As the Defense Department faces growing threats from around the world, including Russia and China, the U.S. government is relying more than ever on critical intelligence collected from satellites deployed in space. Those satellites, however, are operating in contested territory.
DoD officials face some tough decisions: Should they build up capabilities for collecting key geospatial intelligence and data, or harden the satellites themselves? It's not always possible to do both, which could put the military and intelligence community at an impasse.
"We might have to trade off some collection performance for improved resiliency," Marcel Lettre, undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, said May 16 at the GEOINT Symposium in Orlando, Florida. Already, increased emphasis on resilience has "dramatically influenced our requirements for GEOINT and [signals intelligence] systems."
Lettre, who said he worries most about "near-peer" militaries from China and Russia, hopes that at least one solution lies in coalition partnerships that can shore up any gaps.
"We want to make sure our systems are available when we need them most," he said. "To help offset these trades for any resilience capabilities, we'll likely look to available commercial or coalition systems to help address any capability shortfalls."
Lettre added that coalition integration and agile information-sharing are essential for effective data-driven decisions.
"Future success is achieved by strong partnerships," he said.
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