GIS in Military Intelligence

According to the RAND Corporation, which is a government funded research and development non-profit, Military Intelligence includes information on other countries' military forces, plans, and operations gained through a variety of collection methods. One of the most important collection methods utilized by the United States Military is the use of geospatial data to determine battlefield management, terrain analysis, and even in basic cartography, or the mapmaking of an area of interest. The use of GIS, or more commonly referred to as GEOINT, in military planning allows for the most up to date intelligence to be used when determining the parameters and goals of the operation.

The earliest use of GIS in military intelligence dates back to the period of the World Wars, when military photographers would fly over battlefields and conflict locations, and take pictures from the sky. While this may be one of the more simple uses of GIS, the use of aerial photographs were instrumental in the planning and conducting operations against enemies, such as the Germans. Over the last one hundred years, as the technology and capabilities of GIS have changed, so has its importance and uses for the practice of military intelligence gatherers and exploiters. The shift from manned to unmanned aerial survelliance platfroms, to orbital satellites that can provide real-time intelligence on areas of interest nearly anywhere on Earth.

The technological advancements made in the last fifty years have been essential to furthering the abilities of United States intelligence agencies such as, the DIA, CIA, and NSA. GIS can be an effective tool in assisting in the development of strategic operational plans based on the geographic data collected through aerial or satellite imagery. Other potential strategic uses of GIS include the ability for military planners to utilize certain geospatial softwares, such as ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Intelligence, or ArcGIS Earth, to create and analyze potential operational plans.

As technology continues to advance, many different organizations, such as the research and development firms of RAND, Praxis, and DSCI, have been working with the United States military to further the capabilities of the armed forces through the use of GIS. The usage of differing GIS softwares has provided branches such as the Army, the ability to collect real time data on their soldiers positioning, locations, and status, which ultimately increases the situational awareness of both the warfighters on the ground and the shot-callers at headquarters.

The United States military, as well as the United States intelligence community, utilize a series of different methods and ways to analyze the substantial amount of imagery and spatial data that they collect. Of these numerous ways, one of the most utilized ways to analyze imagery is by inserting it into a GIS software, such as ArcGIS, and running one of the different processes provided by the software. For example, if an analyst is attempting to utilize the imagery to determine the type of land cover or the population of a certain area in which a planned operation is to take place, they can utilize ArcGIS tools to develop a color-coded layout which depicts the distribution of different land forms, such as bodies of water or mountains, through tools such as the classification wizard. However, when it comes to identifying different populations, analysts can use the point density tool to identify locations with larger or smaller populations. Another one of the most useful tools that can be applied to the planning phase of an operation is the change detection wizard, which can provide planners with the ability to visualize how an AO, or area of operation, has changed over time and what their elements can expeact the ground to look like.

The processed imagery above, illustrates one of the many ways that GIS can be used to support and analyze imagery collected by the United States Military Intelligence apparatus. The image above is of the Fiery Cross Island in the South China Sea. The island has been clamied by mulitple nations as a part of their country, including China, Taiwan, the Phillippeans and Vietnam. What makes this an highly important location for US military intelligence, is the fact that the Chinese constructed a military airbase on the island, further expanding their control into the South China Sea. The change detection wizard, ran on the images using ArcGIS softwares, shows the degree of building, in red, and the degree of natural land cover in green, which differs dramatically from the 2015 imagery to the 2020 imagery, which provides military planners with the knowledge that the Chinese have been building up the island to support military operations.

There are plenty of uses for imagery and spatial data collected by the numerous different military intelligence agencies and branches outside of planning and conducting wartime operations. For example, Operations Other Than War, or OOTW, is one of the largest benefactors of spatial data and imagery collected. The term, OOTW, is the name given to any humanitarian or aid operation conducted in a conflict area or danger zone. Military intelligence, in specific, collected imagery, can be analyzed and utilized to aid peacekeeping missions, such as the NATO blue helmets. One of the most recent use of military intelligence and imagery analysis in peacekeeping, is the role of the NATO Peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The United Nations has been historical been known to use aerial observation and satellite imagery (spatial imagery), when planning and carrying out peacekeeping operations. The UN has utilized this form of military intelligence to identify and locate troubled areas in Kosovo and other operating areas, in order to determine where to patrol and how to coordinate their peacekeeping operations. Another example of OOTW, in which military intelligence and imagery can be important, is during refugee crisis's. Geospatial Softwares, such as ArcGIS, can be utilized to determine the population densities of different contries, or to locate where, in a specific country that a refugee camp may be most beneficial.

While the idea of military intelligence has been around for hundreds of years, it wasn't until 1909 that the first state ran agency was created by the British. Infamously known today as MI-6, the British Military Intelligence Agency was created intially under the name of the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau. Nearly fifty years later, on 1 July 1962, the United States established it's own agency tasked with military intelligence, called the Army Intelligence and Security Branch. Over the course of the last sixty years, the Army Intelligence Branch has been responsible for gathering, analyzing, and proucing finished intelligence products that have been crucial to ongoing operational mission planning. In 1996, the United States established their first intelligence agency that focused strictly on Geospatial Intelligence to aid military and defense, under the name of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. As an agency under the Department of Defense, the NGA utilizes spatial data and satellite imagery to provide military agencies and policymakers with the best possible intelligence on conflict zones and defense strategies.

Over the course of the last thrity years, the United States Military has utilized geospatial information softwares and cutting edge imagery collection techniques to advise decision makers and military planners in operational capacities. While imagery collection and anlysis has been around for nearly one hundred years, the use of satellite imagery and spatial data, has become an important and essential fixture in military intelligence in the last thirty years. GIS has been crucial to identifying, illustrating, and depicting locations and spatial information of these locations which are of importance to the United States Government.

Bigelow, Michael E. A Short History of Army Intelligence. Federation of American Scientists. https://irp.fas.org/agency/army/short.pdf

Dorn, A. Walter. United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence. The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, pp. 275–295.

Harding, Sean. The Gist of Military GIS. U.S. Army, 2017. https://www.army.mil/article/185315/the_gist_of_military_gis

North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Operations and Missions: Past and Present. NATO, 2022. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_52060.htm#:~:text=NATO%20leads%20operations%20in%20Kosovo,and%20its%20national%20defence%20academies.

Taw, Jennifer. Operation Just Cause: Lessons for Operations Other Than War. Rand Corporation, 1996. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR569.html