underpinned by intelligence. In describing ‘Competency 2: Technologically Intensive, Human Focused Decision-Making’, Langford illustrates that ISR capabilities will remain a critical component of the ADF’s offset strategy.
As great thinkers identified in the 19th century,13 effective ISR supports the production of accurate and timely intelligence that can reduce uncertainty in the battlespace. In fact, a 1987 RAND Corporation study statistically confirmed that effective ISR contributed to mission success.14 The purpose and relevance of ISR will not change in Accelerated Warfare; rather, the increasing complexity and uncertainty of the environment will necessitate effective collection and processing of information more than ever before.
Army’s ISR capability will be charged with the responsibility for making sense of the future battlespace. More than providing aerial sensing platforms,15 Army’s ISR capability is the combined effect of multiple elements, including collection priorities, people, processes, training, sensors, organisational structures, networks, databases and connectivity.16 Army’s ISR capability rests within the context of a broader joint, national and allied ISR enterprise where information flows from detection to point of need. An enterprise approach recognises Army’s unique access to drive asymmetric operational effects in the other domains as part of the offset strategy. An enterprise approach also allows Army to take advantage of a diverse range of joint, national and allied sources to access information to enable its commanders to win the land battle.17
Army’s current ISR capability, however, is not ready for Accelerated Warfare. As stated in the final section of this article, Army’s ISR capability devotes insufficient attention to ISR professional mastery, and existing organisational structures do not facilitate an effective capability. Additionally, the current model includes isolated collection platforms that lack integration into a wider network architecture. These shortcomings will only become more apparent when fighting in the future. Army’s ISR capability will need to evolve to contribute to the ADF’s offset strategy. In times of conflict and competition, Army’s commanders will demand clarity from confusion as geopolitical, demographic and technological factors change the face of war in unforeseen ways. It is in this context that Army must consider how its ISR capability will enable commanders to achieve decision superiority.
How Will Agility and Resilience Help?
Given the statement that Army’s future warfighting concept is founded on accelerating change rather than any anticipated scenario, Army’s approach to ISR must also be prepared for and responsive to change by design. Indeed, it is unwise for Army’s ISR capability to be overly reliant upon any particular process or major system acquisition when the future operating environment is unpredictable.18 Instead, Army’s ISR capability will benefit from being characterised by two elements: agility and resilience.
Agility
In the context of ISR, agility refers to the ability to observe and understand a problem quickly—and in Accelerated Warfare, agility will be critical. As all stakeholders seek to adapt and outpace their adversaries, effective collection activities may drive early adaptation and the ability to strike the adversary’s centre of gravity through information activities, manoeuvre or long-range precision fire.19
Langford’s redefinition of warfare into states of conflict and competition is central to the argument for agility.20 Rigid planning timelines that allow for distinct ISR preparation phases before first contact are unsuitable because parties are always in a state of competition. Understanding war in terms of competition and conflict reinforces the concept of ‘always on’ which has been espoused by many of Army’s ISR champions over the past few years.21 The ‘always on’ approach is characterised by focusing the personnel, organisational and technical elements of Army’s ISR capability on consistent collection and processing of geographic or thematic priorities.
Being ‘always on’ is not simply about collecting everything. Even with the advent of persistent surveillance technologies, the ISR system will always be constrained by technical, structural and cognitive limits.22 Amidst a range of competing threats, the ISR system must be focused to provide decision-makers with the right information at the right time. Doing much more than cueing an unmanned aerial vehicle from one location to another, the ISR professional must harness all available elements of the enterprise to answer the commander’s priority intelligence requirements, even as they shift from one problem to another.23
Ultimately, the agility of the ISR capability will not only depend on the flexibility of Army’s sensors. Rather, competent people will design and direct a dynamic ISR effort. These individuals will be enabled by an organisational structure and network architecture that permits the passage of information from detection to point of need.
