SHORTCOMINGS IN INTELLIGENCE CYCLE TIME

Commanders and other air operators throughout the course of Allied Force found themselves repeatedly frustrated by the amount of time it often took to cycle critical information about enemy pop‑up targets of opportunity from sensors to shooters who were positioned to engage them effectively. Although the requisite architecture was in place throughout most of the air war once a flexible targeting cell had been established by the end of the first month, it lacked a sufficiently high‑volume data link with enough channels to quickly get the information where it needed to go.

To be sure, there were occasional instances of major success stories. For instance, the U‑2 demonstrated its ability to be retasked in real time to image a reported SA‑6 site, data‑link the resulting imagery via satellite back to its home base at Beale AFB, California, within minutes for an assessment of the target’s coordinates, and have the results transmitted back to the cockpit of an F‑15E just as its pilot was turning inbound toward the target to fire an AGM‑130.[351]In another such case, on Day 4 a Navy TLAM on short notice successfully attacked a “target of opportunity” believed to have been a pop‑up MiG‑29 detected on the runway at Batajnica by real‑time imagery from a U‑2.[352]Although those examples were not representative, they previewed the sort of fusion toward which the U.S. ISR system is heading and represented what USAF Lieutenant General Marvin Esmond later described as “the first‑ever distributed ISR architecture.”[353]

More typically, however, target images from Predator UAVs flying over Kosovo would be transmitted to the CAOC in real time, only to encounter difficulty being forwarded from there to operating units in time for them to be tactically useful. In addition, the Joint STARS crew complement was found to be too small to accommodate many of the data processing and reporting demands it was asked to handle. The aircraft was said to require either more battle managers integrated closely enough into the commander’s loop for targets to be identified and attacked in near‑real time, or wider‑band data links to ground stations, where a larger number of mission specialists could do the analysis and handling.[354]

Yet a third bottleneck identified was the classified worldwide Internet link called SIPRNET (Secure Internet Protocol Router NETwork), upon which USEUCOM’s Joint Analysis Center (JAC) at RAF Molesworth, England, relied heavily. As a rule, intelligence sources would forward proposed target materials to Molesworth for validation, with the JAC staff tasking additional intelligence collection as deemed necessary. That process would have been all but impossible without the aid of the Internet, which made for vastly more rapid worldwide information availability than did the former hard‑copy practices. Frequently, however, because of the absence of institutionalized procedures, the use of SIPRNET made for confusion and difficulty in finding some target materials on short notice. In addition, real‑time target information would be withheld from U.S. allies as U.S. officials argued over who should be allowed to see what. Finally, NIMA was frequently slow to deliver overhead photography of proposed targets and of targets already attacked, which in turn slowed the battle‑damage assessment process and the decision as to whether to retarget a previously attacked site. One informed source commented that ISR fusion worked better in Allied Force than it did during Desert Storm, but that it still rated, at best, only a grade of C‑plus in light of what remained to be done. In contrast, what generally worked well was the “reach‑back” procedure first pioneered in Desert Storm, in which commanders and planners in the forward theater used secure communications lines to tap into information sources in the intelligence community in Washington and elsewhere.[355]