Q&A: Kevin P. Meiners
GIF 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 (March)
Kevin P. Meiners
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acting)
Portfolio, Programs and Resources
Meiners began employment with the Navy in 1984 as an entry-level electronics engineer. He worked at the Naval Electronics Systems Command and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, where he played a major role in the first installation of the Battle Group Passive Horizon Extension System.
In 1988, Meiners moved into program management at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). He was NAVAIR’s first program manager for the Navy’s P-3 special projects program, managing the development of specialized intelligence collection equipment as well as the common avionics equipment and airframe structures. In 1991, he made the transition to the EP-3E airborne reconnaissance program. He was responsible for the upgrade of their SIGINT systems and their associated communication distribution systems.
Meiners came to the Pentagon in 1994 as a member of the newly formed Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO). He served in a variety of positions, including director of the advanced technology programs and director of plans and programs. In 1998, he became the last acting deputy director, serving as the principal advisor to the director, DARO on all airborne reconnaissance issues.
In June 1998, with the reorganization of the Department of Defense under the Defense Reform Initiative, Meiners transitioned to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASD/ C3I). In May 2003, he became the director of intelligence strategies, assessments and technologies responsible within DoD for policy, programmatic oversight and integration of ISR Systems.
Meiners attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1984. He received his Master of Science degree in management information systems from Marymount University in 1995.
Meiners assumed his current USD(I) position as the deputy under secretary of defense (acting) for portfolio, programs and resources in May 2009.
Meiners was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.
Q: What issues drove your formulation of the fiscal 2011 POM?
A: We continue to see a dramatic increase in requirements for ISR capabilities, including manned and unmanned airborne, space-borne, maritime and terrestrial systems. However, the battlespace awareness portfolio/military intelligence program is part of the larger Department of Defense budget, and therefore must compete with everything else that the department is championing.
Our mission is to define, shape and optimize ISR support to all phases of DoD operations within established departmentwide priorities. Additionally, we must deliver capabilities that include all requirements from sensor to end-user. To meet this holistic approach, we focused on four areas: platforms, sensors, communications, and processing, exploitation, dissemination (PED) and people.
Our focus on platforms followed the Secretary of Defense guidance and direction to increase the capabilities and capacity of ISR.
Sensor focus included investment in multi-INT sensor cross-cueing capabilities—with emphasis on SIGINT-cued full motion video [FMV]—development and fielding of high definition FMV, investment in wide area video capabilities, enhanced ground moving target indicator capabilities, and light detection and ranging sensors.
A timely sensor to end-user architecture requires a smart investment in the airborne ISR communications layer. Our communications focus included additional investment in the communications air layer, with additional emphasis on the direct downlink—sensor to end-user, and the construct of a wireless MESHNet.
Finally, PED and people requirements were a critical component of our holistic approach to ISR investment. Our focus included increased on-board sensor processing capabilities, increased PED capacity (people), the automation of coalition data sharing, the advancement of counter intelligence/ human intelligence training, and the commencement of moving overseas contingency funding initiatives/requirements to established programs of record and the base budget.
Q: What information did you use to help determine your focus areas and themes?
A: Over the past several years, USD(I), Cost Assessment and Program Analysis and the Joint Staff have conducted a series of operations research and analysis/studies in conjunction with CENTCOM. The focus of these studies has been on the effectiveness of ISR support to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These studies combined in-theater interviews with operations research methodologies to help us better understand the contribution of ISR capabilities to a variety of operations. The studies also helped us to better communicate the importance of these warfighter identified capability requirements to the Pentagon and congressional oversight committees. We used these operations research and analysis findings to build, shape and refine our FY11 budget focus areas and themes.
The first round of studies focused more on insurgent-centric operations, which pointed out the importance of systems with high identity resolution. The ISR Task Force initially focused on surging many of these capabilities to theater. FMV capacity and capability enhancements to provide high definition video with multi-INT cross cueing are two GEOINT examples of these capabilities. Our current studies are examining ISR support to the more population-centric operations in Afghanistan.
Q: How does GEOINT support from the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency, a combat support agency, provide General Stanley A. McChrystal with the information he needs to enable his counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy to succeed in Afghanistan?
A: GEOINT support brings a wide range of capabilities and analytical personnel that can be co-located in-theater and dynamically focused to meet the critical information needs associated with General McChrystal’s COIN strategy. One way to think about COIN is to divide operations into two broad groupings. One group includes insurgent-centric operations, which are focused directly on the enemy. The other group includes socio-cultural activities, which are focused on the broader population. They share the same “space,” and GEOINT can provide the foundational setting to portray that space.
