United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Air and Land 

Forces, Committee on Armed Services, 

House of Representatives 

INTELLIGENCE, 

SURVEILLANCE, AND 

RECONNAISSANCE 

Preliminary Observations 

on DOD’s Approach to 

Managing Requirements for 

New Systems, Existing 

Assets, and Systems 

Development 

Statement of Davi M. D'Agostino 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Issues 

Sharon L. Pickup 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Issues 

Michael J. Sullivan 

Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management Issues 

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Thursday, April 19, 2007

 

GAO-07-596T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

April 19, 2007

INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND 

RECONNAISSANCE 

Preliminary Observations on DOD’s 

Approach to Managing Requirements for 

New Systems, Existing Assets, and 

Systems Development 

Highlights of GAO-07-596T, testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Air and Land 

Forces, Committee on Armed Services, 

House of Representatives

As operations overseas continue, 

DOD is experiencing a growing 

demand for intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance

(ISR) assets to provide valuable

information in support of military 

operations. While the 2006 

Quadrennial Review emphasized

the need for the ISR community to

improve the integration and 

management of ISR assets, DOD 

plans to make significant 

investments in ISR capabilities for 

the future. Congress has been 

interested in DOD’s approach for 

managing and integrating existing 

assets while acquiring new 

systems. 

This testimony addresses 

preliminary observations based on 

GAO’s ongoing work regarding (1) 

the status of DOD initiatives 

intended to improve the

management and integration of ISR 

requirements and challenges DOD 

faces in implementing its 

initiatives, (2) DOD’s approach to 

managing current ISR assets to

support military operations, and (3) 

the status of selected ISR programs

in development and the potential 

for synergies between them.

GAO’s ongoing work included 

document review, interviews with 

officials at relevant organizations, 

observations of some U.S. Central 

Command operations, and review

of 13 airborne ISR development 

programs. 

DOD’s important first steps to formulate a strategy for improving the 

integration of future ISR requirements include developing an ISR Integration 

Roadmap and designating ISR as a test case for its joint capability portfolio 

management concept. DOD developed a statutorily required ISR Roadmap 

that catalogues current ISR capabilities. GAO’s preliminary work, however, 

has shown that the Roadmap does not (1) identify future requirements, (2) 

identify funding priorities, or (3) measure progress. Also, the Roadmap does 

not yet clarify what ISR requirements are already filled or possibly saturated, 

identify critical gaps for future focus, or define requirements for meeting the 

goal of global persistent surveillance. DOD’s second initiative to improve 

the integration of the services’ ISR programs is assigning management of ISR 

issues as a test case of its joint capability portfolio management concept. 

The intent of the test case is to explore whether managing groups of ISR 

capabilities across DOD will enable interoperability of future capabilities 

and reduce redundancies and gaps. Although in its early stages, GAO 

identified challenges, such as the extent to which the services will adopt 

suggestions from portfolio managers. 

DOD’s approach to managing its current ISR assets limits its ability to 

optimize its use of these assets. U. S. Strategic Command is charged with 

making recommendations to the Secretary of Defense on how best to 

allocate to combatant commanders theater-level assets used to support 

operational requirements. While it has visibility into the major ISR programs

supporting theater-level requirements, it does not currently have visibility 

into all ISR assets. Also, the commander responsible for ongoing joint air 

operations does not currently have visibility over how tactical assets are 

being tasked. Nor do tactical units have visibility into how theater-level and 

ISR assets embedded in other units are being tasked. Further, DOD lacks 

metrics and feedback to evaluate its ISR missions. Without better visibility 

and performance evaluation, DOD does not have all the information it needs 

to validate the demand for ISR assets, to optimize the capability offered by 

these assets, to achieve a joint approach to employing its ISR assets, and to 

acquire new systems that best support warfighting needs. 

Opportunities exist for different services to collaborate on the development 

of similar weapon systems as a means for creating a more efficient and 

affordable way of providing new capabilities to the warfighter. We have 

identified development programs where program managers and services are 

working together to gain these efficiencies and where less collaborative 

efforts could lead to more costly stovepiped solutions. Additionally, most of 

the 13 airborne ISR development programs that we reviewed had either cost 

growth or schedule delays. These problems resulted from not following a 

knowledge-based approach to weapon system development as provided for 

in Defense policy. In some cases, delay in delivering new systems to the 

warfighter led to unplanned investments to keep legacy systems relevant. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-596T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Davi

D’Agostino at (202) 512-5431 or 

dagostinod@gao.gov, Sharon Pickup at (202) 

512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov, or Michael 

Sullivan at (202) 512-4841 or 

sullivanm@gao.gov
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

We appreciate the opportunity to discuss GAO’s work for this 

Subcommittee on the Department of Defense’s (DOD) management and 

acquisition of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, 

including unmanned aircraft systems. As you know, intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities are central to ongoing 

military operations. Effective ISR can provide early warning of enemy 

threats and precision targeting, as well as enable U.S. military forces to 

increase effectiveness, coordination, and lethality. Battlefield commanders 

rank the need for ISR systems and the information they produce as high on

their priority lists, a fact that is reflected in DOD’s planned investment in 

ISR. The demand for ISR assets at every level of command is growing, and 

DOD is making investments in a number of ISR systems, including 

unmanned aircraft systems, manned platforms, and space-borne, maritime, 

and terrestrial systems. Although the United States has significant ISR 

capabilities, their effectiveness has been hampered by gaps in capabilities, 

growing competition for assets, unavailability when needed, and systems 

that do not fully complement one another. The 2001 and 2006 Quadrennial 

Defense Reviews emphasized the increasingly important role intelligence 

capabilities—including manned and unmanned airborne and space 

capabilities—play in supporting military operations and acknowledged 

that the ISR community as a whole must move toward a collaborative 

enterprise to achieve more responsive support for civilian decision makers 

and commanders engaged in planning and executing operations. The 2006 

Quadrennial Defense Review also called for a shift from military servicefocused acquisition systems and concepts of operation to a more joint 

approach to acquiring and employing defense assets. Further, as GAO has 

emphasized, resources for investments in ISR capabilities are likely to be 

constrained by the fiscal challenges of the federal budget. 

Since we testified before this Subcommittee last year on one component 

of DOD’s ISR enterprise—unmanned aircraft systems—demand for ISR 

support has continued to grow, and DOD is planning to invest in new 

systems with expanded and new capabilities. Meanwhile, growing out of 

the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review’s recommendations, DOD has 

undertaken a number of studies designed to determine future ISR 

requirements and established a new organization to help integrate current

assets to improve its processes for supporting combat operations. In 

addition, DOD has updated its ISR Integration Roadmap. Today, you asked 

us to discuss our preliminary observations on DOD’s management of ISR 

requirements, distribution of current assets, and planned acquisitions 

based on ongoing work we are conducting for this Subcommittee. 

