Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: DOD Can Better	 
Assess and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee Development of 
Future ISR Requirements (24-MAR-08, GAO-08-374).		 
                                                                 
The Department of Defense's (DOD) intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities-such as satellites and unmanned
aircraft systems-are crucial to military operations, and demand  
for ISR capabilities has increased. For example, DOD plans to	 
invest $28 billion over the next 7 years in 20 airborne ISR	 
systems alone. Congress directed DOD to fully integrate its ISR  
capabilities, also known as the ISR enterprise, as it works to	 
meet current and future ISR needs. GAO was asked to (1) describe 
the challenges, if any, that DOD faces in integrating its ISR	 
enterprise, (2) assess DOD's management approach for improving	 
integration of its future ISR investments, and (3) evaluate the  
extent to which DOD has implemented key activities to ensure	 
proposed new ISR capabilities fill gaps, are not duplicative, and
use a joint approach to meeting warfighters' needs. GAO assessed 
DOD's integration initiatives and 19 proposals for new ISR	 
capabilities. We supplemented this analysis with discussions with
DOD officials.							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-374 					        
    ACCNO:   A81376						        
  TITLE:     Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: DOD Can  
Better Assess and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee	 
Development of Future ISR Requirements				 
     DATE:   03/24/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Aircraft						 
	     Cost analysis					 
	     Cost effectiveness analysis			 
	     Defense capabilities				 
	     Defense contingency planning			 
	     Defense industry					 
	     Defense operations 				 
	     Defense procurement				 
	     Electronic surveillance				 
	     Federal funds					 
	     Funds management					 
	     Interagency relations				 
	     Military intelligence				 
	     Military operations				 
	     Military systems analysis				 
	     National defense operations			 
	     Needs assessment					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Requirements definition				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Systems analysis					 
	     Systems integration				 
	     Technology assessment				 
	     Program goals or objectives			 
	     Program implementation				 

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GAO-08-374

   

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material separately. 

Report to the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, Committee on Armed 
Services, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

March 2008: 

Intelligence, Surveillance, And Reconnaissance: 

DOD Can Better Assess and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee 
Development of Future ISR Requirements: 

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: 

GAO-08-374: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-08-374, a report to Subcommittee on Air and Land 
Forces, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The Department of Defenseï¿½s (DOD) intelligence, surveillance, and 
reconnaissance (ISR) capabilitiesï¿½such as satellites and unmanned 
aircraft systemsï¿½are crucial to military operations, and demand for ISR 
capabilities has increased. For example, DOD plans to invest $28 
billion over the next 7 years in 20 airborne ISR systems alone. 
Congress directed DOD to fully integrate its ISR capabilities, also 
known as the ISR enterprise, as it works to meet current and future ISR 
needs. GAO was asked to (1) describe the challenges, if any, that DOD 
faces in integrating its ISR enterprise, (2) assess DODï¿½s management 
approach for improving integration of its future ISR investments, and 
(3) evaluate the extent to which DOD has implemented key activities to 
ensure proposed new ISR capabilities fill gaps, are not duplicative, 
and use a joint approach to meeting warfightersï¿½ needs. GAO assessed 
DODï¿½s integration initiatives and 19 proposals for new ISR 
capabilities. We supplemented this analysis with discussions with DOD 
officials. 

What GAO Found: 

DOD faces a complex and challenging environment in supporting defense 
requirements for ISR capabilities as well as national intelligence 
efforts. Past efforts to improve integration across DOD and national 
intelligence agencies have been hampered by the diverse missions and 
different institutional cultures of the many intelligence agencies that 
DOD supports. For example, DOD had difficulty obtaining complete 
information on national ISR assets that could support military 
operations because of security classifications of other agency 
documents. Further, different funding arrangements for defense and 
national intelligence activities complicate integration of interagency 
activities. While DOD develops the defense intelligence budget, some 
DOD activities also receive funding through the national intelligence 
budget to provide support for national intelligence efforts. 
Disagreements about equitable funding from each budget have led to 
program delays. Separate military and intelligence requirements 
identification processes also complicate efforts to integrate future 
ISR investments. 

DOD does not have a clearly defined vision of a future ISR enterprise 
to guide its ISR investments. DOD has taken a significant step toward 
integrating its ISR activities by developing an ISR Integration Roadmap 
that includes existing and currently planned ISR systems. However, the 
Roadmap does not provide a long-term view of what capabilities are 
required to achieve strategic goals or provide detailed information 
that would make it useful as a basis for deciding among alternative 
investments. Without a clear vision of the desired ISR end state and 
sufficient detail on existing and planned systems, DOD decision makers 
lack a basis for determining where additional capabilities are 
required, prioritizing investments, or assessing progress in achieving 
strategic goals, as well as identifying areas where further investment 
may not be warranted. 

DOD policy calls for the services and agencies that sponsor proposals 
for new ISR capabilities to conduct comprehensive assessments of 
current and planned ISR systems, but GAOï¿½s review of 19 proposals 
showed that 12 sponsors did not complete assessments, and the 
completeness of the remaining 7 sponsorsï¿½ assessments varied. GAO found 
that the DOD board charged with reviewing ISR proposals did not 
consistently coordinate with sponsors to ensure the quality of the 
assessments supporting their proposals or review the completed 
assessments. There were three key reasons for this. First, the board 
did not have a comprehensive, readily available source of information 
about existing and developmental ISR capabilities that could help 
identify alternatives to new systems. Second, the board has no 
monitoring mechanism to ensure that key activities are fully 
implemented. Third, DOD board officials said that the board lacks 
adequate numbers of dedicated, skilled personnel to engage in early 
coordination with sponsors and to review sponsorsï¿½ assessments. Without 
more complete information on alternatives and a monitoring mechanism to 
ensure these key activities are fully implemented, DOD is not in the 
best position to ensure that investment decisions are consistent with 
departmentwide priorities. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that DOD develop a future ISR enterprise vision and that 
DOD take steps to improve its process for identifying future ISR 
capabilities. DOD agreed or partially agreed with some recommendations 
but disagreed with the recommendation to review staffing levels needed 
for key oversight activities. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-374]. For more 
information, contact Davi M. D'Agostino at (202) 512-5431 or 
[email protected]. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

The Wide Range of DOD ISR Enterprise Commitments across the U.S. 
Intelligence Community Presents a Challenging Environment for Greater 
DOD ISR Integration: 

DOD Has Initiatives to Improve the Integration of Its Future ISR 
Investments, but the Initiatives Do Not Provide Key Management Tools 
Needed to Effectively Guide ISR Investments: 

DOD Has Not Fully Implemented Its Process to Develop, Integrate, and 
Approve Future ISR Capabilities: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Table: 

Table 1: ISR Capability Proposals Submitted to the Joint Staff Since 
the Implementation of JCIDS in 2003 and for Which the Battlespace 
Awareness Functional Capabilities Board was Designated the Lead: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: The JCIDS Analysis Process for Proposals for New 
Capabilities: 

Figure 2: DOD ISR Enterprise Relationship to the U.S. Intelligence 
Community: 

Figure 3: Application of Enterprise Architecture Principles to the DOD 
ISR Enterprise: 

Figure 4: List of Proposals with and without Assessments, and Those 
with Highest Expected Cost Since 2003: 

Figure 5: Extent to Which Seven ISR Capability Proposals Since 2003 
Included a Capabilities-Based Assessment That Incorporated Key Elements 
of Joint Staff Policy and Guidance: 

Abbreviations: 

BA FCB: Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board: 

DOD: Department of Defense: 

FAA: Functional Area Analysis: 

FNA: Functional Needs Analysis: 

FSA: Functional Solution Analysis: 

ISR: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: 

JCIDS: Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System: 

MIP: Military Intelligence Program: 

NIP: National Intelligence Program: 

USD(I): Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

Washington, DC 20548: 

March 24, 2008: 

The Honorable Neil Abercrombie: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Jim Saxton: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces: 
Committee on Armed Services: 
House of Representatives: 

The Department of Defense's (DOD) intelligence, surveillance, and 
reconnaissance (ISR) systems--including manned and unmanned airborne, 
space-borne, maritime, and terrestrial systems--play critical roles in 
supporting military operations and national security missions. ISR 
encompasses multiple activities related to the planning and operation 
of systems that collect, process, and disseminate data in support of 
current and future military operations. Examples of these ISR systems 
include surveillance and reconnaissance systems ranging from 
satellites, to manned aircraft such as the U-2, to unmanned aircraft 
systems such as the Air Force's Global Hawk and Predator and the Army's 
Hunter, to other ground-, air-, sea-, or space-based equipment, and to 
human intelligence teams. The intelligence data provided by these ISR 
systems can take many forms, including optical, radar, or infrared 
images or electronic signals. Effective ISR data can provide early 
warning of enemy threats as well as enable U.S. military forces to 
increase effectiveness, coordination, and lethality, and demand for ISR 
capabilities to support ongoing military operations has increased. To 
meet this growing demand, DOD is planning to make sizeable investments 
in ISR systems, which provide ISR capabilities. For example, over the 
next 7 years, DOD plans to invest over $28 billion to develop, procure, 
and modify 20 major airborne ISR systems alone, and maintain existing 
systems until new ones are fielded. These investments are planned at a 
time when, as we have previously reported, the nation is facing 
significant fiscal challenges in the future, due primarily to 
demographic changes and rising health care costs, which are expected to 
increase downward pressure on all federal spending, including defense 
spending. [Footnote 1] In this environment, it will be increasingly 
important for DOD decision makers to evaluate competing priorities and 
alternatives to determine the most cost-effective solutions for 
providing needed capabilities, including ISR capabilities. The Senate 
Armed Services Committee has stated concerns that the effectiveness of 
United States ISR capabilities has been hampered by capability gaps as 
well as parallel systems across the services and intelligence agencies 
that do not fully complement one another and may duplicate some 
capabilities. For this reason, the Committee has expressed a question 
about whether enough has been done, in a comprehensive, defensewide 
enterprise manner, to require that new intelligence capabilities being 
developed by the military services and the defense intelligence 
agencies be conceived as part of a larger system of systems. 

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 states that 
it shall be a goal of DOD to fully integrate the ISR capabilities and 
coordinate the developmental activities of the services, DOD 
intelligence agencies, and combatant commands as they work to meet 
current and future ISR needs.[Footnote 2] Moreover, the position of the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)) was established to 
facilitate resolution of the challenges to achieving an integrated DOD 
ISR structure. Within DOD, USD(I) exercises policy and strategic 
oversight over all defense intelligence, counterintelligence, and 
security plans and programs, including ISR. As part of this 
responsibility, USD(I) manages ISR capabilities across the department, 
as well as DOD's intelligence budget, which includes DOD spending on 
ISR. USD(I) carries out these responsibilities within the context of 
the department's resource allocation process, known as the Planning, 
Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process. DOD's ISR capabilities 
are often referred to as DOD's ISR enterprise, which consists of DOD 
intelligence organizations that operate ISR systems that collect, 
process, and disseminate ISR data in order to meet defense intelligence 
needs, as well as to meet a significant set of U.S. governmentwide 
intelligence needs, as tasked by the Director of National 
Intelligence.[Footnote 3] 

DOD implemented the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development 
System (JCIDS) in 2003 as the department's principal process for 
identifying, assessing, and prioritizing joint military 
capabilities.[Footnote 4] JCIDS supports the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, who is responsible for advising the Secretary of 
Defense on the priorities of military requirements in support of the 
national military strategy. The Joint Requirements Oversight 
Council[Footnote 5] assists the Chairman in this role by reviewing and 
approving proposals for new military capabilities, among other 
responsibilities.[Footnote 6] The Joint Requirements Oversight Council 
is supported by eight Functional Capabilities Boards that review and 
analyze initial proposals for new military capabilities. The Functional 
Capabilities Board responsible for reviewing proposals for new ISR 
capabilities is known as the Battlespace Awareness Functional 
Capabilities Board (BA FCB).[Footnote 7] Proposals for new military 
capabilities may be developed by any of the military services, defense 
agencies, or combatant commands, who are referred to as sponsors. To 
support these proposals and to facilitate the development of 
capabilities that are as joint and efficient as possible, Joint Staff 
policy calls for the sponsors to conduct capabilities-based assessments 
that identify gaps in military capabilities and potential solutions for 
filling those gaps. Specifically, the capabilities-based assessment 
identifies the capabilities required to successfully execute missions, 
the shortfalls in existing systems to deliver those capabilities, and 
the possible solutions for the capability shortfalls. 

We conducted several reviews in 2007 related to DOD's management of its 
ISR capabilities. In April 2007, we testified that, although DOD is 
undertaking some initiatives to set strategic goals and improve 
integration of ISR assets, it has not comprehensively identified future 
ISR requirements, set funding priorities, or established mechanisms to 
measure progress.[Footnote 8] We also testified that DOD did not have 
efficient processes for maximizing the capabilities of its current and 
planned unmanned aircraft systems or measuring their effectiveness. 
Furthermore, we reported that acquisition of ISR systems continued to 
suffer from cost increases or schedule delays, and we noted 
opportunities to improve ISR acquisition outcomes through greater 
synergies among various ISR platforms. In May 2007, we reported on 
DOD's acquisition of ISR systems and made recommendations to improve 
acquisition outcomes by developing and implementing an integrated, 
enterprise-level investment strategy approach based on a joint 
assessment of warfighting needs and a full set of potential and viable 
alternative solutions, considering cross-service solutions including 
new acquisitions and modifications to legacy systems within realistic 
and affordable budget projections.[Footnote 9] In July 2007, we issued 
a report on DOD's processes for using unmanned aircraft systems that 
made recommendations to improve visibility over and the coordination of 
those assets and to measure their effectiveness.[Footnote 10] In 
addition, we are currently conducting a separate review of the JCIDS 
process that addresses the extent to which the process has improved 
outcomes in weapons system acquisition programs. We expect our report 
based on this review to be issued later in 2008. 

In response to your request, our objectives for this report were to (1) 
describe the challenges, if any, that DOD faces in achieving an 
integrated ISR enterprise; (2) assess DOD's management approach for 
improving integration of its future ISR investments; and (3) evaluate 
the extent to which DOD has implemented key activities within the JCIDS 
process to ensure that proposed new ISR capabilities fill gaps, are not 
duplicative, and use a joint approach to filling warfighters' needs. 

To describe the challenges DOD faces in integrating its ISR enterprise, 
we reviewed documents on the operation of DOD's ISR enterprise and the 
national intelligence community. To assess DOD's management approach 
for improving integration of future ISR investments, we reviewed and 
analyzed DOD's ISR Integration Roadmap and other DOD ISR integration 
efforts and evaluated them against best practices for enterprise 
architecture and portfolio management. To assess the extent to which 
DOD has implemented key activities within the JCIDS process, we 
reviewed policies and procedures related to the review and approval of 
proposals for new ISR capabilities through DOD's JCIDS. We reviewed 19 
of the 20 proposals for new ISR capabilities that were submitted to the 
Joint Staff since the implementation of JCIDS in 2003 and for which the 
BA FCB was designated as the primary Functional Capabilities 
Board.[Footnote 11] We focused our efforts on the capabilities-based 
assessments that underpin these proposals by evaluating the extent to 
which the capabilities-based assessments incorporated key elements of 
Joint Staff policy and guidance. We discussed ISR-related efforts and 
challenges concerning these objectives with officials from such offices 
as the Office of the USD(I); Joint Staff; National Security Space 
Office; Air Force; Army; Navy; Marine Corps; U.S. Strategic Command's 
Joint Functional Component Command for ISR; U.S. Special Operations 
Command; U.S. Joint Forces Command; Defense Intelligence Agency; 
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; National Security Agency; and 
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. We did not review 
other processes within DOD that may be used for rapidly identifying ISR 
capability needs, such as Joint Urgent Operational Needs, the Joint 
Rapid Acquisition Cell, and Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat 
Organization initiatives. 

We conducted our review from April 2007 through March 2008 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. More 
detailed information on our scope and methodology is provided in 
appendix I. 

