Pull, Push or Shove: Global Broadcast Service and Intelligence Support to Maritime Forces

摘要

The Department of Defense developed the Global Broadcast Service (GBS) to increase the amount of national and theater level information provided to deployed forces, resolving some shortcomings in information dissemination identified during the Gulf War. Using direct broadcast satellite technology, GBS is expected to deliver information at rates exponentially faster than what is available now. The broadcast service makes possible the near-simultaneous transfer of critical information to multiple users. While GBS may speed the flow of information, it does nothing to improve the quality of intelligence. Given the large capacity of GBS, intelligence managers may be under unreasonable pressures to release information to fill available bandwidth. Not all users in a theater will have access to high-capacity bandwidth at the same time. Where the GBS broadcast beams are positioned will determine who gets what level of GBS bandwidth. Naval forces deploying into an area of operations could experience as many as five variations on broadcast support from the service. Theater CINCs will have to share GBS resources, and the system probably will not be able to support multiple crises in the same theater at the same time. The small antenna size of GBS receive suites allow the lowest-level tactical forces to receive intelligence support previously only available at the flag-level. Tactical forces will also have access to vastly greater amounts of data. Passive recipients of large broadcast products may experience information overload and other unintended negative consequences. To make the best use of the technology, under the proposed dissemination architecture intelligence planners must take the time actively manage the flow of information they receive.