Perspective on Quadrennial Defense Review Influences on Situational Awareness from Space -- One Man's Views. Keynote Presentation

摘要

The keynote speaker and Director of the Space and Sensor Technology Office, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, discussed a number of challenges that have been identified in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). This paper presents the speaker's personal views on how we may need to employ space systems in the future to meet those challenges. The QDR is a review the Office of the Secretary of Defense performs every four years. Its purpose is to look where we have come from, and where we need to go in the future. The QDR gives DoD an opportunity to incorporate lessons learned since the last QDR was published. Some people think of it as a blueprint for change. The 2001 QDR identified the need to begin the process of transforming the DoD to meet challenges anticipated in a 21st century world. Published just 19 days after the attack on September 11th, it recognized that our defenses must be structured and able to operate effectively in a world of uncertainty and surprise. The subsequent terrorist attacks in Bali, Turkey, Spain, and London have only emphasized that we all face new forms of threats -- especially threats posed by nonstate actors able to inflict sudden death and destruction within our homelands. In the 2006 QDR, the impact of this changing security environment was recognized as a need to have capabilities in four distinct areas: (1) locating and tracking adversaries who hide in the open, who conceal their presence by blending in with the normal routine of the locale; (2) locating, tracking, and neutralizing weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists or rogue states; (3) detecting the assembly and transportation of low-tech radioactive weapons -- those that seek to disperse nuclear materials to contaminate urban areas; and (4) detecting and stopping the development of disruptive military technologies by potential adversaries.