Results in Brief: 

As DOD works to achieve an integrated ISR enterprise, the department 
faces a complex and challenging environment in supporting a wide range 
of defense and non-defense agencies across the U.S. intelligence 
community. DOD is presented with different and sometimes competing 
organizational cultures, funding arrangements, and requirements 
processes, reflecting diverse missions across the many U.S. 
intelligence community agencies that DOD supports. For example, the 
Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management 
and Organization noted in 2001 that understanding the different 
organizational cultures of the defense and national space communities 
is important for achieving long-term integration of defense and non- 
defense national security space activities--which are subset of ISR 
activities. In response to a commission recommendation, DOD established 
the National Security Space Office in 2003, which received funding and 
personnel from both DOD and the National Reconnaissance Office, a 
defense intelligence agency that develops overhead reconnaissance 
satellites for both DOD and the national intelligence community. 
However, in 2005, the National Reconnaissance Office withdrew its 
personnel, funding, and full access to a classified information-sharing 
network from the office, inhibiting efforts to integrate defense and 
national space activities, including ISR activities. Further, different 
funding arrangements for defense and national intelligence activities 
may complicate DOD's efforts to integrate ISR activities across the 
enterprise. While DOD develops the defense intelligence budget, some 
DOD organizations also receive funding through the national 
intelligence budget, which is developed by the Office of the Director 
of National Intelligence, to provide support for national intelligence 
efforts. However, statutorily required guidelines on how the Director 
of National Intelligence is to implement his authorities, including 
budgetary authority over defense intelligence agencies, have not yet 
been established. Disagreement about equitable funding from each budget 
may have led to at least one program delay until agreement could be 
reached. In addition, DOD and the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence maintain separate processes for identifying future ISR 
requirements. This may complicate DOD efforts to develop future ISR 
systems that provide capabilities across the defense and national 
intelligence communities. 

DOD has initiatives underway to improve the integration of its ISR 
investments; however, DOD lacks key management tools needed to ensure 
that ISR investments reflect enterprisewide priorities and strategic 
goals. DOD's two primary ISR integration initiatives--the ISR 
Integration Roadmap and a test case for managing ISR investments as a 
departmentwide portfolio--are positive steps toward managing ISR 
investments from an enterprise-level perspective rather than from a 
service or agency perspective. However, our previous work has shown 
that large organizations such as the DOD ISR enterprise are most 
successful when they employ the following key tools: (1) a clearly 
defined vision of a future enterprise that lays out what investments 
are needed to achieve strategic goals, and (2) a unified investment 
management approach in which decision makers weigh the relative costs, 
benefits, and risks of proposed investments using established criteria 
and methods. DOD and federal guidance on enterprise architecture also 
state that a framework for achieving an integrated enterprise should 
include these key tools. Although Congress tasked DOD to develop an ISR 
Integration Roadmap to guide the development and integration of DOD ISR 
capabilities from 2004 through 2018, USD(I) limited the Roadmap to 
articulating ISR programs already in DOD's 5-year ISR budget due to 
difficulty in predicting longer-term threats and mission requirements. 
As a result, the Roadmap does not provide a longer-term, comprehensive 
vision of what ISR capabilities are required to achieve strategic 
goals. Moreover, the Roadmap does not provide a sufficient level of 
detail to allow ISR decision makers to prioritize different needs and 
assess progress in achieving strategic goals. This lack of detail in 
the Roadmap limits its usefulness to ISR portfolio managers because it 
cannot serve as a basis for establishing criteria and a methodology 
that ISR decision makers can use to assess different ISR investments to 
identify the best return on investment in light of strategic goals. 
Without these two key tools, senior DOD leaders are not well-positioned 
to exert discipline over ISR spending. We are therefore recommending 
that the Secretary of Defense direct the USD(I) to develop and document 
a long-term, comprehensive vision of a future ISR enterprise that can 
serve as basis for prioritizing ISR needs and assessing how different 
investments contribute to achieving strategic goals. 

DOD has not implemented key activities within the JCIDS process to 
ensure that proposed new ISR capabilities are filling gaps, are not 
duplicative, and use a joint approach to addressing warfighters' needs. 
Our review of the 19 proposals for new ISR capabilities submitted to 
the BA FCB by the military services and DOD agencies, also known as 
sponsors, since 2003 showed that sponsors did not consistently conduct 
comprehensive capabilities-based assessments as called for by Joint 
Staff policy, and the BA FCB did not fully conduct key oversight 
activities. Specifically, 12 sponsors did not complete the assessments, 
and the assessments conducted by the remaining 7 sponsors varied in 
completeness and rigor. Moreover, we found that the BA FCB did not 
systematically coordinate with the sponsors during their assessment 
process to help ensure the quality of the assessments, and did not 
generally review the assessments once they were completed. As a result, 
DOD lacks assurance that ISR capabilities approved through the JCIDS 
process provide joint solutions to DOD's ISR capability needs and are 
the solutions that best minimize inefficiency and redundancy. The BA 
FCB did not fully implement oversight activities for three key reasons. 
First, the BA FCB does not have a readily available source of 
information that identifies the full range of existing and 
developmental ISR capabilities, which would serve as a tool for 
reviewing the jointness and efficiency of the sponsors' assessments. 
Second, the BA FCB lacks a monitoring mechanism to ensure that key 
oversight activities are fully implemented as described in existing 
guidance. Third, BA FCB officials said that the BA FCB does not have 
adequate numbers of dedicated, skilled personnel to engage in early 
coordination with sponsors and review the sponsors' capabilities-based 
assessments. Since the BA FCB did not fully implement its oversight 
activities, neither the BA FCB nor the sponsors can be assured that the 
sponsors considered the full range of potential solutions when 
conducting their assessments and identified a joint approach to 
addressing warfighters' needs. To enable effective Joint Staff 
oversight over ISR capability development, we are recommending that the 
Secretary of Defense direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
and the USD(I) to collaborate in developing a comprehensive source of 
information on all ISR capabilities for use in informing capabilities- 
based assessments. We are also recommending that the Secretary of 
Defense direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a 
supervisory review or other monitoring mechanism to ensure that (1) the 
BA FCB and sponsors engage in early coordination to facilitate 
sponsors' consideration of existing and developmental ISR capabilities 
in developing their capabilities-based assessments, (2) capabilities- 
based assessments are completed, and (3) the BA FCB uses systematic 
procedures for reviewing the assessments. We are also recommending that 
the Secretary of Defense direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff to review the BA FCB's staffing levels and expertise and workload 
to engage in early coordination with sponsors and review their 
assessments, and, if shortfalls of personnel, resources, or training 
are identified, develop a plan for addressing them. 

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD agreed or partially 
agreed with our recommendations to develop a vision of a future ISR 
architecture, to develop a comprehensive source of information on all 
ISR capabilities, and to ensure that key activities--such as early 
coordination between the BA FCB and sponsors, and completion and review 
of assessments--are fully implemented. However, DOD stated that changes 
in guidance were not needed. DOD disagreed with our recommendation that 
it review the BA FCB's staffing levels and expertise and workload to 
engage in early coordination with sponsors and review their 
assessments, and, if shortfalls of personnel, resources, or training 
are identified, develop a plan for addressing them. In its comments, 
DOD noted that it had conducted a review of Functional Capabilities 
Board personnel and resources in fiscal year 2007 which did not 
identify deficiencies. However, workload issues and lack of technical 
skills among staff were mentioned to us by defense officials as reasons 
why early coordination and reviews of capabilities-based assessments 
were not being systematically performed as part of the BA FCB's 
oversight function. Therefore, in light of our finding that the BA FCB 
did not fully implement these key oversight activities as called for in 
Joint Staff policy, we believe that the department should reconsider 
whether the BA FCB has the appropriate number of staff with the 
appropriate skills to fully implement these oversight activities. In 
addition, based on DOD's comments, we modified one of our 
recommendations to clarify that the Secretary of Defense could assign 
leadership to either the Joint Staff or the USD(I), in consultation 
with the other, to develop the comprehensive source of information that 
the sponsors and the BA FCB need. In making this modification, we also 
moved two actions that were originally part of this recommendation and 
included them in another, thereby consolidating actions that the Joint 
Staff needs to take into one recommendation. Also in response to DOD's 
comments, we modified our recommendation related to ensuring that early 
coordination and completion and review of sponsors' assessments are 
conducted by clarifying that a monitoring mechanism is needed to ensure 
that DOD fully implement these key activities in accordance with 
existing guidance. DOD's comments are reprinted in appendix II. 

Background: 

In 2001, DOD shifted from a threat-based planning process focused on 
preparing the department for a set of threat scenarios to a 
capabilities-based process focused on identifying what capabilities DOD 
would need to counter expected adversaries. The expectation was that a 
capabilities-based process would prevent DOD from over-optimizing for a 
limited set of scenarios. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review continued 
this shift in order to emphasize the needs of the combatant commanders 
by implementing portfolio management principles for cross-sections of 
DOD's capabilities. Portfolio management principles are commonly used 
by large commercial companies to prioritize needs and allocate 
resources. In September 2006, DOD initiated a test case of the 
portfolio management concept, which included DOD's management of its 
ISR capabilities. The USD(I) is the lead office for this ISR portfolio, 
and the ISR Integration Council, a group of senior DOD intelligence 
officers created as a forum for the services to discuss ISR integration 
efforts, acts as the governance body for the ISR portfolio management 
effort. In February 2008, DOD announced its plans to formalize the test 
cases, including the ISR portfolio, as standing capability portfolio 
management efforts. 

DOD established JCIDS as part of its capabilities-based planning 
process and to be a replacement for DOD's previous requirements 
identification process, which, according to DOD, frequently resulted in 
systems that were service-focused rather than joint, programs that 
duplicated each other, and systems that were not interoperable. Under 
this previous process, requirements were often developed by the 
services as stand-alone solutions to counter specific threats and 
scenarios. In contrast, the JCIDS process is designed to identify the 
broad set of capabilities that may be required to address the security 
environment of the twenty-first century. In addition, requirements 
under the JCIDS process are intended to be developed from the "top- 
down," that is, starting with the national military strategy, whereas 
the former process was "bottom-up," with requirements growing out of 
the individual services' unique strategic visions and lacking clear 
linkages to the national military strategy. 

The BA FCB has responsibilities that include both JCIDS and non-JCIDS 
activities. The BA FCB provides input on the ISR capability portfolio 
management test case to the USD(I), who leads the test case and who, in 
turn, often provides inputs to the BA FCB deliberations on ISR 
capability needs. The BA FCB also generally provides analytic support 
for Joint Staff discussions and decisions on joint concepts and 
programmatic issues. In addition, the BA FCB has responsibilities for 
helping to oversee materiel and non-materiel capabilities development 
within JCIDS.[Footnote 12] To do this, the BA FCB reviews proposals for 
new ISR capabilities, as well as proposals for non-materiel ISR 
capabilities and for ISR capabilities already in development, and 
submits recommendations to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council on 
whether or not to approve them.[Footnote 13] To support their proposals 
for new ISR capabilities, the sponsors are expected to conduct a 
robust, three-part capabilities-based assessment that identifies (1) 
warfighter skills and attributes for a desired capability (Functional 
Area Analysis), (2) the gaps to achieving this capability based on an 
assessment of all existing systems (Functional Needs Analysis), and (3) 
possible solutions for filling these gaps (Functional Solution 
Analysis). According to Joint Staff guidance, the latter assessment 
should consider the development of new systems, non-materiel solutions 
that do not require the development of new systems, modifications to 
existing systems, or a combination of these, as possible solutions to 
filling identified capability gaps. Figure 1 provides an overview of 
the JCIDS analysis process as it relates to proposals for new 
capabilities, showing that these proposals are supposed to flow from 
top-level defense guidance, including DOD strategic guidance, Joint 
Operations Concepts, and Concepts of Operations.[Footnote 14] This 
guidance is to provide the conceptual basis for the sponsor's 
capabilities-based assessment, which ultimately results in the 
sponsor's proposal for a new capability. 

Figure 1: The JCIDS Analysis Process for Proposals for New 
Capabilities: 

This figure is a flowchart showing the JCDIS analysis process for 
proposals for new capabilities. 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: Joint Staff guidance. 

[End of figure] 

The Wide Range of DOD ISR Enterprise Commitments across the U.S. 
Intelligence Community Presents a Challenging Environment for Greater 
DOD ISR Integration: 

DOD provides ISR capabilities in support of a wide range of defense and 
non-defense agencies across the intelligence community, creating a 
complex environment for DOD as it tries to integrate defense and 
national ISR capabilities. As DOD works to define its ISR capability 
requirements and improve integration of enterprisewide ISR 
capabilities, the department is faced with different and sometimes 
competing organizational cultures, funding arrangements, and 
requirements processes, reflecting the diverse missions of the many 
intelligence community agencies that DOD supports. This wide range of 
DOD ISR enterprise commitments across the U.S. intelligence community 
presents challenges for DOD as it works to increase ISR effectiveness 
and avoid unnecessary investments in ISR capabilities. 

DOD's ISR Enterprise Supports a Wide Array of Intelligence 
Organizations, Making Greater Integration Complex: 

DOD's ISR enterprise is comprised of many organizations and offices 
from both the defense intelligence community and the national 
intelligence community. DOD relies on both its own ISR assets and 
national ISR assets to provide comprehensive intelligence in support of 
its joint warfighting force. For example, the National Reconnaissance 
Office, a DOD agency, provides overhead reconnaissance satellites which 
may be used by national intelligence community members such as the 
Central Intelligence Agency. Figure 2 demonstrates that DOD's ISR 
enterprise supports a wide range of intelligence community 
organizations. 

Figure 2: DOD ISR Enterprise Relationship to the U.S. Intelligence 
Community: 

This figure is a chart showing DOD ISR enterprise relationship to the 
U.S. community with the following information: 

Director of National Intelligence: 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence: 

designated as: 

Director of Defense Intelligence in the Office of the Director of 
National Intelligence: 

Defense Intelligence Community: 

Members: 

* Defense Intelligence Agency; 

* National Security Agency; 

* National Reconnaissance Office; 

* Military Service Intelligence Branches; 
(Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps) 

National Intelligence Community: 

Members: 

* Central Intelligence Agency; 

* Department of Homeland Security; 

* Department of Energy; 

* Department of the Treasury; 

* Department of State; 

* Federal Bureau of Investigation; 

* Drug Enforcement Agency; 

* Coast Guard; 

DOD IST Enterprise: Provides capabilities in support of missions across 
the defense and national intelligence communities. 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: GAO analysis. 

[End of figure] 

DOD organizations are involved in providing intelligence information to 
both the defense and national intelligence communities, using their 
respective or joint ISR assets. In addition to the intelligence 
branches of the military services, there are four major intelligence 
agencies within DOD: the Defense Intelligence Agency; the National 
Security Agency; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; and the 
National Reconnaissance Office. The Defense Intelligence Agency is 
charged with providing all-source intelligence data to policy makers 
and U.S. armed forces around the world. The Director of the Defense 
Intelligence Agency, a three-star military officer, serves as the 
principal intelligence advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The National Security Agency is 
responsible for signals intelligence and has collection sites 
throughout the world. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency 
prepares the geospatial data, including maps and computerized databases 
necessary for targeting in an era dependent upon precision-guided 
weapons. The National Reconnaissance Office develops and operates 
reconnaissance satellites. Although these are DOD intelligence 
agencies, all of these organizations nevertheless provide intelligence 
information to meet the needs of the national intelligence community as 
well as DOD. The National Reconnaissance Office, in particular, is a 
joint organization where ultimate management and operational 
responsibility resides with the Secretary of Defense in concert with 
the Director of National Intelligence. In addition, the national 
intelligence community includes agencies such as the Central 
Intelligence Agency, whose responsibilities include providing foreign 
intelligence on national security issues to senior policymakers, as 
well as the intelligence-related components of other federal agencies, 
all of which have different missions and priorities. For example, the 
intelligence component of the Department of State is concerned with 
using intelligence information, among other things, to support U.S. 
diplomatic efforts, while the intelligence component of the Department 
of Energy may use intelligence to gauge the threat of nuclear terrorism 
and counter the spread of nuclear technologies and material. 

