Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems are matters of great congressional interest. These systems can provide policymakers with information on the military capabilities of foreign countries, the location of key defense and industrial sites, indications of the presence of weapons of mass destruction, and information on the plans of foreign leaders and terrorist groups. National-level ISR is essential for both defense planning and arms control negotiations. Military commanders rely on intelligence systems for information on enemy positions and activities; tactical ISR has also been essential for precise targeting in counterterrorism operations while minimizing civilian casualties. At present, major ISR systems—national and tactical—are used by both military commanders and Washington policymakers to follow developments in combat areas in great detail. ISR systems include reconnaissance satellites, some of which have been operational for decades; Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) of various sizes; and manned aircraft and other sensor platforms. In practice, some ISR systems acquired for one purpose are regularly used for other missions that may have been unanticipated when the systems were designed. Acquisition of ISR systems presents particular challenges to the intelligence community, the Department of Defense (DOD), and Congress. Agencies responsible for national systems are usually separate from those that design and acquire tactical systems. The costs and complexity of individual systems, continuing changes in technologies, and the difficulties involved in linking disparate systems together to serve a variety of consumers require different acquisition approaches than those often used for ships, tanks, and manned aircraft. Moreover, since the establishment of the United Launch Alliance in late 2006, ISR satellites rely on launch platforms and other technologies used by non-intelligence satellites; thus, there is a necessity to coordinate intelligence satellite developments and launch schedules with elements of the national space effort that is managed by federal agencies outside DOD and the intelligence community. UAS have demonstrated that on occasion they can provide data at a fraction of the costs of multi-billion dollar satellites, but UAS acquisition efforts have been anything but simple. There has been a tendency to introduce new and untested capabilities to unmanned platforms, causing production delays and cost growth. Some policymakers would centralize UAS acquisition efforts under an executive agent (an initiative that Congress at one point mandated but then abandoned), but, in practice, the four services have been intent on acquiring different UAS that meet their perceived unique requirements. The result has often been excessive costs required for different systems with duplicative or overlapping capabilities. Other platforms for ISR collection, such as manned aircraft, continue to have important functions, but often they compete for agency funding with non-intelligence aircraft rather than with unmanned intelligence systems, and intelligence requirements may not receive the highest priorities. Acquisition efforts are further complicated by the fact that Congress addresses ISR programs through a number of committees, principally Armed Services, Intelligence, and Appropriations. Such factors taken together have often led to piecemeal acquisition efforts, major cost overruns, and an inability to ensure that disparate systems can be linked effectively to yield a comprehensive intelligence picture. There have been production delays and only recently have UAS been available in adequate numbers to support the pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Observers argue—and a number of key Members of Congress have concurred—that the drawbacks inherent in past and current ISR acquisition efforts are serious enough to indicate that consideration should be given to the preparation of an agreed-upon multi-year plan or "architecture" that provides production schedules for currently planned ISR systems and the introduction of new platforms. If such a plan were agreed upon, advocates argue, it would be possible to restrain cost growth, ensure that all requirements had been considered, and establish the best possible mix of satellites and unmanned and manned systems. On the other hand, skeptics suggest that dynamic technologies and the changing international environment would nevertheless necessarily limit what can be done in terms of multi-year procurement efforts. A key consideration underlying efforts to acquire, deploy, and operate ISR systems is the way or ways that they will be used. The need to gain insights into Soviet military capabilities during the Cold War provided the principal impetus for the sizable investments in global signals intelligence and overhead reconnaissance capabilities. These systems were considered "national"; they were acquired primarily to support the President and key Cabinet members. A number of "national" organizations—especially the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Security Agency (NSA), along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), were established to gather and analyze information for senior policymakers. The ability of U.S. leaders to gauge the extent of Soviet strategic capabilities was essential to defense planning and arms control negotiations, but there was less capability to support military commanders in ongoing combat operations. Beginning with Desert Shield in 1991, however, these