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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) new and constantly evolving role in geospatial
intelligence (GEOINT) and United States (U.S.) national security allows a user to efficiently
manage, analyze, and produce geospatial data, to combine GEOINT with other forms of
intelligence collection, and to perform highly developed analysis and visual production of
geospatial data. Therefore, GIS produces up-to-date, supported, and more reliable GEOINT to
reduce uncertainty for a decisionmaker. Since GIS programs are Web-enabled, a user can
constantly work with a decisionmaker to solve their GEOINT and national security related
problems from anywhere in the world. There are many types of GIS software used in
GEOINT and national security, such as Google Earth, ERDAS IMAGINE, GeoNetwork
opensource, and Esri’s ArcGIS.
GEOINT, known previously as imagery intelligence (IMINT), is an intelligence
collection discipline that applies to national security intelligence, law enforcement
intelligence, and competitive intelligence. For example, an analyst can use GEOINT to
identify the route of least resistance for a military force in a hostile country, to discover a
pattern in the locations of reported burglaries in a neighborhood, or to generate a map and
comparison of failing businesses that a company is likely to purchase. GEOINT is also the
geospatial product of a process that is focused externally, designed to reduce the level of
uncertainty for a decisionmaker, and that uses information derived from all sources. The
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), who has overall responsibility for GEOINT
in the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), defines GEOINT as “information about any
object—natural or man-made—that can be observed or referenced to the Earth, and has
national security implications.”
Some of the sources of collected imagery information for GEOINT are imagery
satellites, cameras on airplanes, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and drones, handheld
cameras, maps, or GPS coordinates. Recently the NGA and IC have increased the use of
commercial satellite imagery for intelligence support, such as the use of the IKONOS,
Landsat, or SPOT satellites. These sources produce digital imagery via electro-optical
systems, radar, infrared, visible light, multispectral, or hyperspectral imageries.
The advantages of GEOINT are that imagery is easily consumable and understood by
a decisionmaker, has low human life risk, displays the capabilities of a target and its
geographical relationship to other objects, and that analysts can use imagery world-wide in a
short time. On the other hand, the disadvantages of GEOINT are that imagery is only a
snapshot of a moment in time, can be too compelling and lead to ill-informed decisions that
ignore other intelligence, is static and vulnerable to deception and decoys, does not depict the
intentions of a target, and is expensive and subject to environmental problems.
A majority of national security intelligence decisions involve geography and
GEOINT. GIS allows the user to capture, manage, exploit, analyze, and visualize
geographically referenced information, physical features, and other geospatial data. GIS is
thus a critical infrastructure for the GEOINT and national security community in
manipulating and interpreting spatial knowledge in an information system. GIS extracts real
world geographic or other information into datasets, maps, metadata, data models, and
workflow models within a geodatabase that is used to solve GEOINT-related problems. GIS
provides a structure for map and data production that allows a user to add other data sources,
such as satellite or UAV imagery, as new layers to a geodatabase. The geodatabase can be
disseminated and operated across any network of associated users (i.e. from the GEOINT
analyst to the warfighter) and engenders a common spatial capability for all defense and
intelligence domains.
Another important aspect of GIS is its ability to fuse geospatial data with other forms
of intelligence collection, such as signals intelligence (SIGINT), measurement and signature