"As we work with policy makers to define USCENTCOM's approach in the AOR, we address our objectives and goals in light of the political-military dynamics of the region. "

"The Central Region is of vital interest to the United States. Sixty-eight percent of the world's proven oil reserves are found in the Gulf Region and 43 percent of the world's petroleum exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The developing energy sector of the Central Asian States, with the potential for discovery of additional oil reserves, further emphasizes the importance of the Central Region to America and the world. "
Tommy franks...

Clintons / Gore Administration Record of Progress

CIA report 1998

Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology
Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction
and Advanced Conventional Munitions,

Defining MASINT. Have you been MASINTed?

Additional MASINT Information

Introduction

Perhaps the greatest challenge for Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) is understanding just what it is. The term ‘MASINT’ gained wide acceptance in the early 1980s as the catchall for several ‘boutique’ intelligence disciplines (RINT, ACINT, IRINT, LASINT, RFINT, NUCINT,…) under a single identifier to facilitate management and budgeting. This consolidation didn’t make it any easier to understand; as represented by one of the current “book” definitions for MASINT:

Measurement and Signal Intelligence (MASINT) provides technically derived intelligence to detect, locate, track, identify, and describe the specific characteristics of fixed and dynamic target objects and sources. Numerous scientific disciplines and advanced technologies are applied in dedicated MASINT systems. There are also advanced MASINT processing and exploitation techniques, which broaden the usefulness of data collected by IMINT and SIGINT systems. MASINT collection systems include, but are not limited to, radar spectroradiomentric, electro-optical, acoustic, radio frequency, nuclear detection, and seismic sensors, as well as techniques for gathering chemical, biological, nuclear, and other material samples.

This definition illustrates that MASINT is complex to define, especially when attempting to cover all of the possible things that it can do. MASINT is all over the map. It includes space-borne, airborne, surface (sea and ground-based), and sub-surface sensors operating across the electromagnetic spectrum – from acoustic signals through optical wavelengths to gamma rays, and, materials themselves.

MASINT is not conducted in one overarching intelligence agency, but is performed by military personnel and civilians in separate organizations with little to no linkage. At one end, MASINT requires detailed laboratory equipment and analysis taking weeks to reach conclusions that are subsequently documented in lengthy technical reports. At the other end, MASINT applies unsophisticated sensors with on-board processing that provide immediate indication of an activity of interest. MASINT is conducted using dedicated collection systems specifically designed to acquire the detailed measurements and signatures required for a particular mission area. MASINT is also conducted through specialized processing of the output – somewhere in the data stream – of sensors on operational or commercial systems. MASINT also includes the specialized processing of sensor data from other intelligence disciplines.

This complexity makes it difficult for potential users to understand and embrace MASINT as a contributor to their information needs, for policy and budget personnel to guide and invest in MASINT, and for any organization to adequately manage MASINT as an enterprise the way in which the other intelligence disciplines (SIGINT, IMINT, HUMINT) are managed. This article attempts to provide context to develop a better definition – and ultimately understanding – of the MASINT discipline. Creating this understanding is crucial to developing future organizational and procedural construct for MASINT. It is widely acknowledged that MASINT is a key contributor to the future US intelligence community. Understanding what MASINT is all about should help decision-makers create the most effective future for MASINT.

Toward a Better Definition

1. It would be easy to seek out a cute slogan or catchphrase to define MASINT:

MASINT is the “C.S.I.” of the intelligence community.

2. It might be possible to describe MASINT in context of another scientific discipline:

MASINT is like Astronomy except for the direction of view.

Astronomers use remote sensing, also across much of the electromagnetic spectrum, to discern the universe. They use certain wavelengths to peer through dust and gas surrounding objects of interest. They use other wavelengths to determine the composition of matter in a particular scene. They use still other wavelengths to try to understand things they theorize to be true but can’t directly measure. In the end, they produce “false color” pictures from the 1s and 0s pouring out of their instruments. These images give them, and the rest of us, the context for what they observe. But the underlying data – whether spectral wavelength, radiometric data, or energy intensity – are the keys to understanding the phenomena they see.

Credit: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

As a final comparison, just like MASINT, Astronomy now has its materials sub-discipline. Astronomers have sent probes to gather particles from the solar wind and comets and will soon send probes to Mars for sample–return missions. However, while MASINT can be compared to a scientific discipline like astronomy, it is probably not the best way to characterize an intelligence discipline.

