Capability Planning and Analysis to Optimize Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Investments (2012) / Chapter Skim
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4 Toward an Enhanced Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Capability Planning and Analysis Process
4 Toward an Enhanced Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Capability Planning and Analysis Process
Pages 74-94
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From page 74... ...
RECOMMENDATIONS Chapter 2 describes the current process used by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for ISR (AF/A2) to plan for and assess ISR capabilities.
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The Air Force should adopt an ISR CP&A process that incorporates the following attributes: · Encompasses all ISR missions; · Addresses all ISR domains and sources, including non-traditional ISR; · Includes all ISR assets in a sensor-to-user chain (e.g., PCPAD and communications) ; · Collaborates with ISR-related entities; · Provides traceability from process inputs to outputs; · Is mission/scenario-based; · Is repeatable and enduring; · Supports trade-off analyses; · Is scalable in size, time, and resolution; and · Reduces labor and cost over time.1 Rationale: The Air Force currently has a reasonable ISR CP&A process but has indicated that this process requires improvements.
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Different subpro cesses may have different organizational leads. A candidate overarching process is described in detail in the section below entitled "Proposed Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Capability Planning and Analysis Process." An example of a subprocess is the materiel Solution Analysis process led by the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)
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process. The current processes endeavor to be inclusive and collaborative by coordinating 2The proposed process is described in this chapter in the section entitled "Proposed Air Force Intel ligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Capability Planning and Analysis Process." Also, notional scenarios are discussed in Chapter 1; they range from regional conflicts (Persian Gulf and Pacific Rim)
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In short, the current process does not address all domains, all relevant operational scenarios, or all ISR customers and providers. These and other shortfalls, summarized at the conclusion of Chapter 2, combined with the many strengths of the current process and the best practices of government and industry, lead the committee to articulate the following set of attributes that it believes should serve as guiding design criteria for an enhanced ISR CP&A process.
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The process endures through inevitable changes in Air Force leadership, organization, strategy, and budgets. Supports trade-off The decision maker is allowed to rigorously trade off the costs, risks, and analyses utility of alternative ISR force mixes.
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to stop purchasing Global Block 30 aircraft was "entirely budget driven with no underlying ISR analysis to support the U-2's ability to fill the gap."5 The current process, which is designed to consider all needs and gaps on a periodic basis, does not have the "machinery" to address individual questions rapidly. In order to provide the ability to address specific issues, the committee recom mends initiating the process with a PDA step -- shown in Figure 4-2.
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The analytical framework captures, among other things, decision makers' questions, relevant documents, metrics, scenarios, models, and analysis tools needed to configure and support the downstream Needs Analysis and MGA steps in the ISR CP&A process. In the proposed PDA step, investment questions would be carefully developed and documented through literature research and knowledge-elicitation sessions with decision makers and relevant stakeholders.
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For example, it is likely that Air Force ISR decision makers have received strategic guidance causing them to consider investment decisions about the ISR capabilities needed to support jungle operations in areas that prohibit overflight. In preparation for assessing the ISR capabilities needed in such contexts, the Problem Definition and Approach team might review various mission needs documents indicating that high-priority jungle operations monitor the movements and actions of guerilla warfare factions under triple-canopy foliage in order to understand their methods and procedures.6 The team would then work with various stakeholders to elicit specific questions that guide the analysis process toward answers needed to support investment decisions.
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Automated or semi-automated tools are chosen for their ability to use the models, operational scenario, and performance measures. One example of such a tool is the physics-based Monte Carlo simulation tool used by RadiantBlue to assess the efficacy of alternative platforms, sensing modalities, and communications solutions.7 The initial set of models available to support "multi-resolution" may be some what small compared to the broad range of investment questions that decision makers might ask.
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The organization responsibility for maintaining the team, funding require ments, and other team characteristics should be considered during the pilot project phase of the process implementation. Needs Analysis The primary purpose of the Needs Analysis step, shown in Figure 4-3, is to transform the set of investment questions contained in the analytic framework into focused needs that can be rigorously analyzed during Multi-resolution Gap Analysis.
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This would also help maintain a holistic view, which ensures that the perspectives of non-Air Force organizations do not wind up "on the cutting-room floor." The primary participants in the Needs Analysis function are the COCOMs, which typically express their needs by means of Integrated Priority Lists; the MA JCOMs, which represent the interests of their affiliated COCOMs; and the national IC. Because the IC, rather than the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, provides the majority of space-based ISR capabilities, it is imperative that the Air Force ISR Agency (AFISRA)
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Multi-resolution Gap Analysis The primary objective of the Multi-resolution Gap Analysis step, shown in Figure 4-4, is to rigorously compare focused needs with existing capabilities and to
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It integrates different capability perspectives in a manner that provides traceability between causes and effects across the ISR enterprise.10 Exploring the problem from multiple domain perspectives is valuable because different domains often describe the problem with different representations and semantics, making it difficult to "understand the elephant" when described by just one of its many domain parts. Exploring the problem at multiple resolutions provides the ability to rapidly develop answers to questions using coarse, low resolution models, or to deliberately produce accurate answers over longer time intervals using fine, high-resolution models.
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Tailored and scaled to the needs of the decision maker, the iterative, integrated process provides quick-look assessments through streamlined analysis processes early in the analysis cycle. And it increasingly adds layers of fidelity that allow broader and deeper analyses of the ISR capability trade space.
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These assessments pro vide separate, quantitative insights using interactive, model-based analyses driven by capability metrics assigned to PCPAD information and data flows; command, control, communications, and computer network trade-offs; sensors and platforms; operational concepts of operation; and cyber/information operation impacts. They also map capability metrics to cost estimating and risk-analysis trade-offs, and project costs over planning horizons.
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iterated -- for example, the use of robotic UGSs may reduce risks to hu man operators but may demand the development of new Air Force air deployment capabilities and communications architectures.13 MGA is executed as an interactive collaborative process among analysts, subject-matter experts, and various process stakeholders. The key to achieving a flexible, robust analytic capability is founded on the application of quantitative, model-based methods that allow an examination of the entire enterprise from different capability perspectives, integrated for a complete view of total capability.
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Working to gether, the two organizations would develop a plan and budget for expanding and improving the process over time. Solution Analysis The primary purpose of the Solution Analysis step of the ISR CP&A process, shown in Figure 4-5, is to analyze and recommend materiel and non-materiel solu tions that fill prioritized gaps provided by the MGA phase.
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(AFISRA) FIGURE 4-5 The Solution Analysis step in the proposed Capability Planning and Analysis process.
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framework explicitly and sources incorporates and integrates the perspectives of all relevant domains, sources of ISR needs and capabilities. Includes all ISR assets in · Sensor-to-user assets, including platforms, communications sensor-to-user chain and command-and-control links, and PCPAD capabilities are Collaborates with ISR-related entities modeled and analyzed by means of simulations to answer investment questions in a performance versus cost versus risk trade space.
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Table 4-2 summarizes the proposed process enhancements that satisfy the desired attributes, summarized in Table 4-1, in a robust, comprehensive Air Force intel ligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance Capability Planning and Analysis process. Despite the attempt to design a process that enhances rather than replaces the current process, the addition of the PDA and MGA functions would require careful planning prior to their implementation.
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