Solving The Periodicity Predicament: Enhancing ISR in the Face of China's A2/AD Capabilities

Military InnovationAnalysis Reports
Written By Brian Morrison

The Taiwan Strait and East China Sea are regions of high geopolitical tension. In these areas, the United States faces a significant challenge: monitoring China’s mobile Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems. Such systems are designed to prevent or deter an adversary from entering or operating in a specific area. These systems include missiles, sensors, and anti-satellite technologies. They are designed to restrict U.S. military access to strategically critical areas, threatening American interests and regional stability in the Indo-Pacific (Air & Space Forces Magazine, 2022). The U.S. relies on space-based Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to track these threats. However, a key limitation, the periodicity predicament, reduces their effectiveness. Gaps between satellite passes, ranging from hours to days, allow China’s mobile assets, such as Transporter-Erector-Launchers (TELs), to relocate undetected (Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder, 2023). These persistent gaps could undermine U.S. strategic interests in this vital region, which is home to Taiwan and major trade routes. This article explores innovative strategies to enhance surveillance and ensure continuous monitoring.

The Strategic Challenge

The periodicity predicament is a significant challenge due to the limitations of current satellite coverage. Traditional ISR satellites pass over critical areas infrequently, allowing China’s mobile A2/AD systems to move undetected. In a potential conflict with a near-peer rival like China, real-time awareness is essential for the kill chain, which is the process of detecting, tracking, targeting, and neutralizing threats (Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder, 2023). If the time between satellite observations is too long, a TEL can relocate, leaving U.S. commanders without accurate intelligence. Research highlights this gap, noting that current systems struggle to provide the continuous monitoring needed against such mobile adversaries (Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder, 2023). Addressing these gaps is critical to maintaining U.S. strategic advantage.

Enhancing Satellite Surveillance

One promising solution is the use of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, which offer more frequent coverage due to their lower altitude and faster orbital speeds. Unlike their lofty geostationary kin, perched motionless above the equator, LEO satellites skim closer to Earth, racing through orbits that bring them back over target zones with striking frequency. A 2021 study found that a fleet of 30 such satellites could shrink average revisit times to a brisk 19.7 minutes over the Korean Peninsula, a leap that could echo across the Taiwan Strait (Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences, 2021). This speed sharpens moving target indication, the knack for tracking objects on the move, while paving the way to retire vulnerable relics like the E-8C JSTARS (Air & Space Forces Magazine, 2024). Imagine these agile sentinels monitoring contested waters from above, their sensors painting the landscape in rapid strokes, narrowing the windows where China’s forces might hide. The U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office are already pouring resources into this vision, betting on swarms of small satellites to outpace the threats below.

But this high-flying ambition carries weighty burdens. Launching a robust LEO constellation demands a fortune, with costs soaring into the billions, a sum that must jostle against tight budgets. More daunting still is the shadow of China’s anti-satellite prowess, a capability that could pluck these satellites from the sky in a crisis, snapping the threads of coverage at the worst moment. Geopolitically, deploying a large LEO constellation could escalate tensions with China, which has rapidly expanded its own space-based ISR capabilities and demonstrated anti-satellite weapons that could target U.S. assets (ORF Online, 2024). For all its brilliance, this strategy alone teeters on a knife’s edge, offering a dazzling advance in surveillance frequency yet opening new vulnerabilities that could unravel its gains.

Integrating a Multi-Domain Network

While satellite enhancements offer significant benefits, integrating additional domains can further bolster resilience and provide a more comprehensive surveillance network. One that weaves a multi-domain network from the strands of satellites, drones, naval ships, and ground radars. This vision, etched in the Department of Defense’s Defense Space Strategy, prizes resilience through a chorus of voices (Defense Space Strategy Summary, 2020). By blending data from these diverse sources, a process dubbed data fusion, the U.S. can craft a richer, tougher picture of China’s maneuvers, unshackled from dependence on any single thread. If a satellite drifts out of reach or a drone falls to enemy fire, the network hums on, other assets stepping in to hold the line. For instance, consider a scenario where a U.S. destroyer’s radar detects a TEL moving inland just as a satellite completes its pass and enters a coverage gap. The naval radar’s data is immediately fused with incoming drone footage and ground sensor reports, ensuring continuous tracking of the TEL’s movement. Rooted in existing tools, this approach sidesteps the need for a sprawling new fleet, trimming costs while leaning on what’s already at hand.