Different Organizational Cultures, Funding Arrangements, and 
Requirements Processes Present a Challenging Environment in Which to 
Coordinate DOD and National Intelligence Activities: 

The complex context of different organizational cultures, funding 
arrangements, requirements processes, and diverse missions of other 
members of the intelligence community that DOD supports presents a 
challenge for DOD in integrating its ISR enterprise, as highlighted by 
previous efforts to achieve greater ISR integration within DOD. 
Observers have noted in the past that cultural differences between the 
defense and national intelligence agencies and their different 
organizational constructs often impede close coordination. For example, 
Congress found in the past that DOD and the national intelligence 
community may not be well-positioned to coordinate their intelligence 
activities and programs, including ISR investments, in order to ensure 
unity of effort and avoid duplication of effort, and a congressionally 
chartered commission that reviewed the management and organization of 
national security space activities--known as the Space Commission-- 
noted that understanding the different organizational cultures of the 
defense and national space communities is important for achieving long- 
term integration. Subsequently, in 2003 and 2004, a joint task force of 
the Defense Science Board observed that there was no procedural 
mechanism for resolving differences between DOD and the national 
intelligence community over requirements and funding for national 
security space programs.[Footnote 15] In 2005, a private sector 
organization indicated that DOD and the intelligence community should 
improve their efforts to enhance information sharing and collaboration 
among the national security agencies of the U.S. government.[Footnote 
16] In addition, according to the ODNI, the traditional distinction 
between the intelligence missions of DOD and the national intelligence 
community have become increasingly blurred since the events of 
September 11, 2001, with DOD engaging in more strategic missions and 
the national intelligence community engaging in more tactical missions. 
Because of this trend, government decision makers have recognized the 
increased importance of ensuring effective coordination and integration 
between DOD and the national intelligence community in order to 
successfully address today's security threats. Two areas within DOD's 
ISR enterprise where coordination between DOD and the national 
intelligence community are important are: (1) managing funding and 
budget decisions for ISR capabilities, and (2) developing requirements 
for new ISR capabilities. DOD has two decision-support processes in 
place to conduct these functions: its Planning, Programming, Budgeting, 
and Execution process, and its Joint Capabilities Integration and 
Development System. However, DOD also coordinates with the Office of 
the Director of National Intelligence, which uses separate budgeting 
and requirements identification processes to manage the national 
intelligence budget. 

Previous Efforts toward ISR Integration Highlight Organizational 
Challenges: 

Past DOD efforts to integrate its own ISR activities with those of the 
national intelligence community have shown the difficulty of 
implementing organizational changes that may appear counter to 
institutional culture and prerogatives. For example, in its January 
2001 report, the Space Commission made recommendations to DOD to 
improve coordination, execution, and oversight of the department's 
space activities.[Footnote 17] Among other things, the Space Commission 
stated that the heads of the defense and national space communities 
should work closely and effectively together to set and maintain the 
course for national security space programs--a subset of ISR 
capabilities--and to resolve differences that arise between their 
respective bureaucracies. To accomplish this, the Space Commission 
called for the designation of a senior-level advocate for the defense 
and national space communities, with the aim of coordinating defense 
and intelligence space requirements. In response to this 
recommendation, in 2003 the department assigned to the DOD Executive 
Agent for Space the role of the Director of the National Reconnaissance 
Office, and the National Security Space Office was established to serve 
as the action agency of the DOD Executive Agent for Space. The National 
Security Space Office received both DOD and National Reconnaissance 
Office funding and was staffed by both DOD and National Reconnaissance 
Office personnel. However, in July 2005, the Secretary of Defense split 
the positions of the National Reconnaissance Office Director and the 
Executive Agent for Space by appointing an official to once again serve 
exclusively as the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, 
citing the need for dedicated leadership at that agency. The National 
Reconnaissance Office Director subsequently removed National 
Reconnaissance Office personnel and funding from the National Security 
Space Office, and restricted the National Security Space Office's 
access to a classified information-sharing network, thereby inhibiting 
efforts to further integrate defense and national space activities-- 
including ISR activities--as recommended by the Space Commission. In 
another case, DOD officials stated that, when developing the ISR 
Integration Roadmap, they had difficulty gaining information to include 
in the Roadmap on national-level ISR capabilities that were funded by 
the national intelligence budget. 

Funding of ISR Assets across DOD and National Intelligence Budgets 
Presents a Challenge for ISR Integration Efforts: 

Spending on most ISR programs is divided between the national 
intelligence budget, known as the National Intelligence Program (NIP), 
and the defense intelligence budget, known as the Military Intelligence 
Program (MIP). 

* The NIP consists of intelligence programs that support national 
decision makers, especially the President, the National Security 
Council, and the heads of cabinet departments, to include the 
Department of Defense. The Director of National Intelligence is 
responsible for developing and determining the annual NIP budget, 
which, according to the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence, amounted to $43.5 billion appropriated for fiscal year 
2007.[Footnote 18] To assist in this task, officials from the Office of 
the Director of National Intelligence stated that they currently use a 
framework known as the Intelligence Community Architecture, the focus 
of which is to facilitate the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence's intelligence budget deliberations by providing a set of 
repeatable processes and tools for decision makers to make informed 
investment decisions about what intelligence systems, including ISR 
systems, to buy. According to officials from the Office of the Director 
of National Intelligence, they are working with DOD to finalize 
guidance related to the Intelligence Community Architecture as of 
January 2008. 

* The MIP encompasses DOD-wide intelligence programs and most 
intelligence programs supporting the operating units of the military 
services. The USD(I) is responsible for compiling and developing the 
MIP budget. To assist in informing its investment decisions for MIP- 
funded activities, the USD(I) is currently employing an investment 
approach that is intended to develop and manage ISR capabilities across 
the entire department, rather than by military service or individual 
program, in order to enable interoperability of future ISR capabilities 
and reduce redundancies and gaps. The total amount of the annual MIP 
budget is classified. 

Given that DOD provides ISR capabilities to the national intelligence 
community, some defense organizations within DOD's ISR enterprise are 
funded through the NIP as well as the MIP. For example, three DOD 
intelligence agencies--the National Security Agency, the National 
Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency--
are included in the NIP. While the Director of National Intelligence is 
responsible for preparing a NIP budget that incorporates input from NIP-
funded defense agencies, such as the National Security Agency, National 
Reconnaissance Office, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 
USD(I) has responsibility for overseeing defense ISR capabilities 
within the NIP as well as within the MIP. The statutorily required 
guidelines to ensure the effective implementation of the Director of 
National Intelligence's authorities, including budgetary authority over 
defense intelligence agencies, had not been established as of January 
2008.[Footnote 19] In recognition of the importance of coordinated 
intelligence efforts, the Secretary of Defense and the Director of 
National Intelligence signed a memorandum of agreement in May 2007 that 
assigned the USD(I) the role of Director of Defense Intelligence within 
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, reinforcing the 
USD(I)'s responsibility for ensuring that the investments of both the 
defense and national intelligence communities are mutually supportive 
of each other's roles and missions. The specific responsibilities of 
this position were defined by a January 2008 agreement signed by the 
Director of National Intelligence, after consultation with the 
Secretary of Defense, but it is too early to know whether this new 
position will increase coordination between the defense and national 
intelligence communities with regard to planning for current and future 
spending on ISR capabilities. 

Although DOD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
have begun working together to coordinate funding mechanisms for joint 
programs, DOD efforts to ensure funding for major ISR programs that 
also support national intelligence missions can be complicated when 
funding for those systems is shared between the separate MIP and NIP 
budgets. For example, as the program executive for the DOD intelligence 
budget, the USD(I) is charged with coordinating DOD's ISR investments 
with those of the non-DOD intelligence community. A DOD official stated 
that, as part of the fiscal year 2008 ISR budget deliberations, the 
USD(I) and the Air Force argued that funding for the Space Based 
Infrared Radar System and Space Radar satellite systems, which are 
managed jointly by the Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office, 
should be shared between the DOD ISR budget and the national 
intelligence community ISR budget to better reflect that these programs 
support both DOD and national intelligence priorities. As a result, 
according to a DOD official, USD(I) negotiated a cost-sharing 
arrangement with the Director of National Intelligence, and, although 
the Air Force believed that its funding contribution under the cost- 
sharing agreement was too high, the Deputy Secretary of Defense 
ultimately decided that the Air Force would assume the higher funding 
level. A DOD official stated that the delay in funding for the Space 
Radar system caused its initial operational capability date to be 
pushed back by approximately one year. 

Separate Defense and Non-Defense ISR Requirements Processes Add to 
Complexity of ISR Integration: 

In addition to having separate intelligence budgets, DOD and the Office 
of the Director of National Intelligence also conduct separate 
processes to identify future requirements. 

* In DOD, proposals for new ISR capabilities are often developed by the 
individual services, which identify their respective military needs in 
accordance with their Title 10 responsibilities to train and equip 
their forces.[Footnote 20] Proposals for new ISR capabilities may also 
be developed by defense agencies or combatant commands. Proposals for 
new ISR capabilities that support defense intelligence requirements may 
be submitted through DOD's JCIDS process, at which time the department 
is to review the proposals to ensure that they meet the full range of 
challenges that the services may face when operating together as a 
joint force. 

* The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has its own 
separate process, carried out by the Mission Requirements Board, which 
is intended to serve as the approval mechanism for future national 
intelligence requirements as well as to provide input on future 
intelligence capabilities being acquired by DOD that may also support 
national intelligence community missions. According to officials from 
both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and DOD, the 
process carried out by the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence is evolving and is less formalized than DOD's JCIDS 
process. 

These separate ISR requirements identification processes for DOD and 
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence may present 
challenges for DOD since there are not yet any standard procedures for 
ensuring that ISR capability proposals affecting both the defense and 
national intelligence communities are reviewed in a timely manner by 
both processes. Although there is coordination between the two 
processes, DOD officials related that the nature of the relationship 
between JCIDS and the Mission Requirements Board process is still 
unclear. Officials from the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence confirmed that the structure of their office is still 
evolving, and therefore no standard process currently exists for 
determining what DOD capability proposals the Mission Requirements 
Board will review, or what criteria will be used to conduct such 
reviews. Officials from the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence stated that Mission Requirements Board members exercise 
their professional judgment on which DOD systems need to be reviewed 
and whether enough of the capability is already being delivered by 
existing systems. Although there is a 2001 Director of Central 
Intelligence directive that establishes the Mission Requirements Board 
and calls upon it to oversee, in consultation with DOD's Joint 
Requirements Oversight Council, the development of requirements 
documents that are common to both national and joint military 
operational users, this directive contains no specific criteria for 
doing so. Officials from the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence stated that they are planning to update this 2001 
directive on the Mission Requirements Board. Moreover, coordinating the 
separate requirements processes to ensure that an ISR capability 
proposal receives timely input on requirements from both DOD and the 
national intelligence community can be challenging. DOD and the Office 
of the Director of National Intelligence have not determined systematic 
procedures or clear guidance for handling situations in which they have 
different opinions on ISR capability proposals. For example, the 
Mission Requirements Board did not approve a proposal for a new ISR 
capability to ensure that the proposal incorporated certain changes, 
even though DOD had already given its approval to the proposal through 
the JCIDS process. The unclear nature of the relationship between DOD's 
and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's ISR 
requirements identification processes may complicate DOD efforts to 
develop future ISR systems that provide capabilities across the defense 
and national intelligence communities. 

DOD Has Initiatives to Improve the Integration of Its Future ISR 
Investments, but the Initiatives Do Not Provide Key Management Tools 
Needed to Effectively Guide ISR Investments: 

To improve the integration of its ISR investments, DOD has developed 
two initiatives--the ISR Integration Roadmap and a test case for 
managing ISR investments as part of a departmentwide portfolio of 
capabilities. [Footnote 21] These initiatives are positive steps toward 
managing ISR investments from an enterprise-level perspective rather 
than from a service or agency perspective. However, our review has 
shown that these initiatives do not provide ISR decision makers with 
two key management tools: (1) a clearly defined vision of a future ISR 
enterprise that lays out what investments are needed to achieve 
strategic goals, and (2) a unified investment management approach with 
a framework that ISR decision makers can use to weigh the relative 
costs, benefits, and risks of proposed investments using established 
criteria and methods. Without these key tools, ISR decision makers lack 
a robust ISR analytical framework they can use to assess different ISR 
investments in order to identify the best return on investment in light 
of strategic goals. As a result, senior DOD leaders are not well- 
positioned to exert discipline over ISR spending to ensure ISR 
investments reflect enterprisewide priorities and strategic goals. 

The ISR Roadmap Does Not Provide a Clear Vision of a Future ISR 
Enterprise That Lays Out What Capabilities Are Required to Achieve 
DOD's Strategic Goals: 

Based on our review and analysis, DOD's ISR Integration Roadmap does 
not yet provide (1) a clear vision of a future integrated ISR 
enterprise that identifies what ISR capabilities are needed to achieve 
DOD's strategic goals, or (2) a framework for evaluating tradeoffs 
between competing ISR capability needs and assessing how ISR capability 
investments contribute toward achieving those goals. DOD issued the ISR 
Integration Roadmap in May 2005 in response to a statutory requirement 
that directed USD(I) to develop a comprehensive plan to guide the 
development and integration of DOD ISR capabilities. DOD updated the 
Roadmap in January 2007. As we testified in April 2007, the Roadmap 
comprises a catalogue of detailed information on all the ISR assets 
being used and developed across DOD, including ISR capabilities related 
to collection, communication, exploitation, and analysis. Given the 
vast scope of ISR capabilities, which operate in a variety of media and 
encompass a range of intelligence disciplines, the ISR Integration 
Roadmap represents a significant effort on the part of DOD to bring 
together information needed to assess the strengths and weaknesses of 
current ISR capabilities. DOD officials have acknowledged that the 
Roadmap has limitations and stated that those limitations will be 
addressed in future revisions. 

As DOD develops future revisions of the ISR Integration Roadmap, 
enterprise architecture is a valuable management tool that the 
department could use to develop a clear vision of a future ISR 
enterprise and a framework for evaluating tradeoffs between competing 
ISR needs and assessing how future ISR investments contribute to 
achieving strategic goals. Our previous work has shown that effective 
use of enterprise architecture is a hallmark of successful public and 
private organizations.[Footnote 22] An enterprise architecture provides 
a clear and comprehensive picture of that organization, consisting of 
snapshots of its current (As-Is) state and its target (To-Be) state, 
and a transition plan for moving between the two states, and 
incorporates considerations such as technology opportunities, fiscal 
and budgetary constraints, legacy and new system dependencies and life 
expectancies, and the projected value of competing investments. DOD and 
federal guidance on enterprise architecture state that a framework for 
achieving an integrated enterprise should be based on a clearly defined 
target architecture, or vision, for a future enterprise derived from an 
analysis of the organization's future requirements and strategic 
goals.[Footnote 23] A target architecture for the DOD ISR enterprise 
would (1) describe the structure of the future ISR enterprise and its 
desired capabilities in a way that is closely aligned with DOD ISR 
enterprise strategic goals, and (2) include metrics that facilitate 
evaluating tradeoffs between different investments and periodic 
assessment of progress toward achieving strategic goals. [Footnote 24] 
Since it is likely that the architecture will evolve over time and be 
revised, it may also include an exploration of alternative investment 
options, and an acknowledgment of unknown factors. A clearly defined 
target architecture that depicts what ISR capabilities are required to 
achieve strategic goals would provide DOD with a framework for 
assessing its ISR capability gaps and overlaps by comparing its 
existing ISR capabilities to those laid out in the target architecture. 
Identified capability gaps and overlaps would be the basis for guiding 
future ISR capability investments in order to transition the ISR 
enterprise from its current state toward the desired target 
architecture. Furthermore, as our previous work has emphasized, 
resources for investments such as those in ISR capabilities are likely 
to be constrained by fiscal challenges in the federal budget.[Footnote 
25] By clearly defining what ISR capabilities are required to achieve 
strategic goals over time, with metrics for assessing progress, an ISR 
target architecture would provide DOD with a framework for prioritizing 
its ISR investments when programs are affected by fiscal or 
technological constraints and an understanding of how changes to 
investment decisions in response to those constraints affect progress 
toward achieving strategic goals. 