Resilience
By contrast, Army’s ISR capability must also be resilient. Resilience refers to the capacity to deal with adversity—and for Army’s ISR capability, a key risk will lie in technology. Accelerated Warfare describes a future dominated by the rise of AI, machine learning, autonomous systems and robotics. It depicts an environment where future collection saturates the battlespace, allowing for persistent or near-persistent collection and ‘outside-in’, activity-based cognitive methodologies.24 This will see a departure from the traditional approach of linear, discrete collection activities.25
Embracing this technology will be central to how Army’s ISR capability fights in the future. The ability to lever disruptive military and dual-use technology for collection may allow the Army to detect patterns and provide insights that were previously unknown.26 Yet Gilchrist rightly argues that a seamless integrated network is unlikely to persist in a contested information environment.27 In both competition and conflict, data will be a critical requirement of AI-reliant militaries. Threat actors will seek to reduce the technological advantage AI may offer the Army. While supercomputers may be less vulnerable in secure strategic locations, the ability for Army’s deployed forces to reliably contribute to and access this information backbone is more uncertain.
Separately, although disruptive technologies may enhance collection, disruptive technologies will also enhance counter-ISR techniques. By definition, counter-ISR seeks to deny adversary collection. AI deception, enhanced camouflage and cyber attacks may form part of the counter- ISR repertoire available for Army’s potential opponents.28 Any military that has been entirely reliant on AI-supported collection will be vulnerable if it encounters an effective counter-ISR capability. Technology should not determine the ISR system; instead the opportunities and vulnerabilities of an AI-supported environment should lead Army’s ISR design. Both Langford and Gilchrist are correct: Army’s ISR capability should embrace technology, but it should also be prepared for operating in a degraded environment. By design, a resilient ISR capability accounts for both of these eventualities.
Ultimately, Army’s ISR system must be adaptive if it is to meet the requirements of Accelerated Warfare. This adaptive system should be based on agility and resilience. The ISR capability must be ‘always on’, with the capacity to be rapidly focused on shifting priority intelligence requirements in times of competition and conflict. The ISR capability must also be resilient by design, embracing disruptive technologies for a warfighting edge but capable of operating in a degraded environment. Based on the characteristics of agility and resilience, Army can develop an adaptive ISR capability.
What Can Army Do Now?
In 2019, the Chief of Army outlined his response to Accelerated Warfare. In Army in Motion, he articulated four command themes for Army to frame its thinking about the future force: ‘Profession, People, Potential and Preparedness’.29 These themes provide a useful construct to consider what Army must do to develop an adaptive ISR capability. But for ISR, Army cannot pursue these themes in isolation from the other services, the National Intelligence Community and allied partners. Indeed, the agility and resilience of Army’s ISR capability is contingent on the relationship with the joint, national and allied ISR enterprise.
Profession
To date, few in Army have considered ISR as a unique field of study in the profession of arms. Blaxland identified in 2007 the need for ISR professional mastery as part of a ‘Hardened and Networked Army’.30 He rightly stated that the increasing prevalence and significance of collection capabilities required structural changes and the creation of additional training to properly support Army’s commanders. Six years later, Gilchrist echoed Blaxland’s thoughts based on an evaluation of operational experiences in Afghanistan. He argued that ISR was commonly misunderstood and that doctrine, individual and collective training were inadequate to support the generation of an effective ISR capability.31
Like all trades, ISR requires dedication and commitment for mastery, and must be more than a human resources proficiency. Although vehicle and aircraft sensor operators may claim the status of ‘ISR professional’, there are few ISR professionals in the Australian Army. Army has acknowledged that it takes a career to master armoured manoeuvre, joint fire or logistics, but has not yet recognised that focusing an agile ISR enterprise of Army, ADF and allied collection and processing systems requires similar commitment. Indeed, currently a patchwork of rudimentary ISR training exists in the Army, facilitated by the Defence Force School of Intelligence, School of Artillery and 6th Brigade.32 These courses only amount to approximately two weeks of ISR training for select personnel and pale in comparison to training in the UK, where the Royal Air Force created a six-month course for ISR specialists.
