As the Air Force looks to retire some of its legacy intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, the nominee to be the service’s next chief of staff said Tuesday he wants to transition to a more “system-centric” approach for ISR assets.
Gen. David Allvin, the Air Force’s current vice chief, told lawmakers he envisions the service’s ISR modernization effort leveraging “more persistent, accessible, survivable and connected” systems as well as making greater use of Space Force capabilities to fill potential gaps.
“As we look at the ISR of the future, we’re trying to transition from something that is platform-centric to something that is system-centric. Because if we focus on ISR as we have in the past, sometimes those platforms are a little bit more vulnerable rather than how they can approach as a system,” Allvin told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) during his confirmation hearing. “That’s why we’re looking to leverage more with our Space Force partners as the entire joint force is becoming more and more reliant on not only the airborne layer but the space-borne layer of ISR as well.”
Air Force Lt. Gen. Leah Lauderback, the service’s deputy chief of staff for ISR, said in May the Space Based Radar providing ground moving target indication (GMTI) could help sew up intelligence and targeting gaps (Defense Daily, May 17).
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the SASC chair, asked Allvin on Tuesday whether the Air Force will have sufficient capability to support combatant commanders ISR requirements as the service looks to retire “substantial number” of platforms, including E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System,(JSTARS) planes as well as RQ-4 Global Hawk drones.
Allvin said maintaining readiness while moving on from legacy platforms to a more modernized ISR approach was one of the Air Force’s “more vexing” questions, pledging to work with SASC on the “responsible transition” process.
“We’re finding that those platforms served us well in the past but they’re decreasing in their relevance. And so, as we transition to move to those platforms and systems that will be more relevant into the future, we are working to ensure that those that we retain we keep as ready as possible. As they continue to age, we need to continue to understand which of those we need to divest of because the cost of just keeping them flying or operating, combined with their decreased relevance, actually decreases our ability to deter and defeat into the future,” Allvin said.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) pressed Allvin on the transition plan in place and asked whether the Air Force was “trying to get out of the ISR business altogether.”
Allvin responded, “absolutely not,” and said the Air Force will focus on maintaining the capability of current platforms while the Air Force works through this ISR transition.
“The idea of being able to leverage some of the platforms that we can talk about at this classification level and some that we can’t as well as some of the other domains that we want to integrate the data to be able to have that fused ISR,” Allvin said.
The Air Force has previously said it plans to continue utilizing other ISR platforms in support of GMTI coverage as the service works through retiring the JSTARS platform (Defense Daily, March 29).