The ISR Integration Roadmap does not provide a clearly defined target 
architecture--or vision--of a future ISR enterprise or a framework for 
assessing progress toward achieving this vision because, in developing 
the Roadmap, USD(I) chose to take an incremental approach that limited 
it to articulating how capabilities already in DOD's existing ISR 
budget support strategic goals, rather than developing a longer term, 
more comprehensive target architecture based on an analysis of ISR 
capability needs beyond those defined in the existing DOD budget. In 
doing so, DOD did not fully address the time frame and subject areas 
listed in the statute. Congress tasked USD(I) to develop a plan to 
guide the development and integration of DOD ISR capabilities from 2004 
through 2018, and to provide a report with information about six 
different management aspects of the ISR enterprise. However, USD(I) 
limited the Roadmap to the 5-year period covered by the existing ISR 
budget, and did not address three of the six areas the statute 
listed.[Footnote 26] The three areas listed in the statute that USD(I) 
did not cover were (1) how DOD intelligence information could enhance 
DOD's role in homeland security, (2) how counterintelligence activities 
of the armed forces and DOD intelligence agencies could be better 
integrated, and (3) how funding authorizations and appropriations could 
be optimally structured to best support development of a fully 
integrated ISR architecture. USD(I) officials stated that due to the 
difficulty of projecting future operational requirements given ever- 
changing threats and missions, developing a detailed future ISR 
architecture beyond the scope of the capabilities already included in 
the 5-year ISR budget is very challenging. As such, the initial 
versions of the ISR Integration Roadmap were limited to the existing 
ISR budget. 

Due to the limited scope of the ISR Integration Roadmap, it does not 
present a clear vision of what ISR capabilities are required to achieve 
strategic goals. In relying on DOD's existing ISR budget rather than 
developing a target architecture that details what ISR capabilities are 
required to achieve strategic goals, the Roadmap does not provide ISR 
decision makers with a point of reference against which to compare 
existing DOD ISR assets with those needed to achieve strategic goals. A 
clearly defined point of reference is needed to comprehensively 
identify capability gaps or overlaps. This limits the utility of the 
Roadmap as a basis of an ISR investment strategy linked to achieving 
strategic goals. For example, the most recent revision of the ISR 
Integration Roadmap lists global persistent surveillance as an ISR 
strategic goal but does not define the requirements for global 
persistent surveillance or how DOD will use current and future ISR 
assets to attain that goal. [Footnote 27] The Roadmap states that the 
department will conduct a study to define DOD's complete requirements 
for achieving global persistent surveillance. The study was launched in 
2006 but was limited to the planning and direction of ISR assets, which 
constitutes only one of the six intelligence activities, collectively 
known as the intelligence process, that would interact to achieve the 
global persistent surveillance goal.[Footnote 28] Because the study is 
limited to only the planning and direction intelligence activity, it 
will not examine whether there are capability gaps or overlaps in other 
areas, such as collection systems that include unmanned aircraft 
systems and satellites, or its intelligence information-sharing 
systems, and therefore is unlikely to define complete requirements for 
achieving this strategic goal. While DOD has other analytical efforts 
that could be used in assessing global persistent surveillance 
capability needs, these efforts are generally limited in scope to 
addressing the immediate needs of their respective sponsors. For 
example, U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command 
for ISR conducts assessments of ISR asset utilization and needs. 
However, these assessments are primarily intended to inform that 
organization's ISR asset allocation process, rather than to identify 
enterprisewide capability gaps with respect to strategic goals. 

Further, lacking a target architecture, the Roadmap does not provide 
ISR decision makers a framework for evaluating tradeoffs between 
competing needs and assessing progress in achieving goals. As figure 3 
illustrates, a clearly defined ISR target architecture would serve as a 
point of reference for ISR decision makers to develop a transition 
plan, or investment strategy for future ISR capability investments, 
based on an analysis that identifies capability gaps and overlaps 
against the ISR capabilities needed to achieve the target architecture, 
which would be based on DOD ISR strategic goals. Such an analysis would 
provide ISR decision makers with an underlying analytical framework to 
(1) quantify the extent of shortfalls, (2) evaluate tradeoffs between 
competing needs, and (3) derive a set of metrics to assess how future 
ISR investments contribute to addressing capability shortfalls. With 
this analytical framework, ISR decision makers at all levels of DOD 
would have a common set of analytical tools to understand how changing 
investment levels in different ISR capabilities would affect progress 
toward achieving goals. This same set of tools could be used by 
different ISR stakeholders evaluating how proposed ISR capabilities 
contribute to addressing different gaps or to possibly saturating a 
given capability area. For example, such a framework would allow ISR 
decision makers to identify areas where ISR collection capabilities are 
sufficiently robust or even saturated--areas where further investment 
may not be warranted given priority needs in other less robust 
collection areas. 

Figure 3: Application of Enterprise Architecture Principles to the DOD 
ISR Enterprise: 

This figure is a flowchart showing the application of enterprise 
architecture principles to the DOD ISR enterprise. 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: GAO analysis of federal enterprise architecture guidance. 

[End of figure] 

Moreover, lacking a target architecture that depicts what capabilities 
are required to achieve DOD's strategic goals for the ISR enterprise, 
the Roadmap does not serve as a guide for the development of future ISR 
capabilities. A comprehensive source of information on how different 
ISR capabilities support strategic goals, and relate to other ISR 
capabilities, would be useful not only to ISR decision makers 
evaluating tradeoffs between competing needs, but also to program 
managers developing proposals for new ISR capabilities. Officials 
responsible for reviewing proposals for new ISR capabilities stated 
that a long-term vision of a future end state for the ISR enterprise 
would help sponsors to see what future ISR capabilities DOD needs and 
how their needs align with DOD's strategic goals. For example, 
officials from DOD's National Signatures Program said that, although 
they had a clear program goal in mind when developing their proposal 
for this new ISR capability, they experienced difficulty in developing 
an architecture because they lacked a comprehensive source of 
information to assess the full range of DOD and non-DOD databases and 
ISR assets that their proposed program would need to support.[Footnote 
29] Instead, these officials had to conduct an ad hoc survey of the ISR 
community, primarily in the form of meetings with other groups that 
maintained signatures databases, to ensure their program would be 
sufficiently interoperable with other information-sharing networks and 
ISR sensors. Without a clearly defined target architecture for the ISR 
enterprise, DOD lacks an analytical framework for conducting a 
comprehensive assessment of what investments are required to achieve 
ISR strategic goals, or for prioritizing investments in different areas 
when faced with competing needs. 

Instead of providing an underlying analytical framework, the ISR 
Integration Roadmap simply lists capability gaps that exist with 
respect to DOD ISR strategic objectives, and depicts ISR capability 
investments already in the DOD ISR budget as fully meeting those 
capability shortfalls. For example, the Roadmap lists as an ISR 
strategic goal the achievement of "horizontal integration of 
intelligence information," which is broadly defined as making 
intelligence information within the defense intelligence enterprise 
more accessible, understandable, and retrievable. The Roadmap then 
lists a variety of ISR investments in DOD's 5-year ISR budget as the 
means of achieving this strategic goal. For example, one of these 
investments is the Distributed Common Ground System, a major DOD 
intelligence information-sharing network that spans the entire DOD 
intelligence community. However, the Roadmap does not present an 
analysis to facilitate evaluation of tradeoffs in that it does not 
quantify how the Distributed Common Ground System and other DOD 
information-sharing networks fall short of meeting the "horizontal 
integration of intelligence information" strategic goal, nor does it 
examine the extent to which some aspects of that capability area may in 
fact be saturated. Furthermore, the Roadmap does not prioritize 
investments in the Distributed Common Ground System with other major 
investments intended to achieve this strategic goal, or define their 
interrelationships. Finally, the Roadmap does not provide metrics to 
allow decision makers to assess how these investments contribute to 
achieving the "horizontal integration of intelligence information" 
strategic goal. For example, if the Distributed Common Ground System 
were to face fiscal or technological constraints, ISR decision makers 
would not have the information needed to assess what the impact would 
be on ISR strategic goals if it should not achieve those capability 
milestones as envisioned in the Roadmap. As a result, ISR decision 
makers cannot assess how new ISR capabilities would contribute to 
elimination of whatever capability gaps exist in that area, determine 
the most important gaps to fill, or make tough go/no-go decisions if 
those capabilities do not meet expectations. 

The ISR Portfolio Management Effort Does Not Facilitate a Unified 
Investment Approach Needed to Guide DOD's ISR Investments: 

While DOD's ISR portfolio management effort is intended to enable the 
department to better integrate its ISR capabilities, it does not 
provide a framework for effectively evaluating different ISR investment 
options or clearly empower the ISR portfolio manager to direct ISR 
spending. As a result, DOD is not well-positioned to implement a 
unified investment approach that exerts discipline over ISR investments 
to ensure they reflect enterprisewide priorities and achieve strategic 
goals. In September 2006, the Deputy Secretary of Defense decided to 
bring ISR systems across the DOD together into a capability portfolio 
as part of a test case for the joint capability portfolio management 
concept. Under this concept, a group of military capabilities, such as 
ISR capabilities, is managed as a joint portfolio, in order to enable 
DOD to develop and manage ISR capabilities across the entire 
department--rather than by military service or individual program--and 
by doing so, to improve the interoperability of future capabilities, 
minimize capability redundancies and gaps, and maximize capability 
effectiveness. The USD(I) was assigned as the lead office for this ISR 
portfolio, which is known as the battlespace awareness 
portfolio.[Footnote 30] As the portfolio manager for ISR investments, 
the role and authorities of the USD(I) are limited to two primarily 
advisory functions: (1) USD(I) is given access to, and may participate 
in, service and DOD agency budget deliberations on proposed ISR 
capability investments, and (2) USD(I) may recommend that service and 
DOD agency ISR spending be altered as part of the established DOD 
budget review process.[Footnote 31] Under this arrangement, USD(I)'s 
recommendations represent one of many points of view that are 
considered by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and other DOD offices 
involved in reviewing and issuing budget guidance, and therefore USD(I) 
lacks the ability to ensure ISR spending reflects enterprisewide 
priorities to achieve strategic goals. 

Our previous work on portfolio management best practices has shown that 
large organizations, such as DOD's ISR enterprise, are most successful 
in managing investments through a single enterprisewide 
approach.[Footnote 32] Further, to be effective, portfolio management 
is enabled by strong governance with committed leadership, clearly 
aligned organizational roles and responsibilities, and portfolio 
managers empowered to determine the best way to invest resources. To 
achieve a balanced mix of programs and ensure a good return on their 
investments, successful large commercial companies that we have 
reviewed take a unified, enterprise-level approach to assessing new 
investments, rather than employing multiple, independent initiatives. 
They weigh the relative costs, benefits, and risks for proposed 
investments using established criteria and methods, and select those 
investments that can best move the company toward meeting its strategic 
goals and objectives. Their investment decisions are frequently 
revisited to ensure products are still of high value, and if a product 
falls short of expectations, they make tough go/no-go decisions. 

We have previously recommended that DOD establish portfolio managers 
who are empowered to prioritize needs, make early go/no-go decisions 
about alternative solutions, and allocate resources within fiscal 
constraints.[Footnote 33] However, since DOD is still developing the 
capability portfolio management effort, it has not fully defined the 
role of the portfolio managers or their authority over spending. DOD's 
September 2006 guidance on the implementation of the portfolio 
management test case discusses options for increased authority over 
spending for the portfolio managers.[Footnote 34] Nevertheless, USD(I) 
and DOD officials involved in the implementation of the portfolio 
management effort stated that DOD views the role of the portfolio 
managers primarily as providing an assessment of spending in their 
respective portfolio areas independent of the analysis offered by the 
military services in support of their ISR spending proposals. If 
USD(I)'s portfolio management role is limited to an advisory function 
as DOD moves forward in implementing its portfolio management effort, 
situations where senior DOD officials must evaluate the merits of 
alternate analyses that advocate different solutions to ISR capability 
needs are likely to continue to arise. A robust ISR analytical 
framework based on a well-defined ISR target architecture would 
establish a common methodology and criteria, as called for by portfolio 
management best practices, that is agreed upon by the various ISR 
stakeholders and that can be used for conducting a data-driven 
assessment of different ISR capability solutions. For example, as part 
of fiscal year 2008 ISR budget deliberations, USD(I) conducted an 
analysis of planned increases in fiscal year 2008 funding to procure 
more Predator unmanned aircraft systems in order to meet U.S. Central 
Command's need for increased surveillance capability.[Footnote 35] U.S. 
Central Command and the Air Force conducted an analysis that was based 
on validating the requirement for more aircraft, rather than on 
examining potential efficiencies in other aspects of employing them. As 
the ISR portfolio manager, USD(I)'s analysis focused on identifying 
opportunities for increased efficiencies in how existing Predators were 
being employed in surveillance missions. USD(I) determined, among other 
things, that Predator support to deployed forces was not being 
maximized because each ground control station could only operate one 
Predator aircraft at a time, resulting in gaps in the coverage of a 
target as Predator aircraft rotated to and from the launch area. On the 
basis of this analysis, USD(I) concluded that planned increases in 
fiscal year 2008 Predator spending may not be the best, or only, 
solution to U.S. Central Command's need for more surveillance 
capability; instead, the solution should include additional Predator 
ground control stations, or the tasking of other ISR assets in 
situations where a Predator would have longer transit times to and from 
the target area. The ISR Integration Council agreed with the USD(I)'s 
recommendation. Ultimately, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who makes 
final decisions on changes advocated by the ISR portfolio manager, 
included the increase in Predator aircraft spending in the fiscal year 
2008 budget. However, lacking a single, agreed-upon framework within 
the ISR enterprise for evaluating the merits of the alternate analyses 
advocating different capability solutions, DOD officials did not have 
the benefit of a single, authoritative analysis that identified the 
best return on investment of these different ISR investment options in 
light of strategic goals and validated requirements. Given USD(I)'s 
limited authority as the ISR capability portfolio manager, and the lack 
of a framework for effectively evaluating alternate investment plans, 
DOD is constrained in its ability to implement an enterprise-level, 
unified investment approach that employs a single set of established 
criteria to ensure its ISR investments reflect enterprisewide 
priorities and strategic goals. 

DOD Has Not Fully Implemented Its Process to Develop, Integrate, and 
Approve Future ISR Capabilities: 

DOD has not implemented key activities within the JCIDS process to 
ensure that proposed new ISR capabilities are filling gaps, are not 
duplicative, and use a joint approach to addressing warfighters' needs. 
The services and DOD organizations that sponsored most of the JCIDS 
proposals for new ISR capabilities since 2003 have not conducted 
comprehensive assessments, and the BA FCB has not fully conducted key 
oversight activities. Specifically, our review of 19 proposals for new 
ISR capabilities that sponsors submitted to the BA FCB since 2003 
showed that 12 sponsors did not complete the capabilities-based 
assessment of current and planned ISR systems called for by Joint Staff 
policy in order to identify possible solutions to meet warfighters' 
needs. We also found that, for the 7 sponsors who did conduct these 
assessments, the assessments varied in completeness and rigor. 
Moreover, we found that the BA FCB did not systematically coordinate 
with the sponsors during the sponsors' assessment process to help 
ensure the quality of the assessments, and did not generally review the 
assessments once they were completed. As a result, DOD lacks assurance 
that ISR capabilities approved through JCIDS provide joint solutions to 
DOD's ISR capability needs and are the solutions that best minimize 
inefficiency and redundancy. 

