Battlespace Spectrum Monitoring

Full Spectrum Decay

By Gonzalo Lira

The Pentagon has a policy which can only be called the zenith of militaristic arrogance and stupidity: “Full Spectrum Dominance”.

As the name implies, the policy’s aim is for the United States’ military to control all aspects of a battlefield—or as proponents of the doctrine call it, the “battlespace”: Air, land, sea, space and cyberspace.

The doctrine’s concept, in its essence, is for the American military to be “better” than anyone else at everything else: The most carrier groups, the biggest nuclear subs, the latest military technology, etc., etc., etc., all of these pieces fitting together to overwhelm—and not merely defeat—any enemy or any threat, be they real or unlikely, or even imaginary. (For the American military’s hunt for imaginary threats, look up Iraqi WMD.)

Of course, a child can realize that “full spectrum dominance” is essentially brawns over brains: The only way you can achieve it is by sacrificing ingenuity, imagination, flexibility and common sense at the altar of Bigness.

The other obvious flaw of “full spectrum dominance” (such a creepily S&M-sounding phrase, redolent of nasty sex-clubs in lower Manhattan) is by throwing money at the “battlespace”—endless amounts of money. Neverending amounts of money. And nevermind where the money for this is coming from.

Having a military that mindlessly embarks on a “full spectrum dominance” doctine is the surest route to bankruptcy. It also sidesteps the key issue:

What is this awesome—literally “awe-inspiring”—military supposed to be protecting? • Is this awe-inspiring military supposed to be protecting a rich and shining country?

The United States Federal government has a total debt of over 100% of the nation’s GDP, and is consistently running deficits of over 11% year after year—unsustainable levels of debt.

There are huge swathes of America where the cities are rusting rotting hulks: Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland. The are contests judging the best pictures of this decay. There are places in America—a truly shocking amount—where asphalt roads are being torn up, and replaced with gravel—because it’s cheaper to maintain.

TRISHUL: RISTA Platforms Sought For Persistent Vigil

Entrusted with the task of conducting persistent, all-weather year-round surveillance of the 4,057km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) since 2004 along the undemarcated Sino-Indian border, the Dehra Dun-based National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) is soon expected to acquire up to four airborne reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition (RISTA) platforms, which will be flown and maintained by the Research & Analysis Wing’s Aviation Research Centre, but will come under the NTRO’s operational control. The new acquisitions will supplement the ARC’s existing fleet of two Israel Aerospace Industries-built Astra 1125 twinjets that are both equipped with belly-mounted long-range oblique photography cameras. The to-be-selected RISTA platform for the NTRO is widely believed to be a customized version of the SEMA, which has been developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The SEMA can be used for strategic SIGINT operations as well as theatre-wide battlespace surveillance. For the latter role, the SEMA, using the Gulfstream Aerospace-built G-550 bizjet as the platform, can be equipped with the EL/M-2060P synthetic aperture radar (SAR)—developed by the ELTA Systems subsidiary of IAI, for real-time ground moving target indication (GTMI). The EL/M-2060P is capable of tracking hostile ground targets—both stationary and mobile—300km away and using Ku-band and X-band data links for transmitting battlespace reconnaissance data to ground-based theatre command-/Corps-level HQs in real-time. When used for SIGINT missions, the SEMA comes equipped with a belly-mounted EL/I-3001 SIGINT suite that will search, intercept, measure, localise, analyse, classify and monitor short-duration ground and airborne transmissions and their signals parameters—all aimed at building up, in real-time, a full-spectrum picture of the electronic order of battle.

Embedded, everywhere, a research agenda for networked systems of embedded computers

Data fusion for situation monitoring, incident detection, alert and response management

Jane's international defense review, IDR.

2002 MILCOM, proceedings : Global information grid--enabling transformation through 21st century communications : 7-10 October 2002, Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, California

Senate reports