The UK Qualified Weapons Instructor Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Course is an example of training that allows selected individuals to understand a range of critical ISR learning outcomes.33 Similar foundation training would support the Australian Army in developing ISR experts with the technical and tactical mastery required to focus an agile ISR system. Yet formal training alone will be insufficient.34 Drawing on the work of Huntington,35 Ryan recently identified a broad range of competencies required of the military professional.36 Engagement with other services, national intelligence agencies and industry, as well as robust professional military education, would enable the ISR professional to build resilience into the design of the ISR system.
People
Army must empower its ISR experts to lead Army’s adaptive capability. Indeed, regardless of technological change, the agility and resilience of the ISR capability in times of competition and conflict will require clear direction from Army’s professionals. This recognition may require Army to depart from traditional frameworks to better enable the organisation to plan and manage ISR.
Doctrinally, Army’s ISR planning and management represents a complicated relationship. As in most Western militaries, its ISR planning and management is both an intelligence and an operations function.37 Intelligence staff identify intelligence requirements from gaps in analysis. Subsequently, in coordination with operations and plans staff, a collection operations / ISR manager within the intelligence staff designs an ISR plan based on the sources and agencies (SANDA) available. Finally, the operations staff approve the ISR plan and task SANDA against requirements, ensuring that collection activities are synchronised and support the commander’s plan.38 In theory, this relationship is integrated and seamless, and ensures that collection always supports operations.
But in reality, this doctrinal practice is not seamless. ISR planning and management becomes an uneasy marriage between a range of stakeholders. Quantitatively, the Army Knowledge Lessons database contains 270 observations related to ISR, in which observers identified on at least 63 occasions that ISR planning and management was insufficient.39 One observer pertinently identified that the ‘Unity of Command in ISR failed’. The complexity of ISR does not preclude this activity from the principles of responsibility and accountability, but in a system of distributed responsibilities it is unfair to hold any particular individual accountable for failing to find the enemy.
Not all of Army’s units and formations follow the doctrinal approach.40 Perhaps sensing the challenges of this framework, some organisations empower the intelligence, operations, fires or plans functions with greater responsibility and accountability for ISR, while others appoint separate ISR managers and cells to bridge traditional staff stovepipes. However these different solutions are often based on the availability, personality, experience and competence of individuals rather than sustainable capability design. These measures are not accompanied by the other fundamental inputs to capability. Moreover, the lack of consistency across the force creates additional uncertainty as to how the ISR capability supports Army’s commanders and interacts with the wider ISR enterprise.
In considering the response to this structural dilemma, it is important to remember the interconnected link between intelligence and ISR: that ISR is simply a ‘way’ of achieving an intelligence outcome.41 Using this approach, Army may achieve better intelligence outcomes if it places responsibility and accountability for ISR with the intelligence function—given that ultimately the intelligence function will be judged on the intelligence output.
There are three primary benefits of this structural change. First, it would simplify ISR planning and management. This proposal does not suggest that the intelligence function should plan and manage ISR in isolation, but rather that the intelligence function is clearly responsible for identifying and understanding the threat and the environment, which allows the operations function to achieve desired effects.42 Second, empowering the intelligence function to plan and manage the ISR capability will ensure that the ISR system can be quickly focused on outstanding intelligence requirements. This would remove any bargaining, uneasy handover lines and abrasive working groups—all of which will be especially counterproductive when fighting in an accelerating environment. Third, the intelligence function can best recognise the restrictions and constraints of focusing the ISR enterprise.43 With ISR professionals within the intelligence function, staff can ensure that collection is accompanied by commensurate analytical capabilities.44 The resilience of the ISR capability will require those charged with responsibility for analysis to also be charged with responsibility for collection.