Page 1 GAO-07-596T 
Specifically, we will highlight (1) the status of DOD initiatives aimed at 

improving the management and integration of ISR requirements and 

challenges the department faces in implementing the initiatives, (2) DOD’s 

approach to managing current ISR assets to support military operations, 

and (3) the status of selected ISR programs in development and the 

potential for synergies between them. We will be continuing our work on 

the management of ISR requirements, the support of ISR assets for combat 

operations, and the acquisition of ISR capabilities, and we plan to issue 

reports based on this work later this year. 

To understand the status of initiatives within DOD to improve the 

management and integration of ISR requirements, we analyzed DOD’s ISR 

Integration Roadmap and updates. We also reviewed documentation on 

ISR requirements generation and validation that we obtained from DOD’s 

Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System as well as previous 

studies related to DOD’s management of ISR assets. In addition, we 

discussed DOD’s ISR capabilities management initiatives and challenges

with senior officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Intelligence; the Joint Staff; the Battlespace Awareness Functional 

Capabilities Board; the National Security Space Office; the Air Force; the 

Army; the Navy; the U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Functional 

Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; 

the U.S. Central Command; the U.S. Special Operations Command; and the 

Defense Intelligence Agency. 

To assess the effectiveness of DOD’s approach to managing current ISR 

assets in support of ongoing combat operations, we interviewed officials 

and reviewed documentation from the Unmanned Aircraft Systems 

Planning Task Force within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; the Joint Staff; each of the 

military services; U.S. Central Command and associated Army and Air 

Force component commands; the Joint Functional Component Command

for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; and other 

organizations. We also reviewed documentation and interviewed officials 

at U.S. Central Command, Central Command Air Forces, and the 

Combined Air Operations Center to better understand how ISR assets are 

assigned to specific missions. To understand how requests for ISR 

support are generated and satisfied at the tactical level, we spoke with 

units who recently returned from, or are currently supporting, ongoing 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as units within the services such

as the Marine Corps’ Tactical Fusion Center that are involved in 

determining if tactical assets are available to satisfy those requests or if 

the requests need to be forwarded for theater-level support. To 

Page 2 GAO-07-596T 
understand DOD’s ongoing efforts to study its process for tasking ISR 

assets, we reviewed documentation and interviewed an official from the 

Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board. 

Additionally, we discussed the use of unmanned aircraft systems in 

military operations with U.S. Central Command officials and units who 

recently returned or are currently supporting operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan.

To assess the status of selected ISR programs and the potential for 

synergies between them, we obtained and analyzed programmatic and 

budget documents for each of the systems we reviewed. We also discussed 

the status of each program with officials at the program office level and 

with officials from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. In addition, we 

discussed the potential for synergies among programs with officials from 

the Joint Chief of Staff for Intelligence. 

We conducted our ongoing work from June 2006 to April 2007 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

DOD has taken some important first steps to formulate a strategy for 

improving the integration of future ISR requirements—the development of

its ISR Integration Roadmap and the inclusion of ISR systems across DOD 

in a test case for the joint capability portfolio management concept. In 

response to a statutory requirement, DOD developed the ISR Integration 

Roadmap to guide the development and integration of DOD ISR 

capabilities. Our preliminary work has shown, however, that while DOD’s 

ISR Integration Roadmap sets out some strategic objectives, such as 

attaining global persistent surveillance, it does not clearly (1) identify 

future ISR requirements and how DOD plans to achieve them, (2) identify 

funding priorities, or (3) establish mechanisms to ensure that services’ 

investment plans reflect the overall strategy and to measure DOD’s 

progress toward strategic goals for the ISR enterprise. The ISR Integration 

Roadmap also does not define requirements for global persistent 

surveillance, clarify what ISR requirements are already filled, identify 

critical gaps as areas for future focus, or otherwise represent an 

enterprise-level architecture of what the ISR enterprise is to be. DOD’s 

second initiative is its application of the joint capability portfolio 

management concept to ISR systems across DOD as a test of the concept. 

Through the capability portfolio management concept, DOD seeks to 

develop and manage ISR capabilities across the entire department —

rather than by military service or individual program—and by doing so, 

enable interoperability of future capabilities and reduce redundancies and 

gaps. While implementation of the portfolio management concept is in its 

Summary 

Page 3 GAO-07-596T 
early stages, our preliminary assessment identified challenges. For 

example, the portfolio managers do not currently have the authority to 

direct services’ investments in ISR capabilities, and DOD leadership is 

monitoring the portfolio management test cases to determine whether 

such authority is needed. Therefore, the extent to which the services will 

change their investment plans to adopt suggestions from portfolio 

managers to maximize the effectiveness of the overall enterprise is not 

clear. In addition, DOD has undertaken some data-driven analyses of the 

capabilities and costs of different systems that could provide portfolio 

managers with a basis for making trade-offs among competing investment

options. We identified some limitations to the analysis that DOD 

performed. Still, if expanded to be more comprehensive and integrated, 

this analytical approach could inform portfolio managers and decision 

makers and enable DOD to develop and field the ISR capabilities that most 

efficiently and effectively fill gaps and reduce redundancies. 

DOD’s approach to managing its current ISR assets, including unmanned 

aircraft systems, limits its ability to optimize the use of these assets. While 

the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance, 

and Reconnaissance (JFCC-ISR), which is charged with recommending to 

the Secretary of Defense how theater-level assets should be allocated to 

support operational requirements of combatant commanders, has visibility 

into the DOD ISR programs supporting theater-level requirements, it does 

not currently have visibility into all ISR assets. JFCC-ISR is working to 

increase its knowledge of these assets so that it can consider all assets in 

the allocation process. Similarly, during ongoing operations, the 

commander responsible for planning, coordinating, and monitoring joint 

air operations does not currently have visibility over how tactical assets 

are being tasked, which could result in unnecessary duplicative taskings 

and limit DOD’s ability to leverage all available ISR assets. In addition, 

DOD lacks sufficient metrics and feedback for evaluating the performance 

of its ISR assets. DOD currently assesses its ISR missions with limited 

quantitative metrics such as the number of targets planned versus the 

number collected against. DOD officials acknowledge more needs to be 

done and there is an ongoing effort within DOD to develop improved 

metrics and identify qualitative as well as quantitative ISR metrics, but 

progress has been limited and no milestones have been established. 

