The Big Squeeze - USAF can't buy many new large ISR aircraft
Published: Mon October 1st, 2007Source: www.afa.org
The Air Force is seeking fundamental change in the field of intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance. It's increasingly clear that changes at the margin won't do.Faced with insatiable demand for up-to-the-minute information, but with limited funds to acquire new hardware, USAF knows it must squeeze more from the system already in place. The service believes it must expand the definition of what constitutes an ISR platform. USAF also seeks to improve relationships between ISR agencies both inside and outside the service.
Air Force officials do not see this drive to overhaul ISR operations and culture as a decade-long campaign, but rather as a transition measured in months. Otherwise, the service won’t be able to keep pace with changing conditions and wartime demands.
Driving this shake-up is a fundamental fact: Commanders just can’t get enough battlefield information.
“There will always be more demand for the capability than there is supply,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, Air Force deputy chief of staff for ISR, or A2. He’s been tasked by Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff, to rethink the entire ISR enterprise. The ISR overhaul is being pursued on many fronts:
- Deptula’s own job is a recent creation, meant to highlight the importance of ISR and to be an advocate for the field, which has sometimes suffered because of the bewildering array of organizations and systems it encompasses.
- The old Air Intelligence Agency has been realigned into the Air Force ISR Agency at Lackland AFB, Tex. No longer under Air Combat Command, it reports directly to Deptula.
- The A2 office is shuffling the ways that systems are grouped together and managed, hoping that managers with a broader view of programs will find efficiencies and eliminate bottlenecks.
- The ISR career field is being revamped, with the goal of developing professionals who will not only serve USAF better, but make more attractive joint leaders at the top levels. USAF has not provided an intelligence general on a regional command staff for several years.
- Deptula has campaigned to consolidate the acquisition and tasking of unmanned aerial vehicles under USAF, to save money, deconflict airspace, and make sure all the services buy systems that can feed common distribution pipes.
- All ISR platforms are being upgraded and networked to more broadly disseminate their products. The inherent ISR capabilities of other combat systems are being tapped.
The creation of the Air Force ISR Agency was one of the “major muscle moves” in the recasting of ISR, Deptula said, and probably the biggest one coming for a while. It’s now a field operating agency.
What did the change solve?» Read the full article...
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