Potential
As both the future threat and environment remain uncertain, it would be unwise to predicate Army’s future ISR capability on any given major system; nevertheless, Army’s ISR capability must promote future discoveries and have the potential to assimilate new systems to support the fight. Acknowledging the accelerating technological change described by Langford, continued engagement with academia and industry partners will be critical as Army supports the development of the latest collection technologies. Australia has already sought to promote defence technological innovation through the Defence Innovation System,45 and Army has further engaged with academia and industry partners through the annual Army Innovation Day.46
Army Innovation Day is an inventive model where successful participants enter into an Innovation Contract with Defence to deliver technology for evaluation within a 12-month period.47 From an ISR perspective, the widespread introduction of the Black Hornet Nano unmanned aerial system across Army is considered a particular success. The platform was first demonstrated in 2014 and is now used across the force to provide greater situational awareness at the tactical level.48
Such systems cannot be acquired in isolation. Unfortunately, new and exciting platforms are sometimes purchased without due consideration for integration into the wider network architecture.49 When Army procures leading-edge sensors that produce information in stovepipes, it mistakenly forgets that the objective of all collection is to enable an intelligence outcome and support decision-making. The basis of the future ISR system will therefore be an integrated ISR backbone.50 If AI and machine learning are to enable more effective decision-making, the procurement of all ISR systems must be underpinned by data standards and the ability to integrate into the ISR backbone—not as the afterthought that Joint Project 2096 is seeking to remedy.51 Indeed, without integration, the addition of more powerful collection systems will simply add to, rather than reduce, confusion in the battlespace.
A strong, protected ISR backbone will provide the foundation of an agile ISR capability that can be enhanced as new technologies are discovered. But the potential of the ISR backbone cannot be restricted to an uncontested environment. The ISR backbone must be resilient, with tactics, techniques and procedures to allow an information advantage when uninhibited access is no longer achievable. For Army’s deployed elements, the resilience of the ISR backbone is particularly pertinent, and is likely to be accompanied by distributed nodes, offline redundancies, and robust standard operating procedures.52
Preparedness
The dual requirement to be ‘ready now, future ready’ will be especially pertinent to Army’s ISR capability. Being ‘always on’ will mean that Army’s ISR capability must be operationally engaged in times of both competition and conflict. However, like all elements of the force, Army’s ISR capability must also be challenged against future scenarios to evolve from the current paradigm. Unfortunately, Army has not yet fully adopted an ‘always on’ mentality. Although it has shown some improvement, specialist ISR assets still exist across the force and are often under-utilised when not deployed.53 This is not a question of capability—unit and sub-unit ISR assets are capable of contributing to Army’s collective understanding, and this will be further enhanced through future disruptive technologies. Instead, personal, organisational and cultural biases often limit ISR capabilities to supporting force generation activities rather than the national intelligence effort.54
To maximise its information advantage in an age of uncertainty, Army must harness all of its ISR resources to improve the collective situational awareness of the threat and environment. Every activity presents an opportunity, and commanders at all levels should seek to understand how they can best support the contribution of Army’s ISR system to broader national security objectives. Indeed, as part of a wider ISR enterprise, Army’s unique access from the land presents an opportunity to answer intelligence requirements from other stakeholders. By being ‘always on’, Army’s ISR capability will build resilience into the wider intelligence system, while also providing greater scope for Army to adapt to emerging threats. A standing intelligence support plan, as well as clear and current intelligence priorities, would guide this effort.