Further, although DOD guidance calls for an evaluation of the 

effectiveness of ISR support in meeting warfighter requirements, DOD 

officials acknowledge that this feedback is not consistently occurring, due 

mainly to the fast pace of operations in theater. Without sufficient visibility 

over the full range of available ISR assets and feedback and metrics for 

evaluating ISR missions, DOD may not be in the best position to validate 

Page 4 GAO-07-596T 
the true demand for ISR assets, ensure it is optimizing the use of existing 

assets, or acquire new systems that best support warfighting needs. 

The services are not required to jointly develop new weapon systems but 

can attain economies and efficiencies when this happens. Short of a joint

development program, there are still opportunities for similar weapon 

systems being developed by different services to gain synergies that can

result in providing new capabilities to the warfighter more efficiently and 

affordably. We have identified development programs where program 

managers and services are working together to gain these efficiencies and

where less collaborative efforts could lead to more costly stovepiped 

solutions that are redundant. Additionally, of the 13 airborne ISR programs 

that we reviewed, most have encountered either cost growth or schedule 

delays. These problems are typically the result of not following a 

knowledge-based approach to weapon system development as provided 

for in DOD policy. In some cases, the resultant delay in delivering the new 

capability to the warfighter has led to unplanned investments to keep 

legacy systems relevant and operational until the new capability is finally 

delivered. 

The term “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,” or “ISR,” 

encompasses multiple activities related to the planning and operation of 

sensors and assets that collect, process, and disseminate data in support 

of current and future military operations. Intelligence data can take many 

forms, including optical, radar, or infrared images or electronic signals. 

This data can come from a variety of sources, including surveillance and 

reconnaissance systems ranging from satellites, to manned aircraft like the 

U-2, unmanned aircraft systems like the Air Force’s Global Hawk and 

Predator and the Army’s Hunter, to other ground, air, sea, or space-based 

equipment, to human intelligence teams. DOD ISR activities support the 

missions of the Department of Defense and the Director of National 

Intelligence, as well as the missions of other government agencies. ISR 

activities directly support current and future operations and military 

forces rely on the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence in 

the planning and conduct of their operations and activities. 

Background 

Many defense organizations play a role in identifying ISR requirements, 

managing current assets, and developing new capabilities. DOD 

established the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD(I)) to 

coordinate policy and strategic oversight of defense intelligence, security, 

and counterintelligence to meet combatant commander requirements. 

Other defense intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency, 

Page 5 GAO-07-596T 
the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency have key roles in supporting defense and national 

security missions. 

Combatant commanders may identify their needs for ISR capabilities to 

support their missions through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

For example, the U.S. Central Command is charged with identifying the 

ISR capabilities required to support his theater of operations. Generally, 

the individual military services or other DOD agencies are responsible for 

managing the acquisition of new DOD ISR systems. 

In 2003, DOD altered its unified command plan to give the U.S. Strategic 

Command (USSTRATCOM) responsibility for planning, integrating, and 

coordinating ISR in support of strategic and global operations. To execute

this responsibility, USSTRATCOM established the Joint Functional 

Component Command-ISR in March 2005 and designated the Director of 

the Defense Intelligence Agency as the commander. The Joint Functional 

Component Command-ISR is charged with developing strategies for 

distributing, or allocating, existing ISR assets among combatant 

commanders and ensuring the integration and synchronization of DOD, 

national, and allied ISR capabilities and collection efforts. In the case of

ongoing operations, the Joint Force Air Component Commander generally 

tasks theater-level ISR assets made available for support of the Joint Force 

Commander’s operational objectives. 

Implemented in 2003, the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development 

System (JCIDS) is DOD’s principal process for identifying, assessing, and 

prioritizing proposals to improve existing capabilities and develop new 

capabilities. The JCIDS process is designed to facilitate coordination 

among DOD components in assessing proposals for new capabilities to 

ensure that they enable joint forces to meet the full range of military 

operations and challenges. Under the JCIDS collaborative review process, 

proposals for new intelligence capabilities that support DOD or national 

intelligence requirements must be reviewed by the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council, which consists of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff and a four-star officer designated by each of the military services. 

Eight Functional Capabilities Boards assist the Joint Requirements 

Oversight Council in evaluating proposals and making recommendations 

on approval.1

 The Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board 

 1

The other Functional Capabilities Boards are Command and Control, Focused Logistics,

Force Management, Force Protection, Force Application, Net-Centric, and Joint Training.

Page 6 GAO-07-596T 
(BA/FCB) is responsible for reviewing proposals to develop and acquire 

new ISR capabilities. 

Under section 426 of title 10 of the U.S. Code, DOD is required to establish 

an ISR Integration Council to serve as a forum for the services and the 

defense intelligence agencies to discuss their ISR integration efforts in 

order to ensure unity of effort and preclude unnecessary duplication of 

effort. Led by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, the council is 

statutorily made up of senior intelligence officers from each of the armed 

services and U.S. Special Operations Command, the directors of the 

defense intelligence agencies, and the Joint Staff Director for Operations.2

DOD is also required under section 426 to develop a comprehensive plan—

known as the ISR Integration Roadmap—to guide the development and 

integration of DOD ISR capabilities from 2004 through 2018. DOD 

published the first iteration of the ISR Integration Roadmap in May 2005 

and updated the Roadmap in January 2007. The details of the ISR 

Integration Roadmap are classified, but the management issues and 

initiatives it contains are not classified. 

Over the past few years, DOD has taken some important steps to enable it 

to take a department-wide view of ISR capabilities. These steps are 

important in DOD’s efforts to formulate a strategy for meeting future ISR 

requirements in a more integrated manner by considering how existing 

and future assets will fit together to provide needed information to 

support combatant commanders and national decision makers. 

Specifically, DOD has developed and is updating a statutorily required ISR 

Integration Roadmap that charts current programs and has begun testing 

portfolio management principles to manage the requirements for future 

ISR capabilities. However, these two initiatives are in the early stages of 

implementation and have some limitations, and it is unclear whether these 

initiatives will be enough to improve integration of DOD ISR assets and 

guide DOD ISR investment decisions. 

DOD Is Undertaking 

Important Initiatives, 

But the Extent to 

Which These Will 

Guide Future 

Investments to 

Achieve Better 

Integration of ISR 

Assets Is Not Clear 

ISR Integration Roadmap DOD’s ISR Integration Roadmap is a noteworthy step for DOD in 

examining the ISR capabilities that DOD currently has available and in 

 2

 The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence has voluntarily expanded membership of

the council to include representatives of several additional Joint Staff and Office of the 

Secretary of Defense offices, a representative of U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the 

Commander of U.S. Strategic Command. 

