Intelligence Collection Platforms: Satellites, Manned Aircraft, and UAVs (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
May 21, 1998 |
| Report Number |
98-495 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Michael F. Miller and Richard A. Best, Jr., Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Imagery--photographs or electro-optical transmissions similar to television--is a key component
of
contemporary military planning and operations as well as civilian decisionmaking. This report
provides an overview of the various imagery collection platforms, their strengths and limitations, the
evolving organizational relationships that govern their use, as well as the steps Congress has taken
to strengthen imagery capabilities.
Imagery allows military commanders to undertake operations using precision-guided munitions
with minimal civilian and friendly casualties; it also has a wide variety of civilian uses, providing
overhead perspectives of environmental changes, natural disasters, or activities, such as mass burials,
that foreign entities wish to hide.
Imagery is collected by satellites, manned reconnaissance aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs). Satellite programs, initiated by the Intelligence Community in the midst of the Cold War;
continue to be uniquely valuable but remain costly and commercial satellite imagery, now becoming
available, may render some Government programs redundant. Manned reconnaissance aircraft
continue to be widely used (as U-2s fly over Iraq), but the Defense Department and the services have
often been reluctant to acquire replacement planes, preferring to invest scarce funds in bombers and
fighters. UAVs are promising and potentially cost effective, but acquisition programs have been
frustratingly slow and few operational systems are currently available despite a decade of efforts.
Often critical of the executive branch's management of imagery, Congress has shaped the
acquisition of collection platforms through a number of initiatives. It has encouraged the
procurement of larger numbers of smaller satellites that can be used more flexibly than the Cold War
systems. It has urged the services to retain or acquire manned reconnaissance aircraft, a message that
the Defense Department appears to have received. The potential of UAVs has been appreciated for
some time, but the slow pace of acquisition programs led Congress to mandate the establishment of
a centralized effort in 1993. When, however, difficulties persisted, many Members called for the
Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office to be abolished, a step that the Pentagon intends to take
by October 1998.
Efforts to acquire and utilize imagery are complicated by two major factors in additional to
inevitable budgetary considerations. The first is technological; imagery acquisition systems,
especially UAVs, are not mature systems. They are subject to trial-and-error experimentation,
cancellations, delays, and cost overruns. The second is organizational; imagery collection and
analysis involves a number of agencies, inside and outside the Department of Defense, and
coordination is complex and difficult. Furthermore, imagery is produced in response to the disparate
and not inevitably compatible requirements of Washington decisionmakers and military
commanders. Congressional oversight is undertaken by a number of different committees. Taken
together these factors make imagery an especially important and difficult issue for policymakers in
both Congress and the executive branch.