To be ‘future ready’, Army’s adaptive ISR capability must also practice remaining agile and resilient. As a learning organisation, Army must challenge its ISR capability to highlight its strengths and weaknesses and to test its capacity to respond to change.55 This requires a counter- ISR capability. Unfortunately, Army lacks a mature counter-ISR capability. Traditionally, Army’s approach to counter-ISR has been focused on limited defensive activities rather than on a concerted offensive and defensive counter-ISR effort. Although some tactical counter-ISR success is scattered through operations and exercises, such exceptions are by chance rather than by design. Indeed, further personnel, structural and cultural change will be required to generate a competitive capability.56
Nevertheless, this does not preclude the reality that Army’s adaptive ISR capability will benefit significantly from Army advancing its counter- ISR capability. Working within a joint counter-ISR effort, the Army should concentrate on enhancing counter-ISR capabilities that detect, deceive, exploit and disrupt the integration of the adversary ISR system. While defensive counter-ISR measures will remain part of Army’s inventory, Army’s counter-ISR system should also focus on deceiving and disrupting sensors and information nodes through offensive counter-ISR techniques.
Through military exercises, a training ‘Opposing Force’ equipped with an offensive and defensive counter-ISR capability could confront friendly ISR and provide Army with an insight into conducting ISR in a high-risk, competitive environment. Furthermore, these insights could guide engagement with academia and industry to drive further defence technological innovation in response. Such a counter-ISR capability would fully test the agility and resilience of Army’s adaptive ISR capability.
Conclusion
In Accelerated Warfare, an adaptive ISR capability is required. As the future battlespace is uncertain, the ISR system needs to be designed to thrive in change, rather than being constrained by outdated major systems acquisition. Agility and resilience will be the central characteristics of an adaptive ISR capability. To become agile and resilient, the ISR capability of the Army in Motion should evolve from the current paradigm. First, ISR must be recognised as a field of study in the profession of arms, and resources allocated for suitable training, education and experience to generate ISR professional mastery. Second, ISR professionals within the intelligence function should be empowered to direct the ISR enterprise to answer intelligence requirements. Third, Army must acknowledge that the potential of the ISR capability rests on ISR integration rather than isolated collection platforms. Finally, a standing intelligence support plan and a competitive counter-ISR capability will ensure that Army’s adaptive ISR capability is prepared for future war.
This article has considered Army’s ISR capability based on the trends discussed in Accelerated Warfare. Beyond the scope of this paper, Army’s ISR capability will now benefit from periodic analyses that capture the changing environment to practically guide achievement of an adaptive ISR capability. Fighting in the future will not be easy. Geopolitical, demographic and technological change will make the operating environment more unpredictable than ever before. Yet, in times of uncertainty, an adaptive ISR capability will provide Army with the best means to make sense of Accelerated Warfare.
Endnotes
1 Chief of Army, 2018, Accelerated Warfare: Futures Statement for an Army in Motion, 8 August 2018, at: https://www.army.gov.au/our-work/from-the-chief-of-army/accelerated-war…
2 Rick Burr, 2019, Army in Motion: Chief of Army’s Strategic Guidance 2019, 20.
3 This is a similar model to Sinek’s Golden Circle model. See Simon Sinek, 2009, Start with Why (London: Portfolio).
4 Australian Defence Force, Collection Operations, Australian Defence Doctrine Publication, 3.7, quoted in Air Power Development Centre, 2010, ‘Pathfinder: What is ISR: An Integrated Activity and Enterprise’, Air Power Development Centre Bulletin, no. 137: 1.
5 Australian Army, 2018, Land Warfare Doctrine 2-0, Intelligence, Ch 2.
6 Andrew Maher, 2019, ‘Accelerating Rate of Change in Warfare’, Land Power Forum, 8 May 2019.
7 Ian Langford, 2019, Accelerated Warfare, presentation, Canberra.
8 David Kilcullen, 2004, Complex Warfighting: The Australian Army’s Future Land Operating Concept (Canberra: Australian Army).
9 US Army Future Studies Group, 2017, The Character of Warfare 2030 to 2050: Technological Change, the International System and the State, 22–31.