Our GEOINT production processes and sources; national technical means, commercial and airborne assets provide the capability to support both types of operations. As General McChrystal executes his COIN strategy, he has the flexibility to dynamically allocate GEOINT resources between these two sets of activities to focus on his highest priority information needs. GEOINT capabilities across the spectrum, from Distributed Common Ground/Surface Systems to unmanned aircraft systems, can and do flow to support both insurgent-centric and socio-cultural operations. Even when focused on one, such as insurgent-centric, it opens up local unit intelligence operations to enable it to focus on the other. It’s not necessarily a zero-sum game.
Q: Can you give examples of GEOINT contributions to insurgent-centric operations?
A: Examples of insurgent-centric operations include targeting the networks of insurgents that are attacking our troops, and supporting our combat forces as they raid enemy facilities. Full motion video sensors in concert with other multi-INT capabilities deployed on airborne platforms are very effective tools for targeting insurgent networks. Additionally, GEOINT analysts employ a wide variety of GEOINT sources, ranging from light detection and ranging [LiDAR] to overhead imagery, to help plan combat missions targeting enemy facilities.
Q: Can you give examples of GEOINT contributions to socio-cultural collection?
A: There are a very wide variety of socio-cultural operations, and so there are many examples. The very same full motion video sensor that is so effective in insurgent-centric operations was used to monitor traffic patterns when a major bridge was destroyed by flooding in Nangarhar Province. This allowed U.S. forces to help their Afghanistan National Police counterparts smooth the flow of traffic and keep supplies moving for several days following the flood. GEOINT map products help brigade combat teams plan civil affairs projects and serve as the foundational layer to view tribal relationship data collected from other sources.
GEOINT socio-cultural support also provides critical information by:
- Measuring snowfall in the mountains to predict water levels in the spring for agriculture
- Monitoring refugee movements, or internally and externally, in order to pre-position relief supplies
- Showing activity levels at bazaars, markets, LOCs and so on. “Pattern of life” applies to both CT and COIN.
Q: What organizations and leaders need intelligence to plan and execute socio-cultural operations and how do we ensure they get it?
A: All of them—intelligence and socio-cultural information is critical to decisions and actions, whether in the private or public sector, military or civil action. PRTs, development organizations (like USAID), Afghan local/provincial/national government, and brigades/battalions/companies/platoons all need intelligence and information to plan socio-cultural activities. Since many of these organizations are not traditional intel customers, our in-theater experts need to proactively get with those organizations to learn about their information needs and explain how GEOINT systems can meet those needs. Continuing information-sharing initiatives to push intelligence that had previously been trapped at a higher level of classification is critical to getting GEOINT-derived intelligence to all who need it.
Q: How does GEOINT help General McChrystal and our national leaders’ asses our progress in Afghanistan?
A: Here are two quick examples: Change detection can show the progress of development projects over time (for example, new construction in villages), as well as agriculture and other key socio-cultural areas of concern. Imagery can also be used to accurately measure voter turnout, polling station activity and other political and economic milestone events.
Q: Are there parallels between COIN operations and disaster relief, and have we applied GEOINT to assist with disaster relief operations in Haiti?
A: Very much so, and we’ve already seen GEOINT capabilities under the direction of U.S. Southern Command use many of the same tactics, techniques and procedures developed to support Central Command COIN applied to facilitate disaster relief. The NGA-Earth site uses the Internet to provide the public a single, easy-to-use entry point for locating timely, relevant, unclassified geospatial information in the event of a natural disaster or crisis. The site is also a means to communicate critical information to first responders, as well as to allow the public the ability to broadly assess property damage without having to physically return.
In addition to the images, GEOINT analysts will also be providing geospatial intelligence products to supported agencies. The products will include graphics of major infrastructure, such as the locations of airports, hospitals, police and fire stations, emergency operations centers, hazardous material locations, roads and schools. The products will also include damage assessments. These types of products greatly assist first responders and those coordinating and planning relief efforts. These graphics provide a common operating picture that helps enable local, state and federal government elements to work effectively together and focus on priority requirements first.
Q: How are we enhancing our GEOINT systems to better support COIN operations?
A: Increasingly, moving toward more wide area persistent surveillance systems will provide the flexibility to support both insurgent-centric and socio-cultural-centric operations. We are also developing exploitation tools and processes to handle the large volumes of imagery generated by these systems. Along with information sharing policies designed to get the intelligence and information to those that need it, new data storage and dissemination capabilities that can handle the much larger amounts of GEOINT will be available to support both types of operations.
Q: What new initiatives are you working on to support the timely tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TPED) of ISR capabilities in support of COIN operations?
A: The increased demand for ISR capabilities—including manned and unmanned airborne, space-borne, maritime, and terrestrial systems—has dramatically increased the need for processing, exploitation, and dissemination of collected data and improvements in the sharing of intelligence information.
We are teaming together with the military services, combat support agencies, Joint Staff, COCOMs and foreign partners at the technical, policy and leadership levels to build an effective, seamless Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise [DIIE]. A primary ISR TPED focus is on transitioning from unique intelligence PED systems to a common framework for the Joint Intelligence Operations Centers and DCGS based on agreed to information standards and protocols, shared services and collaborative governance.
