How America Loses the Next War Part II of V
Oops, we're on Mute: The Army can't PUSH ISR
This is the second part in my series on how America Loses the Next War, which I will present at the Texas Cyber Summit in late September.
Part I is here and available for free.
ISR Means Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. It’s the foundation of all military operations.
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The first recorded use of ISR in war can be traced back to the Battle of Kadesh, which took place in 1274 BCE between the ancient Egyptians under Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite Empire led by Muwatalli II. During this battle, both sides employed spies and scouts to gather information about enemy movements, strength, and intentions.
Ramses II had a network of scouts who provided him with intelligence about the Hittite forces' positioning and plans. Similarly, Muwatalli II had his own spies who infiltrated the Egyptian camp to gather information. These early instances of intelligence gathering helped the respective commanders make informed decisions and adjust their strategies accordingly.
While the use of sensors in this case was optical and perhaps some HUMINT (Human Intelligence) collected from spies, the number and complexity of sensors was limited.
Today, we have a wide range of sensors, from aerostats to drones, to observation posts with binoculars, but no coordinated way to push information up or down.
In order to explain how intelligence flows in the Army, I need to explain a little bit about Army structure. A BCT or Brigade Combat Team is the basic building block of the Army. It’s usually the smallest conventional self-deployable unit of maneuver that contains organic support - it contains everything from infantrymen to engineers. It contains roughly 2500-5000 soldiers.
Ideally, the brigade collects intelligence from local sensors and strategic ISR assets and then passes this information down to their battalions.
A Battalion contains anywhere between 300-800 soldiers. This is the smallest maneuver unit that contains a dedicated intelligence section. This section is called the “S2 Section.” or more often the “S2 Shop.” They act as the clearing house for intel. They receive data from their scouts, as well as terrestrial and airborne sensors organic to the battalion.
Battalion pushes intelligence down to individual companies, which are units of roughly 100-120 soldiers. These companies are led by a commander who does not have a dedicated intelligence section of his own. The commander is already fighting the battle. Although the CO has an executive officer (XO), he doesn’t have a lot of time left over to deal with all of the ISR being pushed down from battalion and all of the ISR being sent up from individual platoons.
Up until about 2003, I could have taken a company commander from World War II, transported him into the future, walked them into a company command post, and they probably would have been able to run the place after a few minutes updating them on weapon capabilities.
The advent of drones, complex sensors and ISR assets have created a nightmare of too much information both to send up and to receive, yet we are still fighting a company with the same structure we had in 1945.
This bottleneck is the company. When you have a bottleneck, you can do one of two things - decrease the bandwidth of information flowing - and that’s not going to happen.
Or you can increase the assets dealing with the ISR flowing into and out of the company. The solution a dedicated ISR team at the company level.
This ISR team would assume the ISR bandwidth of the company commander. They would pull intel down from the Battalion S2 and send ISR data from the company back up. These would not necessarily be “drone operators” although they might operate drones. Instead, they would manage the ISR needs of the company, whether that be HUMINT or SIGINT.
The primary ISR Team Lead should be a warrant officer. Why? Because warrant officers are technical specialists who do not have the ancillary leadership and administrative duties of traditional commissioned officers and they can stay in their roles for years getting better at their craft.
The ISR Warrant Officer would be a 350F All Source Intelligence Technician. They would be assisted by a 35F Intelligence Analysist who is a sergeant or staff sergeant. This position becomes a feeder MOS into the warrant officer position.
This ISR team works with the company commander acting as the conduit for all ISR coming to and from the Battalion S2. As the Army adds more sensors, this team will operate and manage the workload.
Implementing this will better position the U.S. Army for winning the next war with domination of the information spectrum in a way that Ramses II could have only imagined.
Too simple so therefore it won’t happen.
Great article - Thanks,Ryan!
The history of military intel is full of get-big-and-complex, with super toys and people die waiting for decisions. Adapt to reduce complexity and speed towards lowest-level-grunt decisions and more people live.