10 Mick Ryan, 2018, ‘Intellectual Preparation for Future War: How Artificial Intelligence will Change Professional Military Education’, War on the Rocks, 3 July 2018; International Committee of the Red Cross, 2018, Ethics and Autonomous Weapon Systems: An Ethical Basis for Human Control? (Geneva: ICRC).
11 Phil Arms, 2016, ‘The US 3rd Offset Strategy: An Opportunity for the ADF’, Land Power Forum, 28 July 2016.
12 Ian Langford, 2017, ‘Australia’s Offset and A2/AD Strategies’, Parameters 47, no. 1: 93–102.
13 See Antoine-Henri de Jomini, 1862 (1838), The Art of War, trans GH Mendell and WP Craighill (Philadelphia: JB Lippincott), 274. Cf Carl von Clausewitz, 2007 (1832), On War, ed and trans Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 64.
14 Martin Goldsmith and James Hodges, 1987, Applying the National Training Center Experience: Tactical Reconnaissance (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation).
15 A common myth is that ISR is a synonym for airborne sensing platforms. See, for example, LTCOL N, 2017, ‘Immediate Lessons from the Battle of Mosul’ Land Power Forum, 25 June 2017.
16 Department of Defence, 2006, Defence Capability Development Manual (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia), 4–5.
17 Australian Army, 2018, 16–17.
18 Palazzo said, ‘flexibility is the best means to counter unpredictability’: Albert Palazzo, 2015, Forging Australian Land Power: A Primer, Australian Army Occasional Paper, December 2015 (Canberra: Australian Army Research Centre) 33–34.
19 The provision of precision long-range fires and hypersonic weapons may reduce the primacy of manoeuvre within the friendly plan—regardless, ISR will be central to the facilitating the strike combat function. See Chris Smith and Albert Palazzo, 2016, ‘Coming to Terms with the Modern Way of War: Precision Missiles and the Land Component of Australia’s Joint Force’, Australian Land Warfare Concept Series, no. 1: 1.
20 Langford, 2019.
21 Scott Gills et al., ‘Improvements and Challenges for Army’s ISR Enterprise’, in Tom Frame and Albert Palazzo (eds), 2016, On Ops: Lessons and Challenges for the Australian Army since East Timor (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press), 122–135.
22 Richard Whaley, 2019, ‘The Big Data Battlefield’, Military—Embedded Systems; Rajeev Agrawal and Christopher Nyamful, 2016, ‘Challenges of Big Data Storage and Management’, Global Journal of Information Technology 6, no. 1: 1–10; Onur Savas et al., 2013, ‘Tactical Big Data Analytics: Challenges, Use Cases, and Solutions’ ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review 41, no. 4: 86–89; Mark Gilchrist, 2017, ‘You Can’t Write an Algorithm for Uncertainty: Why Advanced Analytics May Not Be the Solution to the Military “Big Data” Challenge’, ASPI Strategist, 23 August 2017.
23 Gills et al., 2016, 122–135.
24 Langford, 2019.
25 Patrick Biltgen and Stephen Ryan, 2016, Activity-Based Intelligence: Principles and Applications (Norwood: Artech House).
26 See, for example, David Pendall, 2018, ‘Semper Optiones: 21st Century Intelligence’, Air & Space Power Journal 32, no. 1: 29.
27 Mark Gilchrist, 2018, ‘Emergent Technology, Military Advantage, and the Character of Future War’, The Strategy Bridge, 26 July 2018.
28 US Army Future Studies Group, 2017, 54.
29 Burr, 2019, 20.
30 John Blaxland, 2007, ‘Harnessing the Spectrum: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) for the Hardened and Networked Army’, Australian Army Journal IV, no. 2: 77–92.
31 Mark Gilchrist, 2013, ‘Institutionalising ISTAR: The Problems, Implications and Potential Solutions’, The Bridges Review, 58–61.
