In times to come, as India emerges as a global player and also gets increasingly involved in the UN-backed conflict management activities, we will need to continuously review our policies and carry out organisational adaptations to operate seamlessly with other member countries of the UN, at least the major ones

Geographic, geospatial or spatial data forms the foundation of all planned human activity. Disaster management, management and conservation of natural resources, infrastructure planning and development, and land use planning are just a few examples of areas in which decision-making is contingent on availability of accurate and high quality spatial data. Developments in digital technologies, particularly the rapid advancements in geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) have now made it possible to correlate and use diverse map information, in conjunction, at the click of a mouse. Intelligence plays a vital role in the decision-making process of any nation or organisation. With the end of the Cold War, regrouping of traditional alliances and erstwhile blocks, and emergence of threat of transnational terrorism has forced government’s world over in adopting organisational restructuring to deal with aspects of national security. Unlike conventional warfare, terrorism is not restricted to specific battle ground or geographic space. It can manifest in attacks and threats in the hinterland at any place and any time. Thus, the geographic database for war fighting is no more restricted to areas adjoining international boundaries, rather, the effort has to include own territory as well. This also increases the volume of information that needs to be processed to filter out meaningful intelligence.

The aim of any such system should, therefore, be to fuse data from multiple and sometimes unrelated sources to enable production of a comprehensive intelligence picture encompassing all aspects of information.

Geospatial Intelligence

Geospatial Intelligence has been defined by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which was the predecessor to National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) as “the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the earth”. This definition clearly depicts the magnitude of the effort required to build a database of geospatial intelligence so as to provide support to government agencies entrusted with the task of national security. The need for having access to maximum data pertaining to the topography and demography of an area of interest by the commanders of armies is well established over the years. Transparent overlays with detailed supplementary information placed over printed topography sheets are just one example of this necessity. With computers and associated technology came the era of digital mapping where such supplementary data could be displayed, queried and processed, based on the requirement and very significantly without cluttering the base map.

The capability of any application based on a GIS is limited to the quantity and quality of data provided as inputs. A digitised cartography map needs a huge amount of attribute data before it can become suitable as GIS input. While generally this data has been assumed to pertain to terrain features only, a true GIS ready map should logically cover the complete spectrum of data required by various disciplines of geodetic science. This definitely calls for inputs even from agencies other than those dealing with topographic survey.

Infrastructure Needed

To optimally exploit the available information in a geographic context, the military will have to rely on other agencies of the government. Any effort in isolation will leave large gaps in intelligence which would be crucial at the time of critical decision-making. It is, therefore, essential that any agency entrusted with the task of producing geospatial intelligence will essentially have to be multifaceted with representation from all agencies dealing with aspects of intelligence, cartography, oceanography, civic infrastructure creation, public utility, safety services and the like. Cartography in an urban environment is a challenging task due to lack of natural features that can be selected as control points and the problem of line of sight for surveying.

Some of the major nations are well on their way to establish agencies dealing with this important aspect of intelligence. Post- 9/11, the United States has carried out a major restructuring of the government agencies and formation of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency by merging elements from the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Organisation (NRO), State Department, etc, in meeting a vital requirement of network-centric warfare (NCW) and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence and interoperability (C4I2) systems in the modern era. NGA is undoubtedly a major arm of the United States Government assisting in implementing the national goals of USA. For production and analysis of data required as a base for geospatial intelligence, numerous agencies are involved. This would include high resolution imagery products, elevation data sourced through ground/air/space based survey, electronic intelligence (ELINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT) assets, cartographic data, inputs from agencies dealing with internal security, urban and rural development agencies, forest management agencies, intelligence community and the like. It is only when the seemingly unrelated events collected individually by these agencies are merged a comprehensive intelligence picture in the geographic domain can emerge.