Under the Patronage of the UAE Ministry of Defense, the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) held today the Middle East Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (MEISR) conference at the Armed Forces Officers Club, Abu Dhabi.

Riad Kahwaji, CEO, INEGMA opened the conference by welcoming the audience to this first annual ISR conference. He stressed the importance of ISR in the region in order to face emerging threats and challenges.

The Keynote Introductory Address, delivered by Major General Khamees Salem Mohammad Al Mehrzy, Director Operations and Training, from the UAE Ministry of Defense, argued that today’s battlefield has no distinct boundaries and is non-linear and the enemy can be anywhere across the national borders of any country.

He stated that new defensive technologies must be considered in technology planning and that the UAE has been working hard to acquire ISR capabilities and integrate them not only with the GCC countries’ systems but also with those of allied and friendly nations. He emphasized the importance the exploitation of intelligence properly and in time. Hence, he said the UAE’s believes in joint action, cooperation and coordination with other friendly countries. More than once our armed forces effectively participated with other friendly forces in peacekeeping missions abroad, in Kosovo, Somalia, Lebanon and other places around the world.

John Brooks, President, Northrop Grumman International chaired the first session.

There were three presentations. Lieutenant General Michael Hostage, Commander, U.S. Air Force Central Command, delivered a lecture on "Integrating ISR Capabilities with Command and Control Centers to Achieve Comprehensive Situational Awareness." He stated that ISR seeks to integrate rapidly information in a timely manner as part of data, intelligence, knowledge, and the action cycle. General (Ret.) Khaled Abdullah Al Bu-Ainnain, Former Commander, UAE Air Force and Air Defense and President of INEGMA presented "GCC Shared Early Warning: Reviewing the ’Hizaam Al Taawun’ (HAT - Belt of Cooperation)." He suggested that it is now time to upgrade all systems beyond fiber optic to provide the GCC with a full spectrum shared awareness. Rear Admiral Jean Goursaud, Deputy Director of Military Intelligence, French Ministry of Defense, delivered a presentation on "Developing a System of Systems Approach to Support Joint Operations: Exploring Possibilities for Centralized Integration of Domain-Wide National ISR Assets." He argued that the NATO definition of ISR activity, including collection, exploitation, dissemination, and support is part of Joint-ISR architecture and data fusion. During the panel discussion two issues were discussed. One looked at the cruise missile threat and ISR detection. Another area looked at the difference between the tech side and the policy side of GCC states wording with Allied states. The final issue involved the encryption of UAVs.

General (Ret.) Khaled Abdullah Al Bu-Ainnain, Former Commander, UAE Air Force and Air Defense and President of INEGMA, chaired the second session. There were three presentations. Dr. Mohammed Al Ahbabi, ICT Advisor, UAE GHQ Centre of Excellence, delivered "Identifying the Key Communication, Coordination and Information Security Challenges in Tri-Service Operations." He stated that there are new ways of war fighting and that IP based systems including plug and play are part of the diverse operability roadmap at both the national and international levels. This will all play an important role as the UAE Yahsat MilSatcom System comes online. General (Ret.) John Jumper, Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, spoke on the "Joint Integration of C4ISR." His main points were that the collective experience of C4ISR is important to the future of generating successful CONOPs for ISR integration. Major General (Ret.) Larry Henry, Former Director of Requirements, U.S. Air Force, delivered a lecture on "Striving for Affordable ISR Solutions." He argued that finding problems and fixing them is the challenge because so many within individual services behave in a tribal manner and seek to protect their information at all costs. During the panel discussion the participants fielded many questions regarding IP based systems.

Dr. Theodore Karasik, Director of Research and Development at INEGMA, chaired the final session of MEISR. There were two presentations. Major General Nicola Gelao, Head of Military Intelligence, Italian Ministry of Defense presented "Joint ISR: The Italian Approach." He stated that the case for Italian ISR capabilities in Afghanistan and talked about the Cosmo-Sky Med (CSK) mapping and sensor program. The second presentation,"C4ISR-Integration Within National Strategic Framework" by Major General (Ret.) Abdullah Al Sayed Al Hashemi, Former Deputy Commander, UAE Air Force and Air Defense explored entire ISR concept and the next steps for the UAE including ISR applications for borders. Again, gaps in end-to-end connectivity are the key and that hybrid airships may be able to provide unprecedented persistence to future CONOPs. During the panel discussion there were questions about how Italy’s experience and the GCC future can and cannot mix together. But there were solutions to be found.

 

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