Lack of Complete and Rigorous Analysis Hampers DOD's Process That 
Informs the Development of Its ISR Capabilities: 

Joint Staff policy and guidance implementing the JCIDS process, as well 
as a significant DOD study on defense capabilities,[Footnote 36] 
indicate the importance of analyzing capability needs from a 
crosscutting, department-level perspective to enable a consistent view 
of priorities and acceptable risks. Specifically, Joint Staff 
policy[Footnote 37] on the JCIDS process calls for sponsors to use a 
robust analytical process to ensure that the proposed ways to fill 
capability gaps are joint and efficient to the maximum extent 
possible.[Footnote 38] This analytical process is known as a 
capabilities-based assessment, and Joint Staff policy and guidance 
specify that a capabilities-based assessment should include an analysis 
of the full range of existing and developmental ISR capabilities to 
confirm whether a shortcoming in mission performance exists, and of 
possible ways to fix those shortcomings, such as modifications to 
existing systems and the use of national-level systems. Nonetheless, 
Joint Staff guidance also notes that the breadth and depth of a 
capabilities-based assessment must be tailored to suit the issue, due 
to the wide array of issues considered as part of the capabilities- 
based assessment process.[Footnote 39] 

The Majority of ISR Capability Proposals Lacked Assessments Called for 
under the JCIDS Process: 

Despite Joint Staff policy that calls for capabilities-based 
assessments, we found that 12 sponsors--almost two-thirds--did not 
carry out capabilities-based assessments to identify the ISR 
capabilities that they proposed to the Joint Staff as ways to meet 
warfighters' needs. Figure 4 lists the 19 ISR capability proposals we 
reviewed and specifies which proposals were supported by capabilities- 
based assessments. [Footnote 40] Figure 4 also shows that three of the 
proposals that lacked capabilities-based assessments were ones that DOD 
expected to cost more than $365 million for research, development, test 
and evaluation, or more than $2.190 billion for procurement, using 
fiscal year 2000 constant dollars.[Footnote 41] 

Figure 4: List of Proposals with and without Assessments, and Those 
with Highest Expected Cost Since 2003: 

This figure is a timeline list of proposals with and without 
assessments, and those with highest expected cost since 2003. 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD documents. 

Note: Line spacing indicating date of ISR capability proposals is 
sequential but not proportional. Also, the chronology reflects the date 
listed on each ISR capability proposal, which may not be the same as 
the date on which the proposal was reviewed by the BA FCB. 

[End of figure] 

The 12 sponsors that did not conduct capabilities-based assessments, as 
called for under the JCIDS process, cited the following reasons for not 
doing them: 

* Sponsors decided to use pre-existing analysis as an alternative to 
the capabilities-based assessment. Many of the sponsors that did not 
conduct formal capabilities-based assessments nevertheless based their 
proposals for new ISR capabilities on other forms of analysis or pre- 
existing mission needs statements. For example, Air Force sponsors 
stated that they supported their ISR capability proposal with analysis 
conducted in 1998 and 1999 and a mission needs statement from 2002, 
before JCIDS was implemented, while National Security Agency sponsors 
used the results of a substantial analytical effort they had completed 
just prior to the implementation of JCIDS in 2003. We did not evaluate 
these alternative types of analysis because they were not required to 
take the form of capabilities-based assessments as called for by Joint 
Staff policy and guidance on JCIDS. 

* Sponsors had developed the capabilities prior to the implementation 
of JCIDS. Two Air Force proposals, both submitted to the Joint Staff in 
2004, lacked capabilities-based assessments and, according to the 
sponsors of each, the Air Force had previously developed ISR systems 
that were similar to those described in their proposals prior to the 
implementation of JCIDS. Once JCIDS was implemented, the sponsor sought 
to obtain Joint Staff approval through the new process; since their ISR 
systems were already in development and pre-JCIDS analysis may have 
been conducted, the sponsors did not conduct the capabilities-based 
assessments. Other sponsors that had developed ISR systems prior to 
JCIDS being implemented nevertheless conducted capabilities-based 
assessments when they submitted their proposals. For example, one 
sponsor developed its proposal and performed its assessment at least 2 
years after its organization officially established the program, and 
another sponsor's proposal was for a capability to be delivered through 
an upgrade of an aircraft developed in the late 1960s. These sponsors 
also sought approval for their ISR systems through the new JCIDS 
process, but since their systems were already in development, our 
review showed that these sponsors' capabilities-based assessments 
indicated they had the solution already in mind when conducting the 
assessments. 

* Sponsors developed the capabilities through DOD processes other than 
JCIDS. Joint Staff policy allows for sponsors to develop a new 
capability through processes other than JCIDS and then later submit it 
to the Joint Staff for approval through JCIDS. For example, one sponsor 
said that it did not perform an assessment prior to developing its 
proposal because the service originally developed and validated the 
proposed capability through a technology demonstration process separate 
from the JCIDS process.[Footnote 42] 

* Sponsors lacked clear guidance on the JCIDS process, including how to 
conduct a capabilities-based assessment. One Air Force sponsor that 
submitted an ISR capability proposal in 2005 said that the Joint Staff 
policy implementing the JCIDS process was relatively new at the time, 
and did not contain clear guidance about how to conduct a capabilities- 
based assessment. Another sponsor did not conduct an assessment because 
the ISR capability it sought to develop was not a system, but rather a 
way of carrying out ISR-related activities, and it believed that, in 
such cases, a capabilities-based assessment was not expected. 

* Sponsors had limited time and resources in which to carry out a 
capabilities-based assessment. Two sponsors cited lack of resources, 
including time, as a reason for not conducting a capabilities-based 
assessment. In one of these cases, the sponsor noted that conducting a 
capabilities-based assessment would not likely have resulted in a 
different type of capability being proposed to the Joint Staff. 

One-Third of ISR Capability Proposals Included Assessments, but 
Assessments Varied in Rigor and Completeness: 

Our review found that 7 of the 19 sponsors conducted capabilities-based 
assessments, but these assessments varied in rigor and completeness. 
For example, 4 of these 7 sponsors did not include the cost information 
called for by Joint Staff guidance and 1 sponsor completed only one 
phase of the capabilities-based assessment. Figure 5 shows the 7 
sponsors that did conduct capabilities-based assessments in support of 
their proposals and the extent to which these assessments contained 
elements called for by Joint Staff policy and guidance. We assessed 
these proposals as lacking an element called for by Joint Staff policy 
and guidance when our document review of the sponsor's capabilities- 
based assessment found no evidence of the element. Additional 
information about our methodology for conducting this analysis is 
contained in appendix I. 

Figure 5: Extent to Which Seven ISR Capability Proposals Since 2003 
Included a Capabilities-Based Assessment That Incorporated Key Elements 
of Joint Staff Policy and Guidance[A]: 

Sponsoring organization: Air Force; 
ISR capability: Expeditionary Delivery of Airborne Full Motion Video; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Partially; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: Yes; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: No; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: No. 

Sponsoring organization: Army; 
ISR capability: Sequoyah Foreign Language Translation System; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Partially; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: No; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: No. 

Sponsoring organization: Defense Intelligence Agency; 
ISR capability: National Signatures Program; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Partially; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: No; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: Yes. 

Sponsoring organization: Marine Corps; 
ISR capability: Joint Tier II Unmanned Aircraft System; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Yes; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: 
Partially. 

Sponsoring organization: Marine Corps; 
ISR capability: Vertical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Yes; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: Yes; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: 
Partially. 

Sponsoring organization: Navy; 
ISR capability: Full Spectrum Intelligence; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Yes; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: Yes; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: Yes; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: No. 

Sponsoring organization: Navy; 
ISR capability: Littoral Battlespace Sensing, Fusion, and Integration; 
Completeness of analytical support: Full review conducted: Partially; 
Completeness of analytical support: Cost information provided: No; 
Rigor of analytical support: Full range of existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities considered: No; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential modifications considered: 
Partially; 
Rigor of analytical support: Potential redundancies considered: No. 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: GAO analysis of DOD documents. 

[A] Joint Staff policy and guidance with regard to figure 5 refers to 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manuals 3170.01(2003), 3170.01A 
(2004), 3170.01B (2005), and 3170.01C (2007), and Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01F (2007). 

[End of figure] 

The majority of the seven capabilities-based assessments that we 
reviewed did not consider the full range of existing ISR capabilities, 
including the use of national systems, such as satellites, as potential 
ways to fill identified shortcomings. For example, only one assessment 
documented that the sponsor had considered the use of national systems. 
Specifically, one Air Force sponsor's capabilities-based assessment 
showed consideration of the use of satellites to assist in quickly 
sending intelligence information gathered by unmanned aircraft systems 
to the warfighter in theater. The remaining six sponsors did not 
demonstrate in their capabilities-based assessments that they had fully 
assessed the use of national systems, although two of the assessments 
addressed capabilities that were unlikely to utilize national systems 
as potential solutions, such as a foreign language translation 
capability and an intelligence database. The sponsors who did not fully 
assess the potential for national systems to fill gaps gave a number of 
reasons for this. Navy sponsors of a manned platform told us that 
satellites were not included among the ways that they considered to 
fill capability gaps because the personnel conducting the assessment 
did not possess the appropriate security clearances needed to evaluate 
national systems and because of lack of time. Moreover, Marine Corps 
sponsors reported that neither of their two unmanned aircraft system 
capability proposals fully evaluated the use of satellites as potential 
ways to meet ISR needs because they assumed that satellites could not 
be quickly re-tasked to support the tactical user and lacked the 
imagery quality needed. In one of their assessments, they noted that 
satellite data, when available, are not responsive enough to the 
tactical user due to the long processing time, and that tactical users 
of satellite data also face challenges resulting from lack of 
connectivity between the systems that provide these data. In the other 
assessment, Marine Corps sponsors stated that one of their assumptions 
in conducting the analysis was that satellites, as well as theater- 
level unmanned aircraft systems, would not be available to support 
Marine Corps tactical operations. 

All seven sponsors that conducted capabilities-based assessments 
considered the capacity of some existing and developing systems to meet 
capability gaps, but none documented in their assessments whether and 
how these systems could be modified to fill capability gaps--a 
potentially less expensive and less time-consuming solution than 
developing a new system. In some cases, DOD achieved efficiencies by 
combining related acquisition programs, although these actions were not 
the result of sponsors proactively seeking reduced overlap and 
duplication. For example, in the capabilities-based assessment for one 
of its two unmanned aircraft systems, Marine Corps sponsors identified 
several solutions with the potential to provide an ISR capability using 
existing or planned assets. Identified solutions included relying on or 
adopting systems provided by other services. In this case, the sponsors 
did not propose modifications to any existing systems as potential 
solutions or demonstrate that they considered leveraging the 
capabilities resident in a similar Navy unmanned aircraft system. The 
Joint Staff approved this proposal and Marine Corps officials plan to 
develop a new system that addresses Marine Corps warfighting 
requirements for vertical takeoff and landing capability for use on 
ships. In contrast, in another case involving a proposed capability 
sponsored by the Marine Corps, at the direction of the Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, the 
Marine Corps combined its unmanned aircraft system program with a 
different Navy effort to form a single acquisition program, with the 
goal of producing an integrated and interoperable solution, reducing 
costs, and eliminating overlap and duplication of development efforts. 
In this case, the JCIDS process did not help to identify the potential 
for collaboration on similar ISR capabilities. 

The majority of sponsors' capabilities-based assessments that we 
reviewed did not mention redundancies that existed or might result from 
the development of their proposed new ISR capabilities. Specifically, 
only three of the seven sponsors demonstrated that they had considered 
potential redundancies in ISR capabilities when conducting their 
assessments. For example, the Defense Intelligence Agency sponsor of a 
proposal to develop a database cited the need to reduce redundant data 
systems as a reason for its proposed capability. In addition, a Marine 
Corps sponsor noted in its capabilities-based assessment that existing 
ISR systems are experiencing overlaps in five capability areas related 
to identification, monitoring, and tracking. Despite these examples of 
identified redundancies in existing ISR capabilities, all of the 
sponsors concluded that important capability gaps still existed and 
submitted proposals that supported the development of a new ISR 
capability. 

The seven sponsors of the capabilities-based assessments that were not 
thorough and complete provided similar reasons as those provided by the 
sponsors that did not conduct capabilities-based assessments at all-- 
for example, a shortage of time and resources and confusion about what 
was required under the JCIDS process. In addition, some sponsors had 
already developed a capability, or had the intended solution in mind, 
when conducting their capabilities-based assessments. Moreover, 
sponsors that conducted the assessments were hindered by a lack of 
comprehensive information on existing and developmental ISR 
capabilities that might potentially be used to fill the identified 
capability gap, and so could not use this information to fully inform 
their assessments. Several sponsors that conducted assessments told us 
that they faced challenges in identifying the full range of existing 
and developmental-stage ISR systems, in part because no centralized 
source of information existed. For example, Army sponsors of a language 
translation capability said that, despite use of personal connections 
and outreach to identify existing and developmental technologies, it 
was only after they had finished their capabilities-based assessment 
that they learned of a particular ISR technology that could have 
informed their assessment. Sponsors agreed that a source of readily 
available information on existing and developmental ISR capabilities 
would be useful. 

DOD Has Not Fully Implemented Key Oversight Activities in the Process 
for Developing Future ISR Capabilities: 

Although the BA FCB's mission includes engaging in coordination during 
the sponsors' assessment process and providing oversight[Footnote 43] 
of potential solutions to achieve optimum effectiveness and efficiency 
in ISR capability development, the BA FCB did not systematically 
coordinate with the sponsors to help ensure the quality of their 
capabilities-based assessments, nor did it routinely review those 
assessments once they were completed. The BA FCB did not implement 
these activities because it lacks a readily available source of 
information that identifies all ISR capabilities that would serve as a 
tool for reviewing the efficiency of sponsors' assessments, and because 
the BA FCB does not have a monitoring mechanism, which could ensure 
that key oversight activities are fully implemented, as described in 
Joint Staff policy. In addition, BA FCB officials said that they lack 
adequate numbers of dedicated, skilled personnel to engage in early 
coordination with the sponsors and review the sponsors' capabilities- 
based assessments. As a result, DOD cannot be assured that ISR 
capabilities approved through JCIDS provide joint solutions to DOD's 
ISR capability needs and are the solutions that best minimize 
inefficiency and redundancy. 

DOD Did Not Ensure Quality of Sponsors' Assessments through 
Coordination with Sponsors or Review of Assessments: 

As described in Joint Staff policy, each Functional Capabilities 
Board's mission is to provide assessments and recommendations to 
enhance capabilities integration, examine joint priorities among 
existing and future programs, minimize duplication of effort throughout 
the services, and provide oversight of potential solutions to achieve 
optimum effectiveness and efficiency. Moreover, Joint Staff policy 
states that each Functional Capabilities Board's functions include 
assisting in overseeing capabilities development within JCIDS through 
assessment of proposals for new or improved capabilities.[Footnote 44] 
The BA FCB is the Functional Capabilities Board that holds 
responsibility for the ISR functional area and, as such, is responsible 
for seeking to ensure that the joint force is best served throughout 
the JCIDS process.[Footnote 45] Additionally, Joint Staff policy calls 
on each Functional Capabilities Board and its working group[Footnote 
46] to perform coordination functions within its respective capability 
area, to include (1) engaging in coordination throughout the sponsors' 
assessment process in order to promote cross-service efficiencies, and 
(2) coordinating and integrating departmentwide participation to ensure 
that sponsors' assessments adequately leverage the expertise of the DOD 
components to identify promising solutions. Through these assessment 
and coordination functions, as well as other feedback avenues, the BA 
FCB provides the analytical underpinnings in support of the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Requirements Oversight Council. After 
assessing proposals and coordinating departmentwide participation, the 
BA FCB then makes recommendations on ISR capability proposals to the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to assist in the 
Chairman's task of identifying and assessing the priority of joint 
capabilities, considering alternatives to acquisition programs, and 
ensuring that the priority of joint capabilities reflects resource 
levels projected by the Secretary of Defense.[Footnote 47] 

Despite its coordination role, the BA FCB did not routinely engage in 
early coordination with sponsors to communicate information necessary 
to ensure comprehensive and rigorous analysis and to ensure that 
sponsors were aware of other organizations' and services' existing and 
developmental ISR capabilities. Our review showed that the BA FCB did 
not coordinate with five of the seven sponsors while they were 
conducting their capabilities-based assessments, although Joint Staff 
policy calls upon the BA FCB to do so in order to promote efficiencies 
in ISR capability development and to ensure that sponsors' assessments 
adequately leverage the expertise of the DOD components to identify 
promising solutions. The five sponsors told us that they coordinated 
with the BA FCB only after they had submitted their completed ISR 
capability proposals to the BA FCB. Of the remaining two sponsors, one 
had minimal interaction with the BA FCB, while the other was in contact 
with a member of the BA FCB working group while conducting the 
capabilities-based assessment. Once the BA FCB received copies of these 
ISR capability proposals, it did facilitate departmentwide 
participation by serving as a forum where DOD components formally 
commented on ISR capability proposals. Sponsors are nevertheless 
responsible for addressing and resolving these comments. For example, 
during the commenting process for an Army proposal for a language 
translation capability, the National Security Agency expressed 
disagreement, commenting that the Army proposal omitted practical 
descriptions of how the technology would be achieved and did not 
address policy and programming issues that it believed were the 
underlying cause of the capability gap. Thus, although the BA FCB 
oversaw the commenting process and provided the forum in which this 
discussion took place, the Army and the National Security Agency 
resolved their disagreement by revising the proposal with limited Joint 
Staff involvement. 