3. So, how about defining MASINT by its component parts?:

MASINT is best described by its six sub-disciplines: Radar, RF, Geophysical, Nuclear Radiation, Materials and Electro-Optical

MASINT has often been characterized by its six sub-disciplines shown in the illustration below. These sub-disciplines are carryovers from the consolidation of diverse activities into MASINT and are useful to technologists and phenomonologists who have to match sensing technologies to observable phenomena associated with a particular target or activity.

These sub-disciplines might be useful to the technologists and phenomonologists, but they are problematic for the rest of us. That’s because everything else we organize MASINT by in the real world (budget, systems, operations, TPED) doesn’t neatly fit with these six sub-disciplines. If we look at a particular sub-discipline, electro-optical

(EO) for example, we find a range of systems from handheld to space-based; active and passive; funded, operated and maintained by several different organizations; exploiting different phenomenologies, using different algorithms for different objectives. From this it should be recognized that it is impossible to manage EO – or any MASINT sub-discipline – as a distinct business line of MASINT. Therefore, this is probably not the best way to define MASINT either.

4. Rather it might be better to describe MASINT as a collection of capabilities:

MASINT is loose collection of several Family-of-System (FoS) capabilities having the common objective of discerning an adversary’s capabilities and actions through collection and exploitation of metric and signature information.

Now we divide MASINT into understandable, functional portfolios. In doing so, we use the following criteria: a MASINT FoS or portfolio should encompass a set of capabilities, dedicated or otherwise, which have more than one of the following in common:

• Predominantly respond to a specific set of intelligence needs or requirements
• Predominantly funded in one budget aggregation (or one for acquisition and a separate one for operation and sustainment)
• Predominantly operated and sustained by one organization or echelon (or one for the sensors and one for the operations)
• Predominantly supports one major mission area (or supports all mission areas indiscriminately)
• Predominantly uses the same tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination (TPED) chain
• Predominantly handled in the same classification arena
• Predominantly falling within one sub-discipline

There are several advantages to defining MASINT as a set of FoS’s vice the six sub-disciplines:

• MASINT practitioners typically are knowledgeable across the range of capabilities within a particular FoS
• MASINT consumers are typically most interested in a set of products from a particular FoS – irrespective of the sub-discipline
• Planners and programmers responsible for investment decisions have an easier time understanding the capabilities and limitations of a particular FoS and should therefore make more-informed decisions
• It is much easier to develop useful architectures, roadmaps, operational concepts and policies for an individual FoS than it is for a MASINT sub-discipline.

By way of example, two potential MASINT FoS capabilities are Imagery-Derived MASINT (IDM) and close-in MASINT.

IDM takes output of conventional imagery systems and processes the data in a different way to extract the non-literal information content. For example, rather than producing a multi-colored literal image from a multi-spectral sensor, a MASINT processing and exploitation application would try to discern the precise materials in the field of view through spectral matching. Each pixel in the field of view is a data set – corresponding to a particular material or set of materials. The real power comes when the MASINT signature information is referenced spatially in the image providing both content and context to the analyst. Referenced to a precise geographic registration system this integrated product provides information-rich intelligence to the consumer.

Close-in MASINT refers to sensors that are emplaced in close proximity to a target with the purpose of gathering signature information to discern activity of interest. These sensors may fall into any one of the six sub-discipline or be multi-discipline. The sophistication, longevity, and mode of employment varies by application. The key to close-in MASINT is the signatures. DIA’s National Signature Program initiative is essential to catalog, assess, and make available the signatures necessary to do the close-in MASINT mission as well as provide the same signatures to weapon system developers.

The factors that make these good candidates for MASINT FoS is evident. Examining the remainder of the MASINT capability-universe would yield a total of 6-8 FoS’s. Defining MASINT by these FoS portfolios would create significant understanding of the “business” of MASINT. Organizing and managing MASINT by these 6-8 portfolios would be logical, simplifying, and productive. One drawback – the list of reasonable MASINT FoS’s is probably classified.

Perhaps we need to examine the past to come up with a definition for the future.

Historical Context for Defining MASINT

MASINT was first formalized as a subcommittee under the DCI SIGINT Committee. In 1986 the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) declared MASINT a separate, formal intelligence discipline and established the MASINT Committee. In 1993 DCID 2/11 and DoD Instruction 5105.58 created the Central MASINT Office (CMO) under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), largely funded through DIA’s General Defense Intelligence Program (GDIP). In 1998 the DCI further strengthened the management of MASINT by recasting CMO as the Central MASINT Organization (still “CMO”). The new CMO had greater responsibility, as evidenced by the DCI’s Strategic Objectives for MASINT, but was still embedded in DIA without the requisite budget oversight and authority necessary to truly manage an intelligence discipline. In 2003 the Director, DIA merged CMO and other elements of DIA into a new Directorate of MASINT and Technical Collection.