Page 7 GAO-07-596T 
development, although the Roadmap does not represent a comprehensive 

vision for the ISR enterprise or define strategy to guide future investments. 

First published in May 2005 in response to a statutory requirement and 

updated in January 2007, DOD’s ISR Integration 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. DOD’s recent update took the 

ISR Integration Roadmap a step farther than its 2005 version because it 

incorporated information from the QDR and the National Intelligence 

Strategy. For example, the updated version includes a list of the ISRrelated QDR decisions aimed at achieving future joint force characteristics 

and building on progress to date, such as increasing investment in 

unmanned aircraft systems and balancing air- and space-borne ISR 

capabilities. In addition, the recent ISR Integration Roadmap included 

changes in funding and ISR program information driven by the fiscal year 

2007 President’s Budget.

We believe that, given the vast scope of ISR capabilities, which operate in 

a variety of mediums and encompass a range of intelligence disciplines, 

the ISR Integration Roadmap represents a significant step toward 

providing DOD leadership and the Congress with the information needed

to assess the strengths and weaknesses of current ISR capabilities. 

However, while the Roadmap sets out some strategic goals objectives for

the defense ISR enterprise,3

 such as recapitalizing ISR capabilities, it does 

not yet constitute an enterprise-level architecture or represent an 

investment strategy. The Roadmap does not clearly show how the ISR 

systems—existing and future—will fit together in a vision for common 

architecture to most efficiently meet priority ISR requirements or provide 

a basis for making trade-offs among competing programs. Specifically, the 

Roadmap does not (1) identify overall ISR requirements and how DOD 

plans to achieve them, (2) identify funding priorities, and (3) establish 

mechanisms to enforce an investment strategy or measure progress. 

Moreover, the Roadmap does not clarify what requirements for future ISR 

systems are already filled, or possibly saturated, identify the critical 

capability gaps that need to be filled by future systems, or identify focus 

areas for future requirements. For example, although the Roadmap sets 

 3

 The Defense ISR Enterprise consists of the intelligence components of DOD operating

cohesively to fulfill the Secretary of Defense’s obligation to meet DOD’s intelligence needs 

and a significant set of government-wide intelligence needs (as tasked by the Director of

National Intelligence.) 

Page 8 GAO-07-596T 
the objective of attaining global persistent surveillance,4

 it has not yet 

defined the requirements for persistent surveillance or how to use current 

assets to attain it. We have previously testified on the need for better 

planning for other ISR-related development programs. For example, DOD 

has continued to request funding to support the services’ plans to develop

new unmanned aircraft system capabilities in the absence of overall plans 

to guide development and investment decisions. DOD officials 

acknowledged that the ISR Integration Roadmap has limitations and said

that these limitations will be addressed in future revisions. As the 

department moves forward with its ISR Integration Roadmap, we believe it 

could provide a basis for DOD to determine the mix of future capabilities 

that provides the best value with regard to their place in an overarching 

ISR architecture. 

Battlespace Awareness 

Capability Portfolio 

Management 

DOD is attempting to better manage the requirements for future ISR 

capabilities across DOD by applying a joint capability portfolio 

management concept to ISR assets. In September 2006, the Deputy 

Secretary of Defense decided to bring ISR systems across DOD together 

into a capability portfolio as part of a test case for the joint capability 

portfolio management concept. The capability portfolio containing these 

ISR systems is known as the battlespace awareness capability portfolio, 

and it is one of the four test cases for exploring this management concept.5

The intent of the ISR portfolio management test case is 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 Under 

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence is the lead office for battlespace 

awareness capability portfolio management. The ISR Integration Council 

acts as the governance body for the ISR portfolio management effort. In 

addition, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence works closely 

 4

 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./coalition actions. 

5

 Under this concept, a group of military capabilities, such as ISR capabilities, is managed 

as a joint portfolio rather than separately by each service. The other test cases are Joint 

Command and Control, Joint Net-Centric Operations, and Joint Logistics. 

Page 9 GAO-07-596T 
with the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board,6

 which is a 

Joint Staff organization that provides analytic support for the Joint 

Requirements Oversight Council’s discussions and decisions on ISR 

capability needs, joint concepts, and programmatic issues. 

Battlespace awareness capability managers reviewed and prioritized ISR 

assets to inform budget development for the first time with the fiscal year 

2008 budget, and the portfolio management concept is still being tested. 

Therefore, it is too early to assess its effectiveness in integrating ISR 

programs to meet future requirements. However, our preliminary work has 

shown that the concept faces implementation challenges, among them 

clarifying the responsibilities and authorities of the capability portfolio 

managers in relation to the services in order to make trade-offs among 

competing service priorities. For example, the ISR Integration Council 

held discussions on service resource allocation decisions in an effort to 

achieve consensus among the services, combatant commanders, and other 

stakeholders. The Council proposed recommendations for rebalancing the 

services’ investments in their respective ISR portfolios during the fiscal 

year 2008 budget. However, the ISR Integration Council did not have the 

authority to compel services to change their budget plans. According to 

defense officials, there were some disagreements between the ISR 

Integration Council’s recommendations and the services on funding levels 

for ISR systems. These issues were elevated to the Deputy Secretary of 

Defense for final decision. DOD leaders are monitoring the 

implementation of the capability portfolio test cases to determine whether 

portfolio managers should have the authority to direct changes to service 

plans. However, without authority to direct the military services to adopt 

any of its suggestions, it is unclear the extent to which the ISR Integration 

Council can influence service plans. 

The Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board is charged with

reviewing service proposals for new ISR capabilities and the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence assists in this effort. The 

documentation that the board reviews provides analysis of the capability 

required and includes cost information related to the proposed approach 

for generating the capability. However, it is not clear to what extent these 

proposals are based on a comprehensive analysis that includes data on 

 6

 The principal members of the Battlespace Awareness Functional Capabilities Board are 

representatives from the services, the combatant commands, the Joint Staff, OUSD(AT&L), 

the Director, PA&E, and OASD(NII)/DOD Chief Information Officer. 

Page 10 GAO-07-596T 
cost/performance evaluations and consideration of national-level 

capabilities. 