Furthermore, the BA FCB did not systematically review the quality of 
the sponsors' capabilities-based assessments. Although the BA FCB is 
not required by Joint Staff policy and guidance to review the sponsors' 
capabilities-based assessments, such a review would serve as a means of 
providing oversight of potential solutions to achieve optimum 
effectiveness and efficiency--a key BA FCB task. Moreover, the lack of 
early coordination to ensure the quality of the sponsors' assessments 
makes the review of the completed assessments an important tool for 
enhancing capabilities integration and minimizing redundancies. BA FCB 
members noted that sponsors' analysis can and does take a variety of 
forms, including studies that were done on related topics but were not 
initially intended to support the ISR capability proposal. Members of 
the BA FCB stated that they look for evidence of analysis underpinning 
the ISR capability proposal, and if analysis has been conducted, they 
generally consider it sufficient. However, BA FCB officials also told 
us that they generally do not review sponsors' capabilities-based 
assessments when evaluating proposals for new ISR capabilities. We 
found that, of the seven capabilities-based assessments that the 
sponsors conducted, the BA FCB obtained copies of six, which were 
proactively provided to them by the sponsors. For the one remaining 
capabilities-based assessment, the sponsor reported that it did not 
provide copies of its assessment and the BA FCB did not request them. 
In addition, the BA FCB did not obtain or systematically review any 
alternative types of analysis that were used in place of a capabilities-
based assessment by the other sponsors that did not conduct 
capabilities-based assessments. In all of these cases, the BA FCB 
neither requested copies of the analysis, nor did the sponsor 
proactively provide its alternative type of analysis. 

DOD's Limited Oversight of the Process for Developing Future ISR 
Capabilities Is Attributable to Several Factors: 

The BA FCB did not effectively oversee the process for developing 
future ISR capabilities by ensuring the implementation of existing 
guidance related to oversight activities, such as coordination with 
sponsors and reviews of assessments, for three key reasons. First, the 
BA FCB has not developed tools to enable systematic review of sponsors' 
capabilities-based assessments. Specifically, the BA FCB lacks a 
comprehensive source of information, augmenting the ISR Integration 
Roadmap, that would identify the full range of existing and 
developmental ISR capabilities within the ISR enterprise and serve as a 
tool for assessing the jointness and efficiency of the sponsors' 
proposed ISR solutions. Although BA FCB officials agreed that knowing 
the full range of existing and developmental ISR capabilities would be 
useful in reviewing sponsors' ISR capability proposals, no such 
complete and up-to-date source of information currently exists. Without 
readily available information about existing and developmental ISR 
capabilities, the BA FCB is limited in its ability to systematically 
review sponsors' capabilities-based assessments to promote cross- 
service efficiencies in ISR capability development and to conduct 
oversight of potential solutions to achieve optimum effectiveness and 
efficiency. Moreover, the majority of the sponsors that conducted 
assessments said they could not be certain that they had gathered all 
relevant information to inform their respective assessments, stating 
that their efforts to obtain information on existing and developmental 
ISR capabilities were not systematic and often dependent on the use of 
personal contacts. Some sponsors did take steps to identify existing 
DOD ISR capabilities when conducting their assessments, such as 
reviewing a JCIDS database containing other ISR capability proposals 
and contacting others, both within and outside of their organizations, 
about potentially related ISR capabilities. Nonetheless, the JCIDS 
database only contains information on proposals submitted to the Joint 
Staff, not on existing and developmental ISR capabilities that have 
been developed and fielded through DOD processes other than JCIDS. In 
the absence of a comprehensive source of information and early 
coordination to facilitate the sharing of such information from the BA 
FCB to the sponsors, sponsors drew from incomplete informational 
sources when conducting their capabilities-based assessments and 
sponsors became aware of shortfalls late in the review process. For 
example, one sponsor said its proposal passed through two levels of 
Joint Staff review before the sponsor was asked, at the final level of 
review, whether leveraging a particular technology had been considered 
as a potential way to fill an identified capability gap; the technology 
had not been considered because the sponsor was not aware of it. In 
another case, a request from a high-level Joint Staff official later in 
the review process resulted in a Navy sponsor and the BA FCB conducting 
an ad hoc effort, after the development of the proposal, to research 
and develop a list of all DOD's ISR capabilities and demonstrate that a 
relevant capability gap existed. 

Second, the BA FCB does not have the ability to effectively oversee the 
process for developing future ISR capabilities because there is no 
monitoring mechanism to ensure that key activities--such as early 
coordination between sponsors and the BA FCB to facilitate the sharing 
of information relevant to the sponsors' assessments, and BA FCB review 
of the assessments--are fully implemented. Standards for internal 
control in the federal government provide a framework for agencies to 
achieve effective and efficient operations and ultimately to improve 
accountability.[Footnote 48] One of these standards requires that 
monitoring, such as supervisory activities, should assess the quality 
of performance over time. Specifically, managers should (1) identify 
performance gaps by comparing actual performance and achievements to 
planned results, and (2) determine appropriate adjustments to program 
management, accountability, and resource allocation in order to improve 
overall mission accomplishment. To this end, managers should use both 
ongoing monitoring activities as well as separate evaluations to 
identify gaps, if any, in performance. Without the development of a 
monitoring mechanism to ensure implementation of key activities, the BA 
FCB may not be well-positioned to carry out its oversight of new ISR 
capabilities as called for by existing Joint Staff guidance. 

Third, BA FCB staff said that they lack adequate numbers of dedicated 
personnel with engineering expertise to engage in early coordination 
with sponsors and review the capabilities-based assessments that 
support the ISR capability proposals. For example, BA FCB officials 
related that they have 12 authorized positions to carry out the BA 
FCB's responsibilities, but, as of early December 2007, they had 7 
assigned personnel--representing a fill rate of 58 percent--with only 4 
or 5 of these devoted full-time to BA FCB duties. BA FCB officials also 
stated that representatives from DOD components who attend BA FCB 
meetings in order to provide comments on new ISR capability proposals 
generally do so as a collateral duty, while other components may not 
send a regularly attending representative. Because the representatives 
who attend sometimes vary from meeting to meeting and are attending 
only as a collateral duty, BA FCB officials expressed concern about the 
ability of the BA FCB to most effectively review proposals for new ISR 
capabilities. Moreover, in addition to reviewing proposals for new ISR 
capabilities, BA FCB officials have additional responsibilities, such 
as reviewing other JCIDS documents for ISR capabilities that are in 
more advanced stages of development[Footnote 49] and in obtaining 
feedback from combatant commanders on warfighter needs. Determining the 
necessary workforce skills and competencies for achieving current and 
future needs is a key function of workforce planning. Without an 
assessment of the BA FCB's capabilities to perform its oversight 
activities related to the review of new ISR capability proposals and 
coordination with the sponsors, the BA FCB may not be well-positioned 
to fully carry out the task of promoting efficiencies in ISR capability 
development. 

Furthermore, Joint Staff officials stated that although the BA FCB has 
coordination and oversight responsibilities, it lacks the ability to 
correct stovepiped efforts that it identifies through the JCIDS 
process. For example, BA FCB officials described a recent case in which 
two proposals for similar environmental capabilities were submitted to 
the BA FCB by different sponsors. However, the BA FCB does not have the 
ability to require these two sponsors to work together on their 
respective capability proposals or to combine them, according to Joint 
Staff officials. Despite this, a Joint Staff official said the BA FCB 
is currently coordinating with these sponsors to try to increase 
efficiencies. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council approved both 
proposals, while directing the sponsors of each to work with a 
designated board to examine ways to make the programs more efficient, 
such as combining them. In addition, the sponsors have preliminarily 
agreed to merge their respective ISR programs during the next phase of 
the acquisition process. We are currently conducting a separate review 
of the JCIDS process that focuses on the extent to which the process 
has improved outcomes in weapons system acquisition programs, including 
structural factors, if any, that affect DOD's ability to prioritize and 
balance capability needs. We expect our report based on this review to 
be issued later in 2008. 

Since the BA FCB did not conduct key oversight activities, including 
early coordination with sponsors and review of their assessments, 
neither the BA FCB nor the sponsors can be assured that the sponsors' 
assessments have considered the full range of potential joint solutions 
to minimize inefficiency and redundancy in ISR capability development-
-a key aim of the JCIDS process. Moreover, without a readily available 
source of information about all existing and developmental ISR 
capabilities that might potentially fill a gap, the BA FCB and the 
sponsors lack a tool to facilitate departmentwide efficiencies when 
reviewing proposed ISR capabilities. Accordingly, the process for 
developing future ISR capabilities may not ensure identification of 
joint solutions for requirements. The BA FCB recommendations inform 
which ISR capability proposals are ultimately approved by the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as being essential to DOD's ability to 
fight and win future wars. After the Chairman approves ISR capability 
proposals, the military services and DOD organizations may begin the 
process of developing and acquiring the systems that deliver the 
validated capability. The systems, once acquired, will likely deliver 
capabilities not only to the warfighter, but also to the broader 
national intelligence community. Without effective oversight of ISR 
capability development, efficient solutions are likely to go 
unidentified, while new programs continue to move through development 
without sufficient knowledge, potentially resulting in unnecessary 
investment or cost increases and schedule delays further in the 
acquisition process that affect the entire ISR enterprise. As sponsors 
of proposed ISR capabilities each currently plan unique solutions to 
their similar needs, oversight is key to achieving efficiencies among 
proposed ISR capabilities at the outset of the capability development 
process. 

Conclusions: 

Congress and DOD have consistently emphasized the importance of DOD 
integrating its ISR activities across the defense and national 
intelligence components of the ISR enterprise. Increased integration of 
the ISR enterprise would help minimize capability redundancies and gaps 
and maximize capability effectiveness by improving communication across 
the defense and intelligence communities to leverage common investments 
for common missions. Although DOD has taken steps to improve the 
integration of ISR investments--such as by issuing the ISR Integration 
Roadmap and managing a departmentwide portfolio of ISR capabilities-- 
these initiatives do not provide ISR decision makers with a clear 
vision of a future ISR enterprise and a unified investment approach to 
achieve that vision. Without a clear vision and a unified investment 
approach, ISR decision makers lack the key management tools they need 
to comprehensively identify what ISR investments DOD needs to make to 
achieve its strategic goals, evaluate tradeoffs between competing 
needs, and assess progress in achieving strategic goals. Thus, USD(I) 
and other senior DOD officials are not well-positioned to meet future 
ISR needs in a more integrated manner by exerting discipline over ISR 
spending to ensure progress toward strategic goals. Moreover, a long- 
term vision of a future ISR enterprise, consisting of a well-defined 
target architecture that depicts what ISR capabilities are needed to 
support strategic goals, would be useful not only to ISR decision 
makers evaluating tradeoffs between competing needs but also to 
sponsors developing proposals for new ISR capabilities. Without readily 
available information on existing and developmental ISR capabilities to 
assist the sponsors in developing the assessments and the BA FCB in 
reviewing them, neither the sponsors nor the BA FCB can be assured that 
these assessments have considered the full range of potential joint 
solutions to minimize inefficiency and redundancy in ISR capability 
development. Further, without a monitoring mechanism to ensure 
implementation of Joint Staff policy calling for early coordination 
between the BA FCB and the sponsors and for completion of capabilities- 
based assessments, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council may not 
receive complete assessments to support its decisions about the most 
efficient and effective proposed ISR capabilities to meet defense and 
national intelligence needs. Additionally, without consistent early 
coordination and thorough reviews of assessments, sponsors 
participating in DOD's requirements identification process may not have 
an incentive to conduct thorough assessments and may focus their 
proposals on their individual needs without fully ensuring 
identification of joint solutions for requirements. Finally, without a 
needs assessment that reviews the BA FCB's staffing levels, expertise, 
and workload to engage in early coordination with sponsors and review 
capabilities-based assessments and a plan, if needed, that addresses 
any identified shortfalls, the BA FCB may not be well-positioned to 
conduct oversight of potential ISR solutions to achieve optimum 
effectiveness and efficiency. Thus, DOD cannot be assured that it is 
developing the optimal mix of ISR capabilities to achieve its goals of 
better integrating the ISR enterprise. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

We recommend the Secretary of Defense take the following four actions: 

* Direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to develop a 
vision of a future ISR architecture that addresses a longer period of 
time than the 5-year ISR budget and is based on an independent analysis 
of expected future requirements and strategic goals. This architecture 
should be sufficiently detailed to inform a comprehensive assessment 
and prioritization of capability gaps and overlaps, to allow decision 
makers to evaluate tradeoffs between competing needs, and to assess 
progress in addressing capability gaps and overlaps in order to achieve 
ISR strategic goals. 

* Direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Under 
Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to collaborate, with one of these 
organizations assigned as the lead, in developing a comprehensive 
source of information, which augments the ISR Integration Roadmap, on 
all existing and developmental ISR capabilities throughout the ISR 
enterprise for sponsors to use in conducting capabilities-based 
assessments and for the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities 
Board to use in evaluating them. 

* Direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a 
supervisory review or other monitoring mechanism to ensure that (1) the 
Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board and the sponsors 
engage in early coordination to facilitate sponsors' consideration of 
existing and developmental ISR capabilities in developing their 
capabilities-based assessments, (2) capabilities-based assessments are 
completed, and (3) the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities 
Board uses systematic procedures for reviewing the assessments. 

* Direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to (1) review the 
Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board's staffing levels 
and expertise and workload to engage in early coordination with 
sponsors and review capabilities-based assessments, and (2) if 
shortfalls are identified, develop a plan that addresses any identified 
shortfalls of personnel, resources, or training, assigns responsibility 
for actions, and establishes time frames for implementing the plan. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to DOD and the Office of the 
Director of National Intelligence. DOD provided written comments, in 
which it agreed or partially agreed with three recommendations and 
disagreed with one recommendation. DOD's comments are reprinted in 
their entirety in appendix II.[Footnote 50] In addition, both DOD and 
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided technical 
comments, which we have incorporated into the report as appropriate. 

DOD agreed with our recommendation to develop a vision of a future ISR 
architecture that addresses a longer period of time than the 5-year ISR 
budget and is based on an independent analysis of expected future 
requirements and strategic goals. The department stated that work is 
underway to develop a future ISR architecture, including a plan of 
action and milestones. 

DOD partially agreed with our recommendation to develop a comprehensive 
source of information on existing and developmental ISR capabilities. 
In its written comments, DOD agreed that such a source of information 
is needed to augment the ISR Integration Roadmap. However, DOD stated 
that the task of developing this comprehensive source of information to 
facilitate the identification of all capabilities throughout the ISR 
enterprise should be assigned to the Under Secretary of Defense for 
Intelligence, as the Battlespace Awareness Capability Portfolio 
Manager, rather than the Joint Staff as we recommended. We originally 
recommended that this task be directed to the Joint Staff because the 
need for such a comprehensive source of information was most evident in 
the difficulties in developing and reviewing ISR capability proposals 
as called for under the JCIDS review process, which is managed by the 
Joint Staff. We agree with DOD that the Under Secretary of Defense for 
Intelligence, who is responsible for both developing the ISR 
Integration Roadmap and leading the Battlespace Awareness capability 
portfolio management effort, is a key player in efforts to improve 
integration of future joint ISR capabilities and could be logically 
assigned leadership responsibilities for this task. We have modified 
this recommendation in the final report to clarify that the Secretary 
of Defense could assign leadership to either organization, in 
consultation with the other, to develop the comprehensive source of 
information that sponsors and the BA FCB need. In the draft report, we 
had included in this recommendation two actions that the Joint Staff 
could take to improve the process for identifying future ISR 
capabilities. In modifying this recommendation to reflect DOD's comment 
that the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence could have the 
lead role in developing the information source, we moved these two 
actions to our third recommendation, thereby consolidating actions that 
the Joint Staff needs to take into one recommendation that considers 
key responsibilities within the JCIDS process. 