• Strategic Era – prior to the end of the Cold War
• Support to Military Operations (SMO) Era – early 1990s to the Millennium
• Asymmetric Era – Current phase

Strategic Era

During the Strategic Era, the emphasis was on the strategic threat – mostly aimed at the former Soviet Union (FSU). This was Scientific and Technical Intelligence (S&TI). We needed to know the lethality of their nuclear forces and conventional systems. Major investments were made in the 60s, 70s and 80s to build highly sophisticated “capital” MASINT systems (even though they weren’t called MASINT in those days) to collect the metric and signature information necessary to understand the Soviet threat (primarily) and help our weapons designers build appropriate weapons and countermeasures. We studied the phenomenologies and developed sensors to exploit the photons and electrons and materials we could access. These activities were largely independent (decentralized), being managed wherever the intelligence capability was initially envisioned. MASINT was not one big stovepipe – it was a whole pile of pipes.

The Central MASINTOffice was created about the time the Strategic Era ended and the SMO era began.

SMO Era

At the end of the Cold War the newly formed MAISNT Community was charged with examining it’s old strategic capabilities and figuring out how they could be applied to the new mission of SMO. There was residual interest in continuing to monitor the FSU for ‘treaty compliance’ as well as an extension of the strategic S&TI to the Rest-of-the-World (RoW) and proliferation. But, the real push was on SMO. “Operationalize MASINT” was the mantra. Support the warfighter was the cry! Of course MASINT practitioners had spent the previous 3+ decades supporting the “strategic” warfighter, but that wasn’t the same. By the end of the SMO Era (late 90s) CMO (Office or Organization), together with the Services and other agencies, could say they largely succeeded in refocusing the Cold War capabilities to support SMO. They had “operationalized” MASINT. Four things made this possible: desire, computer processing speed, communications bandwidth, and people.

Computer Speed/Communications Bandwidth: Operators needed answers fast. The MASINT Community’s S&TI systems worked at PhD thesis speed. It took a lot of number crunching to get an answer. The MASINT data sets were huge and up until now there hadn’t been a need (nor the real capability) to communicate these data sets from one side of the world to the other in anything approaching near-real-time. As desktops achieved capabilities of older mainframes and high-end workstations and communications went from 9.6 kbaud to T-1 speeds and beyond – and the right algorithms were put into place – it finally became possible to put timely, relevant MASINT answers in the hands of operators.

People: Getting MASINT to the warfighter required an increased number of practitioners. As MASINT demonstrated its value in some of the closing conflicts of the 90s, the “success catastrophe” led to greater and greater demand for product. The Army’s National-to-Theater initiative is a very successful example of growing the cadre of MASINT practitioners.

During the SMO Era CMO was the central figure for the MASINT Community. This era of centralized management for MASINT was probably critical to the refocusing of the S&TI capability to SMO (while retaining the capability to do much of the strategic and RoW mission). It is interesting to note that during this era, there was almost no investment in any major new capability. What funding was available in the base and slightly augmented R&D programs throughout the community was reprogrammed or redirected to accomplish what was done. It was arguably not accomplished fast enough, or robust enough, or consistently enough. MASINT is even today not as interoperable or accessible as users desire. But it ultimately did happen, in large part due to the heroic efforts of a small number of people.

Asymmetric Era

9/11 changed the playing field. The intelligence community had started to worry the asymmetric threat prior to 9/11 – terrorists, cyber warriors, rouge states, weapons of mass destruction – but 9/11 brought it home. The MASINT Community’s newly-honed SMO capabilities were highly tasked and remarkably successful during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom – and continue so today. Since 9/11 there has been a significant investment in the operational MASINT capabilities – largely to capitalize on our SMO successes. There has also been a significant increase in the number of MASINT practitioners.

SUMMARY

source

find more by googling US defense sites

Israeli spy satellite to monitor Iranian nuclear programme

25/04/2006 Israel is to launch a spy satellite today to collect information on Iran's nuclear programme.

The Eros B satellite is capable of spotting images on the ground as small as 70 centimetres, the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported.

The satellite, a more sophisticated version of the Eros A that is currently in space, will be launched in Russia.

"We are talking about an extraordinary capability that will allow intelligence officials to follow small details in sensitive places," Yediot quoted an unnamed Israeli expert as saying. "This camera has a sharp eye that sees everything." - IOL

so they didn't use this on Iraq to spot potential WMD - because they hadn't got the technology? BOLLOCKS!