Assessing the Value of Intelligence Collected by U.S. Air Force Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Platforms

Changes in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and processing, exploitation, and dissemination capabilities over the past two decades have led to ever-increasing demand from warfighters. Commanders, planners, and operators across the U.S. Air Force (USAF) ISR enterprise face difficult decisions about how to best meet ISR needs at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Yet USAF currently lacks a consistent, quantitative, empirically grounded method of assessing the value that the services airborne ISR provides which is essential to good resourcing decisions. Headquarters, Air Force, Director of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance commissioned RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) to examine the value of MQ-1 Predator andMQ-9 Reaper platforms to operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. After initial investigation, the research focus was adjusted to address the need for an assessment methodology to answer such questions across the USAF ISR community.