32 See, for example, 205791 ARMY: Regimental Officers Basic Course AUSTINT Learning Management Package Version 4.00; 205715 ARMY: Regimental Officers Basic Course Surveillance and Target Acquisition Learning Management Package Version 2.00; 209548 Regimental Officers Gunnery Course Surveillance and Target Acquisition Learning Management Package Version 1.00; 6 Bridge Advanced ISR and PED Collective Training, 2019.
33 Ministry of Defence, 2012, ‘54(R) SQN QWI ISR Course 3’, Qualified Weapons Instructor ISR Course—Pamphlet; 2013, ‘54(R) SQN QWI ISR Course 3’, Insight: RAF Waddington [website], 18 April 2013, at: http://www.theinsightonline.co.uk/features/54r-sqn-qwi-isr-course-3/76
34 Ryan, 2018.
35 Samuel Huntington, 1981, The Soldier and the State (Belknap Press).
36 Ryan, 2018.
37 Australian Army, 2018, 19; Australian Army, 2016, Land Warfare Doctrine 2-2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Australian Army, 2018, Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0-3, Formation Tactics, 38.
38 Australian Army, 2017, ‘Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance BOS’, video, The Cove, 30 July 2017.
39 Available at the Army Knowledge Centre, Army Knowledge Lessons Database.
40 See, for example, the divergence between practices at the battlegroup, brigade and division level.
41 It is worth noting that Russian/Soviet systems do not distinguish between ‘intelligence’ and ‘reconnaissance’. Glantz explains that ‘Soviet razvedka treats reconnaissance as the process and intelligence as the product. The two are closely interrelated and equally important, and only context distinguishes between them’. See David Glantz, 1989, The Fundamentals of Soviet Razvedka (Intelligence/Reconnaissance) (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Soviet Army Studies Office) 4
42 Cf John Palmer, 2016, ‘The Squadron Commander as Chief of Reconnaissance’, ARMOR, July–September 2016, 15–18.
43 Blaxland suggested that AUSTINT was better positioned than other corps to manage the ISR function. However, he argued that an ISTAR mastery should be developed across more than one corps. See Blaxland, 2007, 77–92.
44 An imbalance between Army’s collection and analysis capabilities has been noted in the past. Gills et al., 2016, 122–135.
45 Australian Government, 2016, New Defence Innovation System Fact Sheet.
46 Department of Defence, 2018, ‘Delivering a Next Generation Army with New Technologies’, media release, 25 October 2018.
47 Cf Richard Barrett, 2019, ‘The Innovation Warfighter: Improving Capability and Embracing Industry’, Australian Army Journal XV, no. 1: 67–77.
48 Kym Bergmann, 2020, ‘Innovation—Army Going Through a “Step Change” in Capability’, Asia Pacific Defence Reporter, 28 May 2020.
49 Arthur Ollett and John Coleman, 2015, ‘Break the Stove-Pipe Stranglehold on Capability with an Open Systems Approach’, Journal of Battlefield Technology 18, no. 3: 17–22.
50 Gary Waters, 2014, Getting it Right: Integrating the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise, Kokoda Papers no. 18 (Kingston, ACT: The Kokoda Foundation Ltd), 29.
51 2019, ‘Leidos tapped for ISR integration’, Australian Defence Magazine, 12 February 2019.
52 See, for example, DCGS-A Lite. Thomas McCarthy, 2016, ‘DCGS-A Lite: The Value of Mobile Intelligence’, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, no. 4: 13–16.
53 Nicholas Barber, 2015, ‘Harnessing Army’s Intelligence Capability for Contingency’, Land Power Forum, 1 October 2015.
54 Gills et al., 2016, 122–135.
55 For a useful discussion on the drivers of military adaptation see Scott Winter, 2009, ‘“Fixed, Determined, Inviolable” Military Organisational Culture and Adaptation’, Australian Army Journal VI, no. 3: 63–64.
56 Gerard Hinchcliffe, 2017, ‘Combat Counterintelligence: Regaining the Initiative’, The Bridges Review, 77–80.
