What is Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)?

Amid the resurgence of great power competition, notably from Russia and China, the United States is prioritizing modernization initiatives to maintain its military advantage, particularly through advancements in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems. These systems, which range from handheld devices to satellites, are crucial for collecting and processing unstructured data to enable rapid information transfer and informed decision-making in the field. The Department of Defense (DOD) aims to integrate ISR sensors across all warfighting domains to enhance situational awareness and decision-making capabilities. However, the vast amount of data generated by ISR systems exceeds what can be manually analyzed, necessitating a shift toward AI-enabled automation. AI technologies, such as computer vision and sentiment analysis, play a pivotal role in accelerating data processing, improving domain awareness, and enabling quick field decisions by analyzing images, videos, and text. Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are focused on enhancing U.S. military ISR capabilities to counter threats from peer adversaries, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, with legislative efforts underway to secure funding for these modernization efforts.