national-level systems began to be adapted to tactical use in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Wherever U.S. forces have been deployed for combat there have been requirements for intensive intelligence support that called upon national systems that were not originally intended for tactical uses. In peacekeeping/peacemaking/stabilization operations, the overriding need to minimize attacks on civilians has led commanders and national-level leaders to seek ever more precise target data from all available sources of information. In addition to adapting older systems to the demands of current modes of warfighting, newer ISR systems have also been employed with considerable success. In particular, UAS have proven their value as relatively low-cost systems that can be routinely used by ground commanders to acquire tactical intelligence. In regular use since the early 1990s, UAS range in size and sophistication from very small systems that can be launched by an individual soldier for short-range tactical operations to the high-altitude Global Hawk that can acquire much of the same information as reconnaissance satellites. The potential overlap, or possibility of close coordination between UAS and national satellites has, however, called into question the separate organizational and congressional oversight structures that have been established or have evolved over the past decades. In spring 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued in Foreign Affairs that the nature of U.S. strategic planning has unalterably changed. His comments summarize the evolution of defense and intelligence planning that guided the Administration's budget proposals for FY2010: [F]or far too long there was a belief or a hope that Iraq and Afghanistan were exotic distractions that would be wrapped up relatively soon—the regimes toppled, the insurgencies crushed, the troops brought home. Therefore we should not spend too much or buy too much equipment not already in our long-range procurement plans or turn our bureaucracies and processes upside down.... As a result of these failed assumptions, the capabilities most urgently needed by our warfighters, were for the most part fielded ad hoc and on the fly, developed outside the regular bureaucracy and funded in supplemental legislation that would go away when the wars did—if not sooner. ... [G]iven the types of situations the United States is likely to face … the time has come to consider whether the specialized, often relatively low-tech equipment well suited for stability and counterinsurgency missions is also needed. It is time to think hard about how to institutionalize the procurement of such capabilities and get them fielded quickly. Secretary Gates was addressing issues of defense acquisition in general and not ISR systems in particular. It is clear, however, from the text of his speeches and his actions as Defense Secretary that he sees ISR support to warfighters as a major example of the challenge facing policymakers in both the executive branch and Congress. Military operations have increasingly come to depend upon the availability of copious amounts of real-time ISR. As a result of the commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan, requirements for ISR and the actual use of ISR data have grown exponentially in the past decade. The military priorities of both the Bush and Obama Administrations have established priorities for particular kinds of intelligence and thus particular types of intelligence collection systems. The February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Report reflected Secretary Gates's earlier statements: The wars we fighting today and assessments of the future security environment together demand that the United States retain and enhance a whole-of-government capability to succeed in large-scale counterinsurgency (COIN), stability, and counterterrorism (CT) operations in environments ranging from densely populated urban areas and mega-cities, to remote mountains, deserts, jungles, and littoral regions. Stability operations, large-scale counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism operations are not niche challenges or the responsibility of a single Military Department, but rather require a portfolio of capabilities as well as sufficient capacity from across America's Armed Forces and other departments and agencies. Nor are these types of operations a transitory or anomalous phenomenon in the security landscape. On the contrary, we must expect that for the indefinite future, violent extremist groups, with or without state sponsorship, will continue to foment instability and challenge U.S. and allied interests. The QDR indicates that DOD has placed special emphasis on "certain capabilities that have been in consistently high demand and have proven to be key enablers of tactical and operational success." These enablers include unmanned aircraft systems such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper UAS and manned aircraft systems such as the MC-12 Project Liberty aircraft. ISR systems are acquired in very different ways; the process is conducted in classified channels and there is no overall ISR package that is developed by the executive branch and forwarded to Congress for its consideration. Rather, different systems are treated separately and requests come to Congress in different ways. Funds are also authorized and appropriated in different legislative measures. As might be expected, the result can be disjointed, with duplicative coverage in some areas and shortfalls in others.