George w. casey jr. - Federation of American Scientists

combat operations will occur within a unit’s operating
environment (OE).
A battlefield today could include some or all of the
following:
Special operations forces and paramilitaries still
scattered throughout the battlefield.
Political entities in hiding.
Weapons of mass destruction unaccounted for.
Massive refugee situation, in the cities and on
the roads, affecting our ability to move.
Emergence of an insurgency (led by the
paramilitaries.)
Famine and disease outbreaks.
Collapse of rule of law, and civil capacity.
Possible foreign MCO intervention.
Collapsing infrastructure to include deteriorating
roads, bridges, and dam breaches, all of
which affected our freedom of movement, and
our own sustainment operations.
Rotation 11-01 encompassed many of those requirements
and in doing so challenged BCT ISR
planners. As stated earlier many changes had taken
place within the Army. An entire generation of MI
officers had entered the Army who had never considered
ISR to support an offensive or defensive operation,
much less FSO in its totality.
Synchronizing the ISR Fight in FSO
ISR synchronization remains critical in providing
battlefield commanders the intelligence required
to make decisive decisions at critical times. FSO,
if anything, heightens that need because even with
the increased ISR capabilities resident in the modular
BCT, the ISR planner has only so many tools
in the ISR kitbag. The ISR plan cannot focus entirely
on one element of the operation. In rotation
11-01, the BCT conducted security and stability operations
across its rear as it mounted a shaping attack
on a secondary objective to set the conditions
for its decisive attack beyond. In all of this, the BCT
maintained a defensive posture around its initial
airhead. It was in all regards a near perfect display
of the concepts of FSO.
The basics of ISR did not change in meeting these
challenges. What did change was the degree of ISR
integration across the entire staff. The ISR plan was
no longer “the S2’s plan.” The ISR plan was integral
to the commander’s concept; synchronization
of the ISR plan was a command priority. While the
S3 was doctrinally responsible, development of the
ISR plan routinely fell on the brigade S2 since he or
she normally coordinated ISR assets and was the
primary user of ISR products. The complexity of the
FSO rotation meant that the S3, S2, and other staff
elements were required to work together to develop
the ISR plan. In order to drive the staff planning
process, FM 2-01 identifies the commander’s role
in providing guidance to his or her staff in planning
for ISR:
Relooking Close, Deep, and Rear
The first step in synchronization is establishing
a common framework to facilitate understanding
of the OE. As Rotation 11-01 demonstrated, the
ISR fight is the BCT commander’s fight. As such, it
should be framed in the same terms as the decisive,
shaping, and sustaining operations against which
the BCT commander commits the BCT. Ultimately,
ISR operations must be nested from division to
company level to ensure integration of all available
assets towards a single purpose that results in increased
security and flexibility to gain and maintain
the initiative. This is critical when commanders
plan combat operations within their area of responsibility
(AOR). In a widespread battlefield with multiple
ongoing operations, allocation of combat and
ISR assets should and must share common control
measures.
We believe that the terms close, deep, and rear, as
discussed in the 2006 version of FM 3-90.6, are of
great value in describing the battlefield during FSO.
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