As part of the DIIE efforts, NGA is making great strides in the fielding of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture [NEA], which forwarddeploys GEOINT data and services to the warfighter and our coalition and civilian partners. Forward-staging GEOINT data and services in theater helps overcome the communications, timeliness, and security challenges of reaching back to CONUS for GEOINT support. NEA capabilities focus on enabling access to GEOINT by deployed units; for non-U.S. imagery collection and foreign GEOINT co-production.
Other examples of NEA capabilities fielded to date that will enable COIN operations include same-day image servers, intra-theater X-band communications, the Consolidated Analytic Spatial-Data Initiative, which makes non-standard image products discoverable, and the rapid delivery of online GEOINT, which provides users on unclassified networks access to ortho-rectified commercial imagery from both DigitalGlobe and GeoEye for the CENTCOM areas of interest within 24 hours of collection.
Q: Do you see the new high definition video technology as a qualitative advance in ISR technology, or more of an incremental improvement?
A: I see high definition [HD] video technology as a game changer in ISR technology because it significantly improves our ability to execute proven concepts of operation. More importantly, once HD video technology is deployed in concert with other multi-INT capabilities, HD video will have a greater impact because the identification and targeting phases of COIN operations are so fluid and time sensitive. Within the find, fix, finish chain, HD will ensure rapid and persistent positive identification, allowing immediate action. In contrast, I see the wide area surveillance systems that are quickly maturing as a quantum leap in ISR technology because they are enabling revolutionary new concepts of operation, creating new opportunities for fusion with other intelligence sources, and by increasing the efficiency of the airborne collector.
Q: You appeared on a GEOINT Symposium panel last fall on defense and intelligence acquisition. Is the current process effective in achieving its goals, and do you see any ways to improve it?
A: Of course there are always concepts to use that improve the process, and we’re taking the initiative to do just that. By building on past successes, such as the Liberty Project program, we were able to effectively accelerate this program in order to get capability in the hands of the warfighter—fast. For example, the Air Force Liberty Project aircraft flew its first combat mission less than one year after procurement. Similarly, the Army accelerated the deployment of pre-production Extended Range/ Multi-Purpose UAS systems and rapidly developed, procured and deployed specialized airborne ISR units in both Iraq and Afghanistan. You should understand that this has as much to do with the philosophy of the acquisition process as the process itself. By leveraging these successes and capitalizing on the influence of the ISR Task Force, we are enacting the Secretary’s and Vice-Chairman’s directive to get increased capability and capacity out to the field to save lives.
People are critical in the acquisition process and getting the right people in terms of ability and expertise is absolutely critical in making the process work effectively. I think a great example is the National Reconnaissance Office, which has taken a lot of criticism in this area over the last few years. The changes that have been made under the direction of Director Bruce Carlson and Betty Sapp, and particularly personnel moves started by Major General Ellen Pawlikowski and being continued by Major General Sue Mashiko with regards to Air Force acquisition professionals, have dramatically improved the efficiency and effectiveness of that organization. Through the recruitment of the best and brightest professionals, the Air Force will continue to improve the critical acquisition process.
Q: What messages would you like to convey to industry about its role in ISR and other technology programs in your area?
A: Timeliness of capability delivery is the most critical factor for our industry team members. The acquisition paradigm of years between warfighter need and end materiel solution must be broken. The modern DoD must quickly adapt to changing threats, highly adaptive adversaries and challenging natural disaster relief operations. DoD requires capability deliveries in six to 12 months, rather than in years. Near-term capabilities, or quick reaction capabilities, must also have applicability and hooks into existing and enduring DoD programs of record. By linking near-term solutions to existing and/or emerging programs of record, DoD is better postured to execute enduring training, sustainment, and modernization strategies for these materiel solutions in both the short term and long term.
Technology programs are also hugely dependent on creativity, imagination and innovation of industry. Challenges associated with wide area persistence surveillance, data storage and retrieval technologies, terrain exploitation, feature recognition, feature characterization, rapid modeling capabilities, enhances targeting timelines, LiDAR and synthetic aperture radar exploitation processes, long endurance high altitude surveillance capabilities, and automatic target recognition are areas where significant break-through and solutions for these challenges would aid our future ISR enterprise.
Q: What role does satellite-based GEOINT technology play in your work, and what changes would you like to see in both national and commercial capabilities in this area?
A: We continue to realize that a balance of satellite-based and airborne collected GEOINT is critical to ensuring that we take advantage of the full spectrum available to us, over both permissive and denied airspace environments. Our goal of persistent ISR remains and is even more important in prosecuting the different elements of the Afghan war (as Major General Michael Flynn has noted), while providing situational awareness for other potential threats around the globe. ♦
