Geospatial Intelligence

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Geospatial Intelligence ( GEOINT ; German  "spatial intelligence" ) is a new branch of intelligence intelligence. The aim of the reconnaissance is to obtain messages from the evaluation of images and space-related information (geodata) about objects and events related to space and time. This definition not only includes products (thematic maps, situation images) and services (creation of real-time overviews of troop movements), but also the process of analysis. GEOINT is made up of several sub-disciplines:

  • Image analysis as the process of using images from reconnaissance aircraft, drones or satellites to describe activities and processes at a given place on the earth's surface.
  • Geospatial data analysis, the process of collecting and analyzing information about geographic objects such as hills, valleys, rivers, buildings, streets or schools and their relationships with the earth or other geographic objects. By using geographic information systems ( GIS ), data can be sorted, examined, analyzed, results can be shown, conclusions can be made clear, in a way that was not possible without GI systems.
  • Spatial information and services: The combination of precise description and precise location of natural and man-made geographical objects on the earth's surface with the possibility of integrating and displaying a large amount of information about them in the display.

Special intelligence services with the task of geospatial intelligence are:

In other states with advanced intelligence services, especially military intelligence services, this specific direction of reconnaissance is carried out by special departments or internal specialist services.

War science

The war scientist Carl von Clausewitz already emphasized the importance of geographical information in his work On War . In the first book On the Nature of War he addresses these questions in the 3rd chapter On Warrior Genius :

"... we now come to a peculiarity of warlike activity, which can perhaps be regarded as the strongest, even if it is not the most important ...: It is the relationship in which the war stands to the land."

“First of all, this relationship is completely uninterrupted, so that one cannot imagine an act of war by our educated armies other than proceeding in a certain area; Second, it is of the greatest importance because it modifies, sometimes alters, the effects of all forces; thirdly, on the one hand it often leads to the smallest features of the location, while on the other it encompasses the widest spaces. It is in this way that the relationship which war has with the region and the soil gives its activity a high degree of peculiarity. "

“When we think of the other human activities that have a relation to that object, of gardening and agriculture, of building houses and water, of mining, of hunting and forestry, then all of them are limited to very moderate spaces, which they will soon can research with sufficient accuracy. The leader in war, however, must hand over the work of his activity to a collaborative space which his eyes cannot overlook, which the most active zeal cannot always explore, and with which he seldom comes into real acquaintance in the constant change. It is true that the opponent is generally in the same case; But, first of all, the common difficulty is always such, and he who masters it through talent and practice will have a great advantage on his side; secondly, this equality of difficulty only occurs in general, by no means in the individual case. where usually one of the two fighters (the defender) knows much more about the location than the other. "

"... If the hussar and hunter have to easily find each other in the path and footbridge while leading a patrol, and