DOD partially agreed with our recommendation related to the need to 
ensure that (1) the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board 
and the sponsors engage in early coordination to facilitate sponsors' 
consideration of existing and developmental ISR capabilities in 
developing their capabilities-based assessments, (2) capabilities- 
based assessments are completed, and (3) the Battlespace Awareness 
Functional Capabilities Board uses systematic procedures for reviewing 
the assessments. In its written comments, DOD agreed that all three 
elements of this recommendation are needed but stated that changes in 
guidance were not needed. Our recommendation did not specifically call 
for additional guidance but was focused on the need to execute existing 
guidance. For example, as the report describes, Joint Staff policy 
calls for the sponsors and Functional Capabilities Board to work 
together during the analysis process, but the sponsors of the proposals 
we reviewed and the BA FCB did not consistently engage in this 
coordination. In addition, although Joint Staff policy gives the BA FCB 
responsibility for providing oversight of potential solutions to 
achieve optimum effectiveness and efficiency in ISR capability 
development, we found that the BA FCB did not systematically review 
capabilities-based assessments as a means of providing such oversight. 
In response to DOD's comments, we modified this recommendation to 
clarify that DOD should ensure compliance with its existing guidance by 
developing a monitoring mechanism that would ensure that early 
coordination takes place and that capabilities-based assessments are 
completed and reviewed. In its comments, the department also stated 
that our report is misleading because we evaluated some programs 
initiated prior to the genesis of JCIDS. As our report describes, the 
scope of our review included 19 ISR capability proposals that were 
introduced only after the implementation of JCIDS in 2003. We noted 
that some of these proposals used analysis conducted prior to the 
implementation of JCIDS as a substitute for the capabilities-based 
assessment that is required by the JCIDS process. However, we were 
unable to apply JCIDS criteria to evaluate them because these proposals 
did not have capabilities-based assessments. In addition, our 
recommendation to ensure that capabilities-based assessments are 
completed was based on our observations of all 19 ISR capability 
proposals, including not only the 12 proposals that lacked capabilities-
based assessments but also the 7 proposals whose assessments varied in 
rigor and completeness. 

DOD disagreed with our recommendation that the department (1) review 
the BA FCB's staffing levels and expertise and workload to engage in 
early coordination with sponsors and review capabilities-based 
assessments, and (2) if shortfalls of personnel, resources, or training 
needed are identified, develop a plan to address them, including 
assigning responsibility for actions and establishing time frames for 
implementing the plan. In its written comments, the department stated 
that Joint Staff policy clearly defines the roles and responsibilities 
of the sponsors and Functional Capabilities Boards. We agree that Joint 
Staff policy defines roles and responsibilities of these groups, and we 
note that this policy assigns responsibility to both the sponsors and 
the Functional Capabilities Board to coordinate with each other. We did 
not recommend that further policy direction was needed, as DOD stated 
in its comments. DOD also noted that it had conducted a review of 
Functional Capabilities Board personnel and resources in fiscal year 
2007, which did not identify deficiencies. However, workload issues and 
lack of technical skills among staff were mentioned to us by defense 
officials as reasons why early coordination and reviews were not being 
systematically performed as part of the BA FCB's oversight function--a 
key function called for in Joint Staff policy. Therefore, in light of 
our finding that the BA FCB did not fully implement these key oversight 
activities, we continue to believe that the department should 
reconsider whether the BA FCB has the appropriate number of staff with 
the appropriate skills to fully implement these oversight activities. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents 
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days 
from its date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to 
interested congressional committees; the Secretary of Defense; the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff; the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the 
Commandant of the Marine Corps; the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence; and the Director, Office of Management and Budget. We 
will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, 
this report is available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-5431 or [email protected]. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions 
to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Davi M. D'Agostino: 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To describe the challenges, if any, that the Department of Defense 
(DOD) faces in working to achieve an integrated ISR enterprise, we 
reviewed documents on the operation of DOD's ISR enterprise and the 
national intelligence community and discussed the ISR enterprise and 
its complexities with a variety of defense-related intelligence 
organizations, as well as with the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence. Specifically, we discussed coordination challenges faced 
by components of DOD's ISR enterprise with officials from the Office of 
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Arlington, VA; the 
Joint Staff, Arlington, Va; the National Security Space Office, 
Fairfax, Va; U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component 
Command for ISR, Washington, D.C; the Defense Intelligence Agency, 
Washington, D.C; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Reston, 
Va; and the National Security Agency, Annapolis Junction, Md; and the 
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Washington, D.C. 

To assess DOD's management approach for improving integration of future 
ISR investments, we reviewed DOD's ISR Integration Roadmap and other 
ISR integration efforts within DOD. We compared DOD's ISR Integration 
Roadmap to key elements of an enterprise architecture to determine 
whether the Roadmap, in whole or in part, met these key elements. We 
identified these key elements by reviewing DOD and federal guidance on 
enterprise architecture best practices, specifically the Department of 
Defense Architecture Framework and the Chief Information Officer 
Council's Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture. In 
addition, we reviewed the implementation of the Battlespace Awareness 
capability portfolio management test case led by the Office of the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. We compared these efforts 
to portfolio management best practices we identified by reviewing our 
past work on this subject. We also obtained information from and 
discussed DOD's ISR Integration Roadmap and DOD ISR integration efforts 
and challenges with senior officials from the Office of the Secretary 
of Defense, Arlington, Va; the Joint Staff, Arlington, Va; the Office 
of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Arlington, Va; the 
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and 
Information Integration, Arlington, Va; the National Security Space 
Office, Fairfax, Va; U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional 
Component Command for ISR, Washington, D.C; the Defense Intelligence 
Agency, Washington, D.C; and the Office of the Director of National 
Intelligence, Washington, D.C. 

To evaluate the extent to which DOD has implemented key activities 
within the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System 
(JCIDS) to ensure that proposed new ISR capabilities fill gaps, are not 
duplicative, and use a joint approach to filling warfighters' needs 
based on a thorough analysis of existing capabilities, we identified 19 
ISR capability proposals, described in table 1, that were submitted to 
the Joint Staff since the implementation of JCIDS in 2003 and for which 
the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board was designated 
the lead Functional Capabilities Board. In total, there were 20 ISR 
capability proposals that met these criteria; however, 1 of the 20 
proposals, along with its underlying capabilities-based assessment, was 
highly classified and, since we did not have the appropriate security 
clearances, we did not review this proposal. For the remaining 19 ISR 
capability proposals, we evaluated the extent to which they were 
generated and validated in accordance with Joint Staff policies and 
procedures. 

Table 1: ISR Capability Proposals Submitted to the Joint Staff Since 
the Implementation of JCIDS in 2003 and for Which the Battlespace 
Awareness Functional Capabilities Board was Designated the Lead: 

Capability title: Advanced Distributed Aperture Sensor System; 
Sponsor: U.S. Special Operations Command. 

Capability title: Airborne Overhead Cooperative Operations; 
Sponsor: U.S. Joint Forces Command. 

Capability title: Expeditionary Delivery of Airborne Full Motion Video; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Full Spectrum Intelligence; 
Sponsor: Navy. 

Capability title: Joint Spectral; 
Sponsor: National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency. 

Capability title: Joint Tier II Unmanned Aircraft System; 
Sponsor: Marine Corps. 

Capability title: Littoral Battlespace Sensing, Fusion, and 
Integration; 
Sponsor: Navy. 

Capability title: Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, 
Reconnaissance Enterprise; 
Sponsor: Marine Corps. 

Capability title: National Signatures Program; 
Sponsor: Defense Intelligence Agency. 

Capability title: Rapid Attack Identification, Detection, and Reporting 
System; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Sequoyah Foreign Language Translation System; 
Sponsor: Army. 

Capability title: Small Unmanned Solutions; 
Sponsor: U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. 

Capability title: Space Based Space Surveillance; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Space Fence; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Space Radar Program; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Space Test and Training Range; 
Sponsor: Air Force. 

Capability title: Universal Phase History Data; 
Sponsor: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 

Capability title: Vertical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; 
Sponsor: Marine Corps. 

Capability title: Weapons and Space FIS Modernization; 
Sponsor: National Security Agency. 

Source: GAO analysis of sponsor data accessed via the Joint Staff's 
Knowledge Management/Decision Support system. 

[End of table] 

Specifically, for each of the 19 capability proposals, we obtained 
capabilities-based assessments or other JCIDS analysis documents that 
were produced by sponsors of these ISR capability proposals, and we 
performed a dependent document review of the 7 ISR capability proposals 
that included a capabilities-based assessment, using a data collection 
instrument based on applicable versions of the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01, Joint Capabilities Integration and 
Development System. In conducting this document review, we considered 
whether these JCIDS analysis documents showed evidence of the following 
elements: (1) a full review conducted, (2) cost information included, 
(3) consideration of the full range of existing and developmental stage 
ISR assets, (4) consideration of modifications as potential solutions, 
and (5) consideration of potential redundancies. The results of this 
analysis are shown in figure 5 of this report. Our specific methodology 
for this analysis is as follows: 

* To determine whether a full review had been conducted, we determined 
whether a Functional Needs Analysis (FNA) and Functional Solution 
Analysis (FSA) existed and whether they flowed from a Functional Area 
Analysis (FAA) and FNA, respectively. As generally described in Joint 
Staff guidance, an FAA identifies the operational tasks, conditions, 
and standards needed to achieve military objectives. An FNA assesses 
the ability of current and planned systems to deliver the capabilities 
and tasks identified in the FAA in order to produce a list of 
capability gaps and identify redundancies. An FSA will identify joint 
approaches to fill the identified capability gaps. 

* To determine whether cost information was included, we reviewed 
whether the FSA considered costs of the proposed solutions. As 
generally described in Joint Staff guidance, the FSA analysis must 
evaluate the cost to develop and procure materiel approaches compared 
to the cost of sustaining an existing capability. 

* To determine whether the full range of existing and developmental- 
stage ISR assets was considered, we reviewed whether the FSA considered 
interagency or foreign materiel solutions and whether the FNA or FSA 
considered the full range of joint solutions. We defined the full range 
of joint solutions as including strategic, operational, and tactical 
ISR assets as well as developing or recently developed ISR systems. As 
generally described in Joint Staff policy, the FNA assesses the entire 
range of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, logistics, 
personnel, and facilities and policy as an inherent part of defining 
capability needs, and the FSA assesses all potential materiel and non- 
materiel ways to fill capability gaps as identified by the FNA, 
including changes that leverage existing materiel capabilities, product 
improvements, and adoption of interagency or foreign materiel 
solutions. 

* To determine whether modifications were considered as potential 
solutions, we reviewed whether the FSA considered using existing 
systems differently or modifying policies and processes. As generally 
described in Joint Staff guidance, the FSA is to identify combinations 
of materiel and non-materiel approaches and examine additional 
approaches by conducting market research to determine whether 
commercial or non-developmental items are available or could be 
modified to meet the desired capability. 

* To determine whether potential redundancies were considered, we 
reviewed whether either the FNA or the FSA identified potentially 
redundant ISR capabilities. As generally described in Joint Staff 
guidance, an FNA should describe a capability overlap by comparing 
desired functions with current capabilities. However, we considered the 
capabilities-based assessment as having identified potential 
redundancies if such redundancies were included in either the FNA or 
FSA. 

We identified the above elements by analyzing current and superseded 
versions of the Joint Staff instruction on the JCIDS process-- 
specifically, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 
3170.01, Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System--to 
determine the changes over time and the criteria common to all 
versions. Further, we reviewed the following policies and procedures 
related to the validation of ISR capabilities through JCIDS: Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 5123.01, Charter of the Joint 
Requirements Oversight Council; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Instruction 3137.01, The Functional Capabilities Board Process; 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System; and Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual 3170.01, Operation of the Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System. In order to conduct 
this review of JCIDS policies and procedures, we included in our scope 
the current and superseded versions of these guidance documents; 
accordingly, we reviewed all instructions and manuals relevant to DOD's 
JCIDS process that were in effect at some point between the publication 
of the initial JCIDS instruction (Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 
3170.01A, dated June 24, 2003) and the conclusion of our review (March 
2008).[Footnote 51] In addition, we obtained insight into the 
procedures and challenges associated with validating proposals for new 
ISR capabilities through discussions with officials from the Office of 
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Arlington, Va; the 
Joint Staff, Arlington, Va; the Battlespace Awareness Functional 
Capabilities Board, Arlington, Va; and the sponsors of the 19 ISR 
capability proposals that we reviewed. The sponsors with whom we spoke 
were officials from the Air Force; Army; Navy; Marine Corps; U.S. 
Special Operations Command; U.S. Joint Forces Command; Defense 
Intelligence Agency; National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; and 
National Security Agency. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense: 

Intelligence: 

Office Of The Under Secretary Of Defense: 
5000 Defense Pentagon: 
Washington, DC 20301-5000: 

Ms. Davi M. D'Agostino: 
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G. Street, N.W.: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. D'Agostino: 

This is the Department of Defense response to the GAO draft report, GAO-
08- 374, "Intelligence, Surveillance, And Reconnaissance: DoD Can 
Better Assess and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee Development of 
Future ISR Capabilities," dated January 17, 2008, (GAO Code 351027). 

DoD appreciates the opportunity to review and comment on the draft 
report. Detailed comments on the GAO recommendations and technical 
comments are enclosed. For further questions concerning this report 
please contact my action officer, Colonel Cordell DeLaPena, Director, 
Unmanned Aircraft Systems, (703) 607-0427. 

Sincerely,

Signed by: 

Betty J. Sapp: 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (Acquisition, Resources, 
and Technology): 

Enclosures:

1. DoD Response to Recommendations: 
2. DoD Technical Comments: 

February 15, 2008: 

GAO Draft Report - Dated January 17, 2008 GAO Code 351027 /GAO-08-374:  

"Intelligence, Surveillance, And Reconnaissance: DoD Can Better Assess 
and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee Development of Future ISR 
Capabilities" 

Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendations: 

Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to develop a 
vision of a future intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) 
architecture that addresses a longer period of time than the 5-year ISR 
budget and is based on an independent analysis of expected future 
requirements and strategic goals. This architecture should be 
sufficiently detailed to inform a comprehensive assessment and 
prioritization of capability gaps and overlaps, to allow decision 
makers to evaluate competing needs, and to assess progress in 
addressing capability gaps and overlaps in order to achieve ISR 
strategic goals. 

DOD Response: Concur. Work is underway to develop a vision of a future 
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) architecture that 
addresses a longer period of time than the 5-year ISR budget and is 
based on an independent analysis of expected future requirements and 
strategic goals. The plan of action and milestones for this effort are 
being developed now and should be finalized by the end of February 
2008. 

Recommendation 2: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in consultation with 
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, to develop a 
comprehensive source of information that augments the Intelligence, 
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Integration Roadmap to 
facilitate the identification of all capabilities throughout the ISR 
enterprise-including all existing and developmental ISR capabilities-in 
order to assist the sponsors in conducting capabilities-based 
assessments and the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board 
in evaluating them. 

DOD Response: Partially Concur. We concur with the need to develop a 
comprehensive source of information to augment the intelligence, 
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) Integration Roadmap. However, 
this task is directly related to the development of the future ISR 
architecture and is more appropriately tasked to the Battlespace 
Awareness Capability Portfolio Manager rather than the Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Recommendation 3: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in consultation with 
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, to ensure that 
capabilities-based assessments are completed. 

DOD Response: Partially Concur. The Department agrees that Capability 
Based Assessments (CBA) should be completed; however, the Joint Staff 
disagrees with the assertion that additional direction is required. 
CJCSM 3170.O1C "Operation of the Joint Capabilities Integration and 
Development System (JCIDS)" provides clear guidance on the necessity 
and process for completing capability-based assessments. The GAO's 
review is misleading. The review evaluated many programs initiated 
prior to the genesis of JCIDS. Five of the ten programs identified as 
not having a formal CBA are considered as having been based on pre- 
JCIDS analysis. In these specific cases, prior analysis was reviewed 
and accepted as sufficient if it was deemed to meet the needs of the 
Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC). This exemption was 
structured to avoid forcing programs to reaccomplish previously 
completed analysis unless there was a compelling need to do so. 