Yet, knitting this tapestry is no gentle task. Synchronizing this flood of data calls for advanced algorithms and ironclad communication lines, a feat that promises a crisper intelligence portrait but demands precision. In the crucible of a contested zone, where foes might shred drones or sink ships, every piece must hold fast, or the whole risks fraying. This multi-domain weave offers a sturdy shield against the periodicity predicament, but its strength hinges on execution as meticulous as it is bold.

Combining Strengths for Persistent Coverage

From these twin trails rises a striking fusion: A hybrid strategy combines the high-frequency coverage of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites with the resilience of multi-domain integration. A 2021 study by Lee et al. demonstrated that 30 satellites could achieve an average revisit time of 19.7 minutes over the Korean Peninsula. A similar configuration of 20 to 30 satellites could be optimized for the Taiwan Strait and East China Sea (Lee et al., 2021). This is complemented by high-resolution imagery from U.S. commercial satellite providers, who supply the National Reconnaissance Office with 75,000 images weekly. These images are integrated into the ISR framework to fill gaps when military satellites are not overhead, enhancing coverage cost-effectively (Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder, 2023). High-altitude platforms, such as stratospheric drones capable of loitering over key areas for extended periods, provide persistent surveillance by maintaining a continuous presence at altitudes where they are less vulnerable to detection and interception. Artificial intelligence integrates this data by analyzing patterns in TEL movements, offering real-time predictions of likely relocation sites and optimizing surveillance resource allocation. This approach provides nearly continuous surveillance, is resilient, and reduces costs and geopolitical risks by leveraging commercial and non-traditional assets.

This hybrid weave doesn’t stop there. Artificial intelligence stitches this mosaic into a living stream, letting commanders not just see where China’s A2/AD systems stand but guess where they’ll dart next. Predictive analytics, fueled by machine learning, could sift through TEL movement patterns, steering surveillance to likely hideouts and easing the strain of endless watch. If past trails hint a TEL shifts after dusk, the system might tilt its focus to twilight hours, wielding resources with cunning thrift. This blend strikes at the periodicity gap with near-constant vigilance, its varied strands a bulwark against collapse. By tapping commercial imagery and unconventional platforms, it softens the sting of cost and diplomacy that a pure military thrust might provoke.

Navigating Geopolitical Risks

Bringing this vision to life presents its own challenges. Coordinating such a network means conquering technical thickets, from syncing systems to taming the data tide. Funding even a modest constellation tests fiscal grit, though commercial ties might lighten the load over time. Geopolitically, the U.S. must tread with care under China’s watchful eye. Space-based ISR fits within the Outer Space Treaty’s bounds, which greenlights military observation from orbit (Outer Space Treaty, 1967), but a bold buildup could provoke a response from Beijing, given its own stellar ambitions. Still, folding in commercial assets might cloak the effort in a less belligerent hue, a nod to pragmatism amid the storm.

The groundwork for this hybrid leap is already taking root. The U.S. Space Force’s drive for LEO systems and trials like the TacSRT program, probing commercial data for moving target indication, show the pieces aligning (Air & Space Forces Magazine, 2024). High-altitude platforms have proven their mettle elsewhere, a practical stitch in the fabric. What’s left is the resolve to bind these threads, a dance of coordination across agencies and industry that could yield a bounty of security.

Securing Strategic Advantage in the Indo-Pacific

At its core, the periodicity predicament is more than a glitch in the machine; it represents a critical vulnerability in U.S.-China strategic competition across these pivotal waters. Today’s ISR systems, for all their polish, leave too much unseen, too much unguessed. This hybrid approach, melding a focused LEO fleet, commercial bounty, lofty sentinels, multi-domain fusion, and foresighted analytics, carves a path through the haze. It delivers the relentless watch needed to shadow China’s mobile threats, balances grit with economy, and steps lightly amid geopolitical currents. By adopting this hybrid strategy, the U.S. can achieve persistent surveillance over China's mobile A2/AD systems, ensuring real-time intelligence and maintaining its strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific region. This approach not only addresses the periodicity predicament but also balances cost, resilience, and geopolitical considerations.

References:

Brian Morrison https://Defenseinsights4u.com
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