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ISR SHOOTDOWN
GRE Y ZONE
ISR SHOOT DOWN
Reducing operational risk through teaming BY JOHN CONWAY
A
s Western militaries finalise the long and slow withdrawal from counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East, an even more complex problem arises: the problem of re-calibrating operational risk for activities below the threshold of conventional warfare in ‘grey zone’ competition. While the enemy in the deserts and the mountains chose to avoid direct conflict, the type of adversaries we may face in the future could even choose to deny the very existence of a conflict. We must therefore seek an advantage through superior decision-making, and that advantage relies on understanding what is happening in both the physical and the virtual operational domains. Grey zone conflict is nothing new – politics and war have always existed on the same continuum. But the new problem is that success in the grey zone depends on our understanding of a situation, not just awareness. Situational awareness is a dynamic, tactical phenomenon typically associated with the physical world, whereas situational understanding provides an insight into the broader asymmetries and intent in the grey, multi-domain battlespace. Situational understanding has strategic value: it buys you time and space in all domains and originates from intelligence collection operations which enable the application of national power in
precise, targeted times and locations. This national power may be military, it may be diplomatic, or it may be economic. But in each case it requires knowledge, and it is the getting of this knowledge that carries the operational risk. Yet history has shown that operational risk associated with intelligence collection has a habit of rapidly exploding into political and reputational risk. Poor operational risk management manifests itself as strategic surprise, which immediately denies time and space and hands the initiative to the adversary. Consider the following scenario: In broad daylight, in international waters over the Sea of Japan, North Korean fighter aircraft shoot down a US signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft. The aircraft had launched from Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan and was scheduled to land at Osan Air Base near Seoul. The routine collection mission had occurred hundreds of times in the past, and involved long, predictable transits and orbits off the coast of the DPRK. Thirty-one US servicemen are killed in the attack. North Korea claims the aircraft penetrated sovereign airspace and was shot
‘Success in the grey zone depends on our understanding of a situation, not just awareness’