Recommendation 4: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in consultation with 
the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, to develop systematic 
procedures for reviewing the capabilities-based assessments. 

DOD Response: Partially concur. The Department agrees with the need for 
systematic procedures for reviewing capabilities-based assessments; 
however, we disagree with the assertion that additional direction is 
required. CJCSM 3170.O1C already contains a checklist for reviewing 
capabilities based assessment. Each element, Functional Area Analysis, 
Functional Needs Analysis and Functional Solutions Analysis has a 
defined set of go/no go criteria (see pages A-10 through A-17) 

Recommendation 5: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to clarify the 
expectation for the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board 
to engage in early coordination with sponsors to ensure sponsors' 
ability to access a comprehensive source of information on existing and 
developmental Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance 
capabilities. 

DOD Response: Partially concur. The Department agrees that there is 
benefit to sponsors engaging in early coordination with the appropriate 
Functional Capabilities Boards (FCBs); however, the Department 
disagrees with the assertion that additional direction is required. 
CJCSI 3170.O1F states it is the sponsor's responsibility as part of the 
Capability Based Assessments process to "work closely with the 
appropriate FCBs during the analysis process." (see page C-4) 

Recommendation 6: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify the 
Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board's capabilities to 
engage in early coordination with sponsors and review capabilities-
based assessments, including any shortfalls in personnel, resources, 
and training needed to perform its mission successfully. 

DOD Response: Non-concur. As previously stated, CJCSI 3170.O1F and 
CJCSI 3170.O1C clearly define the sponsors and the Functional 
Capabilities Boards (FCBs) roles and responsibilities in the Joint 

Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process. 
Further direction is not required. With regards to shortfalls in 
personnel, resources and training, the Joint Staff conducted an FY07 
review of FCB personnel and resources and did not identify any 
deficiencies. In the area of training, the Joint Staff has already 
established a new, mandatory training course for all `Requirements 
Managers' that will certify them in the writing, reviewing, 
development, and approval of requirements for Major Defense Acquisition 
Programs. 

Recommendation 7: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense 
direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a plan that 
addresses any identified shortfalls of personnel, resources, and 
training; assigns responsibility for actions; and establishes time 
frames for implementing the plan. 

DOD Response: Non-concur. This recommendation presupposes shortfalls 
exist in the FCB's personnel, resources, and training. As previously 
stated, the Joint Staff conducted an FY07 review of functional 
capabilities board personnel and resources and did not identify any 
deficiencies. In the area of training, the Joint Staff has already 
established a new, mandatory training course for all `Requirements 
Managers' that will certify them in the writing, reviewing, 
development, and approval of requirements for Major Defense Acquisition 
Programs.

GAO Draft Report - Dated January 17, 2008 GAO Code 351027/GAO-08-374:  

"Intelligence, Surveillance, And Reconnaissance: DoD Can Better Assess 
and Integrate ISR Capabilities and Oversee Development of Future ISR 
Capabilities" 

Department Of Defense Technical Comments On The Draft Report: 

Page 36, Figure 4. 

Recommendation: Add a note to the timeline figure stating that the 
chronology reflects the date on the latest version of the Initial 
Capabilities Document (ICD) available to the authors, as earlier 
versions of some of the documents were staffed at earlier dates when 
approved, and required Joint Capabilities Integration and Development 
System (JCIDS) analysis steps had not been fully defined. Rationale: 
The timeline reflects a mid-2006 entry for the Small Unmanned Solutions 
ICD, yet the ICD actually entered the Joint Capabilities Integration 
and Development System (JCIDS) in mid-2005, before JCIDS required 
analysis steps had been fully defined.

[End of section] 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Davi M. D'Agostino, (202) 512-5431 or [email protected]: 

Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Margaret G. Morgan, Assistant 
Director; Catherine H. Brown; Gabrielle A. Carrington; Frank 
Cristinzio; Grace Coleman; Jay Smale; and Karen Thornton made key 
contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] GAO, Federal Financial Management: Critical Accountability and 
Fiscal Stewardship Challenges Facing Our Nation, GAO-07-542T 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2007); and Fiscal and Retirement Challenges, 
GAO-07-1263CG (New York: Sep. 19, 2007). 

[2] Pub. L. No. 108-136, ï¿½ 923(b), codified at 10 U.S.C. ï¿½ 426 note. 

[3] The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 
108-458) created a Director of National Intelligence to head the U.S. 
intelligence community, serve as the principal intelligence adviser to 
the President, and oversee and direct the acquisition of major 
collections systems. The U.S. intelligence community is a federation of 
16 different defense and non-defense intelligence agencies that carries 
out intelligence activities necessary for the conduct of foreign 
relations and the protection of national security. 

[4] JCIDS is a deliberate process designed for addressing future needs, 
but DOD has other sources for identifying capability needs, including 
Joint Urgent Operational Needs for immediate needs, combatant 
commanders' integrated priority lists, lessons learned, and 
transitioning improvised explosive device initiatives. However, 
complying with the JCIDS process is required for the long-term 
solution, sustainment activities, or to transition the solution into a 
program of record. 

[5] The Joint Requirements Oversight Council consists of the Vice 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a four-star officer 
designated by each of the military services. 

[6] Joint Staff policy describes the documentation developed during the 
JCIDS process as including an Initial Capabilities Document, which 
documents the results of a capabilities-based assessment. For the 
purposes of this report, we use the phrase "proposals for new military 
capabilities" to refer to Initial Capabilities Documents. More 
specifically, we use the phrase "proposals for new ISR capabilities" to 
refer to ISR-related Initial Capabilities Documents. 

[7] The other Functional Capabilities Boards are Command and Control, 
Focused Logistics, Force Management, Force Protection, Force 
Application, Net-Centric, and Joint Training. 

[8] GAO, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance: Preliminary 
Observations on DOD's Approach to Managing Requirements for New 
Systems, Existing Assets, and Systems Development, GAO-07-596T 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 19, 2007). 

[9] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Greater Synergies Possible for DOD's 
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Systems, GAO-07-578 
(Washington, D.C.: May 17, 2007). 

[10] GAO, Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Advanced Coordination and 
Increased Visibility Needed to Optimize Capabilities, GAO-07-836 
(Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2007). 

[11] We were unable to review one proposal for a new ISR capability 
because of the high classification level of this document. 

[12] Joint Staff policy defines materiel capability solutions as 
resulting in the development, acquisition, procurement, or fielding of 
a new item, and defines non-materiel capability solutions as changes in 
doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, 
personnel, facilities, or policy to satisfy identified functional 
capabilities. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 
3170.01F, Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 
2007). 

[13] For the purposes of this report, we use "proposals for non- 
materiel capabilities" to refer to Doctrine, Organization, Training, 
Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, and Facilities Change 
Requests, and "proposals for capabilities already in development" to 
refer to Capability Development Documents and Capability Production 
Documents. 

[14] Joint Operations Concepts present a visualization of future 
operations, describing how future operations may be conducted and 
providing the conceptual basis for joint experimentation and 
capabilities-based assessments. A Concept of Operations is a statement 
of a commander's assumptions or intent in regard to an operation or 
series of operations, and is frequently embodied in campaign plans and 
operation plans. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 
3170.01F, Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 
2007). 

[15] Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, 
Technology, and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board/Air 
Force Scientific Advisory Board Joint Task Force on Acquisition of 
National Security Space Programs (Washington, D.C.: May 2003); Task 
Force on Acquisition of National Security Space Programs, Summary of 
Findings: One Year Review (July 27, 2004). 

[16] Center for Strategic and International Studies, Beyond Goldwater- 
Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era, 
Phase 2 Report (Washington, D.C.: July 2005). 

[17] Department of Defense, Report of the Commission to Assess United 
States National Security Space Management and Organization (Washington, 
D.C.: Jan. 11, 2001). 

[18] Section 601(a) of Pub. L. No. 110-53 requires the Director of 
National Intelligence to disclose to the public after the end of each 
fiscal year the aggregate amount of funds appropriated by Congress for 
the NIP for such fiscal year. In October 2007, the Director of National 
Intelligence disclosed the amount appropriated to the NIP for fiscal 
year 2007. 

[19] Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Pub. L. 
No. 108-458, ï¿½ 1018. 

[20] Title 10 of the United States Code authorizes the secretaries of 
the military departments to conduct functions related to their 
personnel, including recruiting, organizing, training, and maintaining. 
10 U.S.C. ï¿½ï¿½ 3013, 5013, 8013 (2007). 

[21] These two initiatives operate within the context of DOD's three 
decision-support processes: (1) the Joint Capabilities Integration and 
Development System, (2) the Defense Acquisition System, and (3) the 
Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution system. 

[22] GAO, DOD Business Systems Modernization: Important Progress Made 
in Establishing Foundational Architecture Products and Investment 
Management Practices, but Much Work Remains, GAO-06-219 (Washington, 
D.C.: Nov. 23, 2005). 

[23] Chief Information Officer Council, A Practical Guide to Federal 
Enterprise Architecture, Version 1.0 (February 2001); Department of 
Defense, Department of Defense Architecture Framework, Version 1.5 
(April 2007). 

[24] The term architecture refers to a description of the structure of 
an organization, the structure of its components, their 
interrelationships, and the principles and guidelines which govern 
their design and evolution over time. 

[25] GAO, 21st Century Challenges: Reexamining the Base of the Federal 
Government, GAO-05-325SP (Washington, D.C.: February 2005). 

[26] The 2004 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 108-136) amended 
Title 10 of the U.S. Code by adding section 426, which directed the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to develop the ISR 
Integration Roadmap and to produce a report that addressed six 
management aspects of the ISR enterprise. DOD chose to provide 
information about these management aspects in the ISR Integration 
Roadmap. However, DOD covered only the first three of the six 
management areas specified in the statute: (1) the fundamental goals 
established in the Roadmap, (2) an overview of the ISR integration 
activities of the military departments and intelligence agencies of 
DOD, and (3) an investment strategy for achieving an integration of DOD 
ISR capabilities that ensures sustainment of needed tactical and 
operational efforts and efficient investment in new ISR capabilities. 

[27] DOD defines persistent surveillance as the integrated management 
of a diverse set of collection and processing capabilities, operated to 
detect and understand the activity of interest with sufficient sensor 
dwell, revisit rate, and required quality to expeditiously assess 
adversary actions, predict adversary plans, deny sanctuary to an 
adversary, and assess results of U.S. or coalition actions. 

[28] Planning and Direction is one of six activities collectively used 
to describe the intelligence process, which describes how the various 
types of interrelated intelligence activities interact to meet military 
commanders' needs. The other five areas are Collection, Processing and 
Exploitation, Analysis and Production, Dissemination and Integration, 
and Evaluation and Feedback. 

[29] The goal of the National Signatures Program is to develop a 
comprehensive enterprisewide database for cataloguing and sharing 
measurement and signals intelligence data, which uses the unique 
characteristics of physical objects, known as their signatures, to 
detect, track, and identify those objects. 

[30] The other test cases are Joint Command and Control, Joint Net- 
Centric Operations, and Joint Logistics. In February 2008, DOD 
announced its plans to formalize these test cases, including the ISR 
portfolio, as standing capability portfolio management efforts, and to 
experiment with five additional portfolios, namely, Building 
Partnerships, Force Protection, Force Support, Force Application, and 
Corporate Management and Support. 

[31] Based on the results of the budget and program review, final 
budget change decisions by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense 
are reflected in periodic guidance documents issued to instruct the 
military services or DOD agencies and direct them to make changes to 
their budgets. 

[32] GAO, Best Practices: An Integrated Portfolio Management Approach 
to Weapons System Investments Could Improve DOD's Acquisition Outcomes, 
GAO-07-388 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 30, 2007). 

[33] GAO-07-388. 

[34] The Deputy Secretary of Defense defined the portfolio manager's 
role in a September 2006 memorandum. The memorandum outlines two 
different levels of increased authority over spending that portfolio 
managers may request to fulfill their responsibilities. A subsequent 
Deputy Secretary of Defense memorandum, issued in March 2007, discussed 
the portfolio manager's role in the fiscal year 2009 and 2010 budget 
deliberations, but did not enhance their authority over spending. In 
February 2008, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued another 
memorandum, which stated that portfolio managers make recommendations 
on capability development issues within their portfolio but do not have 
independent decision-making authority. 

[35] The Predator is a medium-altitude, long-endurance, remotely- 
piloted aircraft used primarily for conducting armed reconnaissance 
against critical targets. 

[36] The Joint Defense Capabilities Study Team, Joint Defense 
Capabilities Study: Improving DOD Strategic Planning, Resourcing, and 
Execution to Satisfy Joint Capabilities, Final Report (January 2004), 
alternatively known as the Aldridge Report. 

[37] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01F, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 2007) and 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3137.01C, The 
Functional Capabilities Board Process (Nov. 12, 2004). 

[38] Ways to fill capability gaps are called solutions and may be 
either materiel or non-materiel. 

[39] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual 3170.01C, Operation 
of the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 
2007). 

[40] Since implementing JCIDS in 2003, the Joint Staff updated its 
JCIDS policy and guidance three times, in 2004, 2005, and 2007. The 
most recent JCIDS guidance contains a list of questions to serve as 
procedural guidance for sponsors in conducting their capabilities-based 
assessments, although Joint Staff officials said it is not mandatory 
for sponsors to use this list. In addition, the Joint Staff issued 
separate guidance on conducting capabilities-based assessments in 
January 2006, updating it in December 2006. However, our review 
demonstrated that this guidance did not contribute greatly to the 
execution of more rigorous capabilities-based assessments. 

[41] These are proposals that DOD designated as Acquisition Category I, 
the category assigned to DOD's highest cost programs. For more 
information about this and DOD's other acquisition programs, see DOD 
Instruction 5000.2, Operation of the Defense Acquisition System (May 
12, 2003). 

[42] DOD has an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program that 
is aimed at getting new technologies that meet critical military needs 
into the hands of users faster and for less cost. 

[43] We define oversight to include review of capabilities-based 
assessments, as well as coordination activities. Through these 
assessment and coordination activities, the BA FCB serves an internal 
control function, providing oversight to help ensure that DOD's 
objectives for its ISR enterprise are met through the JCIDS process. 

[44] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3137.01C, The 
Functional Capabilities Board Process (Nov. 12, 2004) provides a 
complete list of Functional Capabilities Board functions. 

[45] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01F, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 2007) also 
describes the responsibilities of the Functional Capabilities Boards. 

[46] Functional Capabilities Boards may establish one or more working 
groups to serve as their operational arms in addressing JCIDS and other 
activities. For more information about working group membership, see 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3137.01C, The 
Functional Capabilities Board Process (Nov. 12, 2004). 

[47] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 5123.01C, 
Charter of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (Nov. 9, 2006). 

[48] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

[49] For example, as of December 2007, the BA FCB was the primary 
Functional Capabilities Board for 47 proposals for capabilities already 
in development, and was the secondary Functional Capabilities Board for 
63 proposals for capabilities already in development. 

[50] In its written comments, DOD divided our four recommendations into 
seven recommendations, commenting upon each separately. In our 
evaluation, we discuss DOD's comments in the context of our four final 
recommendations. 

[51] Specifically, we reviewed the following: Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff Instruction 5123.01A, Charter of the Joint Requirements 
Oversight Council (Mar. 8, 2001); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Instruction 5123.01B, Charter of the Joint Requirements Oversight 
Council (Apr. 15, 2004); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Instruction 5123.01C, Charter of the Joint Requirements Oversight 
Council (Nov. 9, 2006); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Instruction 3137.01B, The Joint Warfighting Capabilities Assessment 
Process (Apr. 15, 2002); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Instruction 3137.01C, The Functional Capabilities Board Process (Nov. 
12, 2004); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01C, 
Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (June 24, 2003); 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01D, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (Mar. 12, 2004); 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01E, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 11, 2005); 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3170.01F, Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 2007); Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual 3170.01A, Operation of the Joint 
Capabilities Integration and Development System (Mar. 12, 2004); 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual 3170.01B, Operation of the 
Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 11, 2005); 
and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual 3170.01C, Operation of 
the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (May 1, 
2007). 

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