Our preliminary work identified an example of the kind of data-driven 

analysis of alternative investment strategies that we believe could be 

useful to battlespace awareness capability portfolio managers for 

analyzing competing ISR programs and developing an investment strategy 

for the future. In 2004, the National Security Space Office7

 completed a 

limited architecture analysis of ISR assets using cost and performance 

data. Specifically, the National Security Space Office analyzed how much 

additional ISR capability would be provided by various ISR system mixes 

for given levels of additional investment. The intent of the study was to 

provide insight into the most efficient mix of current and planned ISR 

systems. While the analysis was a useful demonstration of an approach to

inform decision makers, it had several limitations. For example, the 

analysis did not include all national and tactical ISR systems, mainly 

focusing on space and air. The analysis also assumed that the additional 

infrastructure needed to support integration of information from 

additional ISR systems would be available, while the costs associated with

such additional infrastructure, which are difficult to estimate, were not 

included in the analysis. Further, the analysis was limited in that it only 

considered ISR capabilities for levels of increased investment, not for 

levels of decreased investment; thus, it did not consider what the most 

efficient mix of ISR systems would be if limited resources forced decision 

makers to decrease funding for ISR programs. Moreover, the analysis 

represented a one-time effort and has not been repeated. Still, we believe 

that, if expanded to be more comprehensive and integrated, this type of 

data-driven analytical approach could inform decision makers on the 

implications of various options for providing the most effective mix of ISR 

capabilities that DOD can afford. Without an enterprise-level architecture 

and an ongoing and comprehensive data-driven analysis of the most 

efficient solutions, it is not clear to us how DOD can be assured that it is 

developing and fielding the ISR capabilities that most efficiently and 

effectively fill gaps and reduce redundancies. 

 7

 The National Security Space Office (NSSO) falls under the office of DOD’s Executive 

Agent for Space—the Under Secretary of the Air Force. Its mission is to provide unity of

effort and strategic focus to national security space issues. The mission of the NSSO’s ISR

Functional Integration Office, which conducted this analysis, is to create and sustain the

nation’s integrated ISR architecture to provide a basis for informed decision making across

the national security enterprise. 

Page 11 GAO-07-596T 
While our preliminary work has focused on the new processes that DOD 

has established to address what it has acknowledged are weaknesses in its 

planning for integrated future capabilities, our future work will investigate 

DOD’s processes for integrating requirements and developing an 

investment strategy. Among the issues that we plan to address are the 

extent to which: 

• DOD’s ISR Integration Roadmap, or other DOD initiatives, establish a 

framework for developing an overarching joint ISR architecture and an 

investment strategy; 

• DOD’s review processes enable it to identify gaps and redundancies in 

ISR requirements; and 

• DOD has considered comprehensive analyses of new ISR capabilities, 

to include consideration of all available ISR assets and 

cost/performance evaluations. 

Given the substantial investment DOD is making in ISR assets and the 

increasing demand for them, effective management of these assets has 

become critical. Currently, DOD’s approach to allocation and tasking do 

not provide full visibility for managing its current ISR assets. Although 

DOD has established a process for allocating available ISR assets to the 

combatant commanders to meet theater needs, including unmanned 

aircraft systems, it does not have visibility over all ISR assets, which would 

improve its ability to allocate assets. Additionally, DOD’s process for 

tasking ISR assets does not currently allow for visibility at all levels into 

how ISR assets are being used on a daily basis. Furthermore, DOD does 

not have metrics and feedback for systematically measuring the 

effectiveness of ISR missions. Without better visibility and performance 

evaluation, DOD does not have all the information it needs to validate the 

demand for ISR assets, to ensure it is optimizing the use of existing assets, 

and to acquire new systems that best support warfighting needs. 

Future GAO Work Will 

Continue to Focus on 

DOD’s Approach for 

Developing ISR 

Capabilities 

DOD Lacks Adequate 

Visibility and Metrics 

to Optimize ISR 

Assets 

DOD’s Approach to 

Allocating and Tasking ISR 

Does Not Consider All ISR 

Assets 

DOD uses an annual process for allocating or distributing available ISR 

assets to the combatant commanders to meet theater-level needs, 

including unmanned aircraft systems. That process is managed by 

USSTRATCOM’s Joint Functional Component Command-ISR (JFCC-ISR), 

which is tasked with making recommendations to the Secretary of Defense 

on how best to allocate ISR resources for theater use across the 

combatant commands. Once ISR assets have been allocated, those assets 

Page 12 GAO-07-596T 
are available to the theater commanders to be assigned, or tasked, against 

specific requests for ISR support, in support of ongoing operations. 

JFCC-ISR’s ability to fulfill its mission of integrating DOD, national and 

allied partner ISR capabilities to support the warfighter depends on the 

extent to which it has awareness and visibility over all ISR assets including 

DOD, national and allied. However, although the JFCC-ISR has been 

assigned the mission of integrating national and DOD ISR capabilities, it 

does not currently have visibility into all assets that could be brought to 

bear to support combatant commanders’ needs. Currently, JFCC-ISR has 

visibility into DOD ISR assets available to support theater-level 

requirements, but does not have the same level of visibility into other ISR 

assets such as national and allied. According to JFCC-ISR officials, 

although they are working to develop better visibility over all ISR assets by 

working with other defense and national intelligence agencies, they lack

full visibility into these ISR assets. JFCC-ISR officials estimate it has 80-90 

percent visibility into DOD ISR assets but does not have the same level of 

visibility into other ISR assets available to support theater-level 

requirements. Without an approach to its allocation process that allows 

visibility over all ISR capabilities and access to all relevant information, it 

is not clear to us that the JFCC-ISR has the tools it needs in order to fulfill 

its mission, in particular to leverage all available ISR assets and to 

optimize the effectiveness of those assets. 

Greater visibility of assets is also needed during ongoing operations to 

improve DOD’s process for tasking, or assigning ISR assets to specific 

missions. Specifically, greater visibility of assets is needed at the theater 

level. The theater combatant commander’s Joint Force Air Component 

Commander is responsible for planning, coordinating, and monitoring 

joint air operations to focus the impact of air capabilities and for assuring 

their effective and efficient use in achieving the combatant commander’s 

objectives. However, while the Air Component Commander has visibility 

into how all theater-level ISR assets, like the Air Force’s Predator, are 

being used, it does not currently have visibility into how ISR assets, 

embedded in and controlled by tactical units, such as the Army’s Hunter, 

are being used on a daily basis. Greater visibility is also needed at the 

tactical level to allow units a greater awareness of where other ISR assets, 

including both theater-level and those assets embedded in other units, are 

operating and what they are being used to do. Our preliminary work shows 

that as a result of this lack of visibility, the potential exists for unnecessary 

