The Future of ISR – Changing Times and Needs

By Miguel Alejandro Laborde 

Miguel Alejandro Laborde is a former NCO in the 160th SOAR (A), and a subject matter expert on defense aviation programs, capabilities and platforms, with decades’ worth of experience in the aerospace industry supporting the joint force. 

Warfare, as history shows, must progress, and armies must adapt in order to maintain the winning edge. In today’s threat environment, where near-peer competition dominates the landscape, it is important to recognize that nation-states are not the only threat to a superpower’s position. 

In fact, great technological advances have made it possible for squad-size elements to not only evade nation-states, but act offensively – particularly in an irregular fashion – and secure both tactical and strategic gains.

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)

One of the most notable technical areas that has been vital to battlefield success – but that is undergoing rapid change now with real implications for the future of defense – is the field of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). 

Digging a bit deeper, the greatest strides that our adversaries have made in this arena are tracking ISR capabilities, defeating those capabilities, and training their operators to evade our ISR.

To counter this, the ISR paradigm has shifted away from aircraft and towards satellites; those who have not acted on this are resigned to disappear from this marketspace. The fact is that ISR has shifted and due to this shift, several trends have emerged – primarily including:

· ISR has shifted to satellite-based (LEO CubeSats);