September 21, 2011 ARCHIVE/SUBSCRIBE EW/SIGINT RESOURCE GUIDE

Insights from the Intelligizing EW Operations Conference

By Craig Harm

AOC, in partnership with the National Military Intelligence Association (NMIA) conducted a "Intelligizing EW Operations" conference. This was a sequel to last year’s AOC "Operationalizing Intelligence for Electronic Warfare in the 21st Century" conference. Taking a task from Maj. Gen. Tom Andersen, USAF, the focus was how to reintegrate and revitalize intelligence in EW mission areas in an economically austere environment.

Titled "Intelligent EW Operations: Bringing Congruency to the EW Enterprise," this year’s conference was held at the Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center in Crystal City, VA, August 10-11. The goal of the conference was to initiate community-wide (intelligence, operators and systems developers) communications so that everyone can do their individual jobs more efficiently and effectively and, in the process, improve overall effectiveness for the EW community. With this goal in mind, the conference had the following major objectives:

1. Enable the EW community to influence and plan for future intelligence needs of the next 10 years through a better understanding of intelligence analysis priorities, resources and processes
2. Enable system developers to influence efforts to apply new technologies and prepare for the system needs of the next 10 years through a better understanding of intelligence analysis priorities, resources and processes
3. Enable the intelligence community to focus its efforts to better integrate with the EW community needs through a better understanding of system development and operational priorities and requirements
4. Learn how to influence the intelligence priorities, resources and activities of EW intelligence analysis
5. Advance the formation of the EW intelligence/Mission Data community of interest (COI)

The EW enterprise is now more dependent on and driven by intelligence than ever before, this integration becomes even more significant in light of recent DOD resourcing trends. To build a stronger more efficient enterprise, the EW community gained a more in-depth knowledge of the intelligence analysis process and better integration of intelligence into the totality of the community. Through this better understanding of intelligence analysis, it's resourcing and prioritization systems and the tools and methods used to conduct the analysis, we can achieve full integration of intelligence into the EW community.

Comprised of a wide and diverse cross-section of organizations and functions throughout the EW enterprise, the speaker line-up included representatives from key intelligence community organizations, scientific and technical intelligence analysts, program offices, the services, the space community, the Coast Guard, and the modeling and simulation community.

Mr. Marty DeWing (Chief, Community Enterprise Operations of DIA’s Directorate for Analysis) provided a stepping off point with his discussion of the methodology and system the intelligence community uses to integrated prioritized analysis into the resourcing and analysis. His discussion highlighted the multitude of guidance documents and systems used and the importance of getting these into the system. He provided direct and focused recommendations for the EW community to follow in getting its intelligence shortfalls addressed, including building a village of proponents from the COCOMS, Services, intelligence organizations and acquisition communities to specifically address EW intelligence shortfalls. The shortfalls need to be aligned with COCOM integrated priority lists, service POM submissions and Joint Staff capability gaps. He also talked about the importance of the National Intelligence Managers' roles and how they impact the National Intelligence Priority Framework.

As part of the intelligence community architecture, each of the services have a center specializing in scientific and technical analysis. Presentations from NASIC, MISC and the Army emphasized the impact of technology advancements in EW systems whose performance is now algorithm driven more than hardware driven. These advancements are changing the ways the intelligence community analyses, describes and identifies EMS systems. They are also evolving the process of EWIR data and increasingly emphasizing system models. A highlight of this year’s conference were the presentations by the Coast Guard and space communities. These two areas are of growing importance in the EW mission, and their integration with intelligence is proving to be critical to their mission success.

The transition from the intelligence community’s capabilities and process to the end-users needs is not one of an "over-the-fence" process, as highlighted by day two’s keynote speaker, the NSA SIFINT Directorate Electronic Warfare Executive. It is a partnership where the intelligence and user communities need to maintain seamless connections and ongoing dialogue. With the 21st century capabilities rapidly approaching a see-all-store-all status and ELINT and EW becoming more about the full spectrum, the importance of fusing multi-format data means we must look at EW mission data as a systems engineering effort. To effectively develop, manage and use EW mission data, all participants must have a strong understanding of the EWIR process and where it is evolving. Individual presenters from the acquisition community echoed the importance of this partnership through specific examples and lessons learned.

With constricting resources, more complex systems and the move toward algorithm-driven performance, the importance of timely, accurate and validated modeling is becoming increasingly important. The last session focused on the importance of the full integration of intelligence into all aspects of the EW mission. Mr. John Diem and Mr. Bruce Moody from the DOD Modeling and Simulation Office kicked things off with an overview of the diverse, complex and distributed nature of EW modeling. The move to more complex models is not just within the user communities, as the intelligence community is using models more than ever to analyze, understand and describe complex new systems as well as hybrid and older-generation systems. Embodied in the TMAP (Thread Modeling Analysis Program) structure the importance of standards, functionality and cross compatibility are of growing interest to the entire modeling community.

Rounding out the conference was AOC’s Director of Communications, Mr. Tony Ramos, who detailed the AOC’s initiative to build a community of interest around key areas within the EW mission set, including intelligence and mission data.

As we look to the future for EW intelligence, this conference highlights key areas to focus our efforts and continue our work.

1. There is currently no single place, person or organization where EW intelligence comes together to establish requirements, priorities and resourcing. While the DNI’s establishment of National Intelligence Managers will help; EW and EMS operations still span across more than one NIM. This only highlights the continuing need for the building of a village of proponents for EW and stronger partnerships throughout the EW and Intelligence communities.

2. Intelligence Mission Data for EMS systems and operations continues to increase and become more complex. Currently EWIR is the standard program and system used to get data developed, disseminated and implemented. With the imminent arrival of NGES, the increasing reliance on system models and the increasingly broader use of the EMS, there must be a fuller and more complete understanding of what EWIR is and where it needs to go.

3. Intelligence is about gaining more knowledge in areas where there is a gap in understanding. It is also about knowing who to ask, for what and where. While there is a formal system for requesting intelligence analysis, reality is getting the right intelligence is about developing partnerships where customers learn what the intelligence community has, and the intelligence community learns what the customer wants.

Building on last year’s NASIC conference and Orlando EW Reprogramming (Mission Data) conference, this year’s conference was the the third in a series to better integrate the intelligence and greater EW communities. Networks were established that will end up saving the community thousands of dollars and millions in resources to obtain critical information they didn’t know before. This series continues in June 2012 at MSIC, Huntsville AL. More information will soon be available at www.crows.org.

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