duplication, or multiple ISR aircraft to be tasked to operate in the same 

area and against the same requirement. However, some level of 

duplication may be necessary when driven by system capabilities and 

Page 13 GAO-07-596T 
mission requirements. Our work has also shown that by leveraging the 

capabilities of different ISR assets using techniques such as cross-cueing,8

the Air Component Commander has been able to use the different types of 

capabilities brought by different theater-level manned and unmanned 

assets to maximize the intelligence collected. For example, a manned Joint 

Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance system could be 

used to sense movement in an area and then an unmanned system such as 

a Predator could be called in to collect imagery to confirm suspected 

activity. With greater visibility at all levels into the tasking of all ISR assets, 

including those tactical assets controlled by the military services, there is

an opportunity for DOD to gain greater synergies and optimize the use of 

its ISR assets, reduce the potential for unnecessary duplicative taskings, 

and determine whether additional perceived demand for these assets is 

well-founded. This visibility would also allow tactical units, when 

appropriate,9 to leverage other assets operating in their area to maximize 

the information captured and avoid unnecessary duplicative taskings. 

Without this visibility, DOD is not likely to optimize the capability offered 

by these assets or achieve the joint approach to employing its ISR assets 

called for in the Quadrennial Defense Review. 

DOD Lacks Metrics and 

Feedback for 

Systematically Tracking 

the Effectiveness of Its ISR 

Missions 

The growing demand for ISR assets is an indication of their value in 

supporting combat forces, but DOD does not have sufficient metrics for 

evaluating the effectiveness of ISR missions and is not getting consistent

feedback on whether the warfighters’ needs were met. For example, DOD 

currently assesses its ISR missions with limited quantitative metrics such 

as the number of targets planned versus the number collected against. We

recommended in a December 2005 report that DOD ensure its 

performance measurement system measures how effectively unmanned 

aircraft systems perform their missions, identify performance indicator 

information that needs to be collected, and systematically collect 

identified performance information.10 DOD officials acknowledged 

shortcomings of its metrics, and DOD is developing qualitative as well as 

 8

 Cross-cueing is the collaborative effort of utilizing capabilities offered by multiple ISR 

platforms to fulfill a mission.

9

 Some missions, such as special operations, are classified and it is not always appropriate 

to share specifics of the missions. 

10 GAO, Unmanned Aircraft Systems: DOD Needs to More Effectively Promote 

Interoperability and Improve Performance Assessments, GAO-06-49 (Washington, D.C.: 

Dec. 13, 2005). 

Page 14 GAO-07-596T 
quantitative ISR metrics, but progress has been limited and no milestones 

have been established. Additionally, although DOD guidance calls for an 

evaluation of how effective ISR support is in meeting the warfighters’ 

requirements, DOD officials acknowledge that this feedback is not 

consistently occurring mainly because of the fast pace of operations in 

theater. For example, while there is real-time communication among 

unmanned aircraft system operators, requesters, and intelligence 

personnel during an operation to ensure that the needed information is 

captured, and agency officials indicate this communication is beneficial to

providing real-time feedback, there is little to no feedback after the 

operation to determine whether the warfighters’ needs were met by the 

ISR mission. Without developing metrics and systematically gathering 

feedback that enables it to assess the extent to which ISR missions are 

successful in supporting warfighter needs, DOD is not in a position to 

validate the true demand for ISR assets, determine whether it is allocating 

and tasking its ISR assets in the most effective manner, or acquire new 

systems that best support warfighting needs. 

Without a comprehensive and integrated approach to managing current 

ISR assets and balancing demands for the ISR capabilities required for the 

future, some of DOD’s current ISR acquisitions are not benefiting from 

collaboration among the services that could save time and money. Among 

the ISR acquisition programs we reviewed, we found specific cases where 

the military services’ successful collaboration resulted in savings of time 

and resources. We also found cases where more collaboration is needed to

provide greater efficiencies in developing more affordable new systems to 

close gaps in capabilities. Most of the 13 airborne ISR programs that we 

reviewed have experienced some cost and/or schedule growth. One 

program experienced significant cost growth and 9 programs have 

experienced schedule delays that range from 2 months to 60 months. 

These problems were caused largely by acquisition strategies that failed to

capture sufficient knowledge about the product technologies and design 

before committing to the development or demonstration of a new system. 

Resultant delays in the delivery of some new systems have required DOD 

to make investments in legacy systems in order to keep them relevant and 

operational until they can be replaced by new systems. 

ISR Development 

Programs Have 

Opportunities for 

Greater Synergies and 

Have Experienced 

Some Cost and 

Schedule Growth 

That Impact Legacy 

Systems

Page 15 GAO-07-596T 
While the Office of Secretary of Defense has historically endorsed the 

concept of joint acquisitions because of the potential synergies and 

resultant benefits, the military services have not always embraced joint

acquisitions and often prefer separately managed programs to satisfy their 

individual needs. As a result, opportunities to gain efficiencies through 

common engineering, design, and manufacturing efforts are not presented

when a new acquisition program begins. However, we found the military 

services sometimes initiate collaborative approaches on their own to 

achieve some of the economies and efficiencies of a joint program. In one 

case, we also found the services resisted seeking synergies that could 

benefit both programs and lead to potential savings in development and 

procurement costs. The following three examples illustrate programs that 

are collaborating, have taken initial steps to begin collaborating, and have

resisted collaborating. The ultimate extent of collaboration as well as 

outcomes of these programs still remains to be seen. 

The Army began developing its Future Combat Systems—a family of 

systems that included a vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aircraft 

system called Fire Scout—in 2000. Program managers from the Army Fire 

Scout contacted their counterparts in the Navy Fire Scout program to 

share information and see if there could be any synergies between the two 

programs. This was done on their own initiative as acquisition policy does 

not require joint or collaborative programs. Army and Navy officials met 

several times to discuss configuration, performance requirements, testing, 

support, and other issues. Initially the requirements for the two systems 

were quite different. The Army’s unmanned aircraft system had four 

blades and a larger engine, while Navy’s system had three rotor blades and 

a smaller engine. After discussions, the Navy decided to switch to the 

Army’s configuration. The Army is buying common components, such as 

the air vehicle and flight components, under the Navy contract. 

Opportunities Exist for 

Greater Collaboration 

across the Services’ ISR 

Programs 

Successful Collaboration on 

Fire Scout 

An Army program management official estimated that the savings to the 

Army in research and development alone would be about $200 million. As 

both programs mature, the official believes additional synergies and 

savings could be realized through contract price breaks on quantities and 

shared test assets, such as air vehicles, support equipment, and test 

components. Jointly acquiring common hardware under one contract will 

also reduce procurement administrative lead time and permit common 

design, tooling, and testing. Finally, future payload development such as 

communications, sensors, and data links could be procured jointly. 

