U.S. Special Operations Command seeks intelligence capabilities for duty worldwide.

• Author: Parsons, Dan

Special Operations Command has honed its information gathering capabilities during the wars of the past decade, but its requirements are expected to change as it evolves into the globally networked force envisioned by Adm. William McRaven, commander of Special Operations Command.

Special operators have relied on industry and their parent services to provide the extensive intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities needed to fight two simultaneous wars, said Lt Gen. Joseph L. Votel, commander of Joint Special Operations Command. He and fellow SOCOM commanders asked industry to keep it up as they assume a new role within McRaven's "SOCOM 2020" plan.

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"How do we transition this very excellent capability that we have invested in and built over the last 10 or 12 years into the new, emerging environments that will not be the same combat zones we have come to understand in places like Iraq and Afghanistan?" Votel asked a roomful of industry officials at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla.

Given the drawdown from Afghanistan, declining budgets and with operators spreading out from concentrations in the Middle East, SOCOM's need for information gathering in multiple environments and the ability to access and transmit that data will grow, officers said in May at SOFIC. While they praised industry's ability to provide advanced ISR capabilities through more than a decade of combat, SOCOM commanders asked for a variety of new technologies and help revamping old systems.

Votel said ISR equipment that works in multiple environments and with a wide array of vehicles is key to the success of a globally deployed force.

"Plug-and-play ISR is very important for us," Votel said at SOFIC. "We need to be able to select the right tool for the right environment and be able to work in a standardized fashion in the aircraft that we are operating," Votel said.

He listed full-motion video and the ability to access and share the vast amounts of data gathered as areas where SOCOM needs continued help from industry.

"We will need to have an ability to continue to search large data bases to identify enemies and information that helps us understand and gives us clues into what [terrorist] networks are doing out there," Votel said.

Val Shuey, intelligence program manager for Special Operations Command, said processing, exploitation and dissemination of data-heavy intelligence streams like color and full-motion...