PrintThis lesson serves two purposes. First, it completes the discussion of national security aspects of geospatial intelligence by focusing on the evolution of military applications of geographic technology. Second, it allows us to critically examine so called "revolutions in military affairs" or RMAs and consider how they do or do not impact GEOINT.
Geographic techniques have supported warfare since shortly after Cain slew Abel and mapped out his next moves. Cartographers provided increasingly sophisticated maps to support military activities, while military demand spurred the development of the discipline. This symbiotic relationship between geographic techniques and military activities was very evident in the development of the sub-disciplines and technologies of remote sensing and global positioning systems. It is somewhat less evident in the development of Geographic Information Systems (or is it?)
To get ready for this topic, watch the following video from the Geospatial Revolution Series.
Video: Geospatial Revolution / Episode Three, Chapter Two: Waging Modern War (4:18)
MIKE LEE: Geospatial intelligence, to the war fighter, is everything-- being able to lay the maps down to get you spatially oriented and then layering imagery on the top of it in a digital world so that you can see where you are and what you're doing.
LAWRIE JORDAN: With all this technology available to everyone, the real enemy is time.
OFFICER: That's a direct order. Do it now.
MIKE LEE: We have to turn inside the enemy's decision cycle. We have to be able to make the right decision faster than he does.
LETITIA LONG: If you're going to use precision-guided munitions, you need very precise coordinates.
LAWRIE JORDAN: We cannot have collateral damage to anything that's important, safe, and precious.
LETITIA LONG: We use geospatial information for route planning. Special forces need to know the best way to get into a compound and get out.
SOLDIER: There you go. Just lay it down.
MICHAEL A. HARPER: The Buckeye Program collects, processes, and disseminates high resolution terrain data. We use an electro-optical camera along with a lidar sensor. We fly it over major routes to extract detailed features of what they're going to encounter on their operation. So how high are the walls? How wide is the road? What's the depth of the ditches?
LETITIA LONG: Where are they going to land their helicopters, so they're not seen, so they're not heard? We try to give them multiple routes. Is the terrain flat so that they can land easily? We're looking for emplacements of IEDs.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
[EXPLOSIONS AND GUNFIRE]
LAWRIE JORDAN: Improvised explosive devices, IEDs, are very difficult to detect.
MICHAEL A. HARPER: We might fly a sensor down a road at one date and time-- get a view of what that surface looks like-- and then the next day or even hours later, fly over that same route and then see what's been disturbed, where have IEDs been planted. You can monitor an area continuously to see who planted it, where did they leave from, how'd they get there.
LETITIA LONG: You have to understand the hearts and minds. Often, what is important to the people relates to the earth, and the earth's feature, and the geography of the earth.
MAN: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
MICHAEL A. HARPER: The importance of human geography and human terrain is really in a soldier understanding that aspect of his environment-- understanding the culture that he's operating in.
MAN: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
ELIZABETH LYON: Different aspects of society, culture, economic systems-- all of these pieces translate onto the physical geography.
MAN: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
ELIZABETH LYON: We look at languages that are spoken in one neighborhood versus another neighborhood. Understanding an education level-- we put it onto a map to help explain the complexities. Really fine-grained details, depending on what the commander needs.
EDWARD COPE: How can we understand what's important to them so that we're not just doing things that we think are important, but may be totally inconsistent with their value systems? That's the biggest challenge.
MICHAEL A. HARPER: We're putting them in harm's way. We owe it to our soldiers to provide them with the best information that all of this technology is capable of providing.
The American Association of Geographers commissioned two books to celebrate the centennial of the organization in 2004. These books were given as gifts to each of the 5,000 participants in that year's annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA. You will be asked to read a chapter of one of these books, Geotechology, the U.S. Military, and War. This chapter is based entirely on open-source documents. The sections on current national technical systems were based on open-source information from the Federation of American Scientists. Some of the GEOINT practitioners may roll their eyes at inaccuracies. If there are any--do not tell us. For our purposes, this is the best information we have and all we need to know.
The chapter is a history of the evolution of geographic technologies and their contributions to military activities. The chapter also contends that geographic technologies fundamentally underpin the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA). This is a very debatable point, and we will have some fun doing just that. The RMA concept is somewhat out of favor in military academic circles, but a different major discussion addressed the related concept of "Network Centric Warfare (NCW)." I will ask you to consider whether the NCW is still worth discussing, and how it relates to geospatial intelligence. We will also look at an alternative view provided by P.W. Singer in Wired for War that posits the RMA is really all about robots. We will then look at the current discussion about the role of artificial intelligence coupled with ground, air, and sea "killer robots" and the role GEOINT might play.
Our final topic on future applications of GEOINT is actually up to the students. This topic will provide an opportunity for you to educate me and your classmates on future applications based on your research and experience. We are at a transitional point in history with the end of OIF and OEF, and apparently a return to competition and potential conflict with near-peer competitors such as Russia and China (or proxies such as Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan). Consider how all of this will affect Geospatial Intelligence, and how this course should reflect those potential changes. We look forward to your feedback on this to help us with future revisions to keep this course current.
Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- analyze the evolution of military applications of GIS&T from 19th Century to the present (including cartography, remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and simulations/modeling);
- critique the idea that GIS&T underpins the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs" as articulated by Schneider;
- analyze network centric warfare, military robotics, and the application of military AI (to include the Replicator Initiative) and evaluate and explain the role of GEOINT in the future;
- speculate on future applications of geospatial intelligence for national security.
Questions?
If you have any questions now or at any point during this week, please feel free to post them to the GEOG 882 - General Discussion Forum in Canvas.