Page 16 GAO-07-596T 
The Navy identified a mission need for a broad area maritime and littoral 

ISR capability in 2000. Based on a 2002 analysis of alternatives, the Navy 

decided to pursue a manned platform Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft 

(MMA) with an unmanned adjunct, the BAMS. The Navy subsequently

performed an analysis of alternatives for the BAMS program, which 

identified several potential alternatives; foremost among them was the 

Global Hawk system. As a risk reduction effort, the Navy funded the 

Global Hawk Maritime Demonstration program in 2003. Working through 

the existing Air Force contract, the Navy procured two Global Hawk 

unmanned aircraft and associated ground controls and equipment. The 

demonstration program was expected to leverage the existing Global 

Hawk system to develop tactics, training, and techniques for maritime 

mission applications. 

Opportunity to Collaborate on 

Broad Area Maritime 

Surveillance (BAMS) 

The BAMS program is at a critical juncture. It released a request for 

proposals in February 2007 and plans to proceed with system development 

and demonstration in October 2007. If the Global Hawk (or another 

existing system like the Air Force Reaper) is selected, there are 

opportunities for the Navy to work with the Air Force and take advantage 

of its knowledge on the existing platform. By adopting the collaborative 

techniques used by the Fire Scout officials, the Navy could leverage

knowledge early in the acquisition process and avoid or reduce costs for 

design, new tooling, and manufacturing, and streamline contracting and 

acquisition processes. 

In contrast to the Fire Scout experience, the Air Force and Army 

repeatedly resisted collaborating on their Predator and Warrior unmanned 

aircraft programs. The Air Force’s Predator is a legacy program that has 

been operational since 1995. Its persistent surveillance/full motion video 

capability continues to be a valued asset to the warfighter. When the Army 

began in 2001 to define requirements for the Warrior, a system similar to 

the Predator, it did not explore potential synergies and efficiencies with 

the Air Force program. Both the Air Force and the Joint Staff responsible 

for reviewing Warrior’s requirements and acquisition documentation 

raised concerns about duplication of an existing capability. Despite these 

concerns, the Army did not perform an analysis of alternatives, citing the

urgent need of battlefield commanders for this capability.11 The Army 

Collaboration Slow to Happen 

on Warrior and Predator 

 11 The Army asserted that its need was urgent and it could not get sufficient support from 

Predator because of the system's limited assets.

Page 17 GAO-07-596T 
awarded a separate development contract to the same contractor 

producing the Predator.

Responding to direction from the Quadrennial Defense Review and the 

Secretary of Defense, the Army and Air Force agreed to consider 

cooperating on the acquisition of the two systems in January 2006. 

However, the effort has stalled because the services have different 

concepts of operation and requirements. For example, the Army does not 

agree with the Air Force’s requirement for rated pilots. The Air Force and

the Army are currently working to identify program synergies in a phased 

approach. Initially, the Air Force will acquire two of the more modern 

Warrior airframes and test them. Later, the services will compare their 

requirements for ground control stations and automated takeoff and 

landing. Finally, the Army and Air Force plan to compare concepts of 

operation and training requirements for additional synergies. However, so 

far the Army has coordinated the proposed approach through the Vice 

Chief of Staff level, but the agreement has not yet been approved by the 

Department of Army. The Air Force is still working to resolve comments 

and concerns at lower organizational levels. If this stalls, these programs 

could be more costly and redundant.

Some ISR Development 

Programs Have 

Experienced Problems 

That Have Led to Cost 

Growth, Delays, and 

Additional Investments in 

Legacy Systems 

Nearly all of the 13 airborne ISR programs12 we reviewed have experienced

changes in cost or schedule. This can be attributed to a variety of causes. 

Many programs began development without a solid business case or a 

realistic acquisition strategy. As a result of the schedule delays in some 

programs, the services will have to make investments in legacy systems to

keep them in the inventory longer than planned. These investments 

represent opportunity costs that could have been used for other needs 

within DOD.

Programs must build a business case that provides demonstrated evidence 

that (1) the warfighter need exists and that it can best be met with the 

chosen concept, and (2) the concept can be developed and produced 

Cost, Schedule, and 

Performance Status of Airborne 

ISR Programs 

 12 These 13 programs are post Milestone A and are in technology development or systems

development and demonstration. A project enters technology development at Milestone A, 

when the decision maker has approved the technology development strategy. The purpose 

of this phase of development is to reduce technology risk and to determine the appropriate

set of technologies to be integrated into a full system. 

Page 18 GAO-07-596T 
within existing resources—technologies, design, funding, and time. 

Establishing a business case calls for a realistic assessment of risks and 

costs; doing otherwise undermines the intent of the business case and

invites failure. Once the business case is done, programs must develop a 

realistic acquisition strategy, which requires having critical program 

knowledge at key points in the acquisition. This includes knowledge about 

technology maturity, system design, and manufacturing and production 

processes. DOD’s acquisition policy endorses this knowledge-based 

approach to acquisition. This policy includes strategies to reduce 

technology, integration, design, manufacturing, and production risks. 

Table 1 summarizes ISR programs that have encountered problems either 

in development or as they prepared to begin the system development and 

demonstration phase of an acquisition program.13 Results of these 

problems included cost and schedule growth, program restructuring, 

cancellation, and unplanned investments in the legacy systems that were 

being replaced. 

Table 1: Causes and Impacts of Cost and Schedule Growth

System Problem encountered Impact 

E-10A Uncertain need and immature technology Program cancelled. 

Aerial Common Sensor Requirements and design changes Development stopped; program being 

restructured; schedule delayed 60 months; and 

increased investments in legacy systems. 

Global Hawk Concurrent acquisition; immature technology; 

and requirements and design changes 

Cost growth (261 percent in development); 

schedule delayed 36 months; program 

restructured; potential increased investments in 

legacy system. 

Reaper Concurrent acquisition and immature technology Cost growth (13 percent in development) and 

schedule delayed 7 months. 

BAMS Immature technology Schedule delayed 39 months. 

MMA Immature technology None to date. 

Army Fire Scout Acquisition dependent on another major 

acquisition program (Future Combat Systems) 

Schedule delayed 22 months. 

Navy Fire Scout Acquisition dependent on another major 

acquisition program (Littoral Combat Ship) 

Schedule delayed 3 months.

 13 The EPX, the Navy’s replacement for its EP-3, is not included in the table because it is a new program as of February 2007 and has

not had a cost increase or schedule delay. 

Page 19 GAO-07-596T 
System Problem encountered Impact 

Space Radar Immature technology and requirements change Cost growth (18 percent in development); 

schedule delayed 8 months; and program 

restructured. 

Multi-Platform Radar 

Technology Insertion Program

Acquisition strategy and funding dependent on 

other major acquisition programs (E-10A 

cancelled and Global Hawk continues) 

Requirements changed and program restructured.

Warrior Concurrent acquisition strategy and immature 

technology 

Cost growth (21 percent in development); 

schedule delayed 9 months. 

Airborne Signals Intelligence 

Payload (sensor) 

Immature technology and design Schedule delayed 2 months.

Source: GAO analysis of DOD data. 

Following are detailed examples of programs that failed to either develop

a good business case or an executable acquisition strategy and that had 

problems. The outcome was that the services either had to or may have to

make additional investments in the legacy systems to keep them relevant 

and in the operational inventory until the new system has completed 

development and is fielded. 

Impact of Delays on Legacy 

Systems 

Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) 

The Army’s termination of the ACS system development and 

demonstration contract could have significant schedule, cost, and 

performance impacts on three legacy systems in the ISR portfolio—the 

Army’s Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS) and Airborne Reconnaissance 

Low (ARL), and the Navy’s EP-3. The Army and the Navy had planned a 

phased approach to field the ACS and retire the legacy systems from the 

inventory with a minimal investment in maintaining legacy systems. Delays 

in ACS development will now require the Army and Navy to make 

investments in the legacy systems at the same time that they develop new 

replacement systems. In addition, any delay in either the development of 

new systems or modification of legacy systems could result in an ISR 

capability gap on the battlefield. 

• The GRCS and ARL were to be replaced by ACS beginning in fiscal 

year 2009. Since the termination of the ACS development contract, the 

ACS program has reverted to a predevelopment stage as the Army 

restructures the program. ACS is scheduled to restart system 

development and demonstration in 2009, 5 years later than the initial 

development decision. Although the Army has not established a new 

date for initial operating capacity, that date is also likely to slip by 5 

years to fiscal year 2014. The cost to keep GRCS and ARL mission 

equipment viable and the platforms airworthy is estimated to be $562 

Page 20 GAO-07-596T 
million between fiscal years 2008 and 2013. Without these 

improvements, the systems will not remain capable against modern 

threats which could result in a gap in ISR capabilities on the battlefield. 

In addition, the airframes could not continue to fly during this time 

frame without some structural modifications. 

• The Navy had planned to replace its EP-3 with ACS and begin fielding 

the new system in fiscal year 2012. After the Army terminated the ACS 

development contract, the Navy considered staying with the Army in its 

development effort. However, according to Navy officials, the Chief of 

Naval Operations directed the Navy to proceed with a separate

development effort, designated the EPX. The Navy now plans to 

proceed with system development and demonstration in the fourth 

quarter of fiscal year 2010. The Navy has not established a date to begin 

fielding the new system, but that is not likely to take place before 2017. 

This translates into a 5-year slip in retiring the oldest EP-3 systems and 

will make modifications to those systems necessary so that they can 

remain in the field until the Navy achieves full operating capacity for its 

EPX. The Navy plans to invest $823 million between fiscal years 2008 

and 2013 to modify the EP-3. 

Global Hawk 

The Air Force plans to replace the U-2 with the Global Hawk but delays in

the Global Hawk program have contributed to the need to keep the U-2 in

the inventory longer than anticipated. In December 2005, the Air Force had 

planned to begin retiring the U-2 in fiscal year 2007 and complete the 

retirement by fiscal year 2012. Although the next configuration of the 

Global Hawk (with limited signals intelligence capability) is scheduled for 

delivery in fiscal year 2009, it will not have the same capability as the U-2.

The version of the Global Hawk that is planned to include a more robust 

signals intelligence capability is scheduled to begin deliveries in 2012. The 

Air Force is now developing a plan to fully retire the U-2s a year later in 

2013 and at a slower rate than the 2005 plan. There are no funds in the 

budget beyond fiscal year 2006 but the Air Force intends to fund projects 

necessary to keep the U-2 capable. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes our prepared statement. We would be happy 

to answer any questions that you or members of the Subcommittee may 

have. 

Page 21 GAO-07-596T 
For future questions about this statement, please contact Davi D’Agostino 

at (202) 512-5431, Sharon Pickup at (202) 512-9619, or Michael Sullivan at 

(202) 512-4841. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations 

and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Other 

individuals making key contributions to this statement include Margaret 

Morgan, Patricia Lentini, Michael Hazard, Assistant Directors; Gabrielle A. 

Carrington, Susan Tindall, Dayna Foster, Catherine H. Brown, Frank 

Cristinzio, LaShawnda Lindsey, Elisha Matvay, Rae Ann Sapp, Michael 

Aiken, and Grace Coleman. 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Improved Planning and Acquisition 

Strategies Can Help Address Operational Challenges. GAO-06-610T. 

Washington, D.C.: April 6, 2006. 

Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Related GAO 

Products 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Improved Strategic and Acquisition 

Planning Can Help Address Emerging Challenges. GAO-05-0395T. 

Washington, D.C.: March 9, 2005. 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Global Hawk Cost Increase Understated in

Nunn-McCurdy Report. GAO-06-222R. Washington, D.C.: December 15, 

2005. 

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: DOD Needs to More Effectively Promote 

Interoperability and Improve Performance Assessments, GAO-06-49. 

Washington, D.C.: December 13, 2005. 

Defense Acquisitions: Changes in E-10A Acquisition Strategy Needed 

before Development Starts. GAO-05-273. Washington, D.C.: March 15, 2005.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Changes in Global Hawk's Acquisition 

Strategy Are Needed to Reduce Program Risks, GAO-05-6. Washington, 

D.C.: November 5, 2004. 

Defense Acquisitions: Greater Use of Knowledge-Based Concepts Would 

Reduce Risks in Developing New Signals Intelligence Aircraft, GAO-04-

939 Washington, D.C.: September 30, 2004. 

Force Structure: Improved Strategic Planning Can Enhance DOD’s 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Efforts. GAO-04-342. Washington. D.C.: March 

17, 2004. 

Page 22 GAO-07-596T 
Signals Intelligence: DOD Should Consider Joint Replacement of Aging 

Aircraft. GAO-02-401. Washington, D.C.: March 29, 2002. 

(350883) 

Page 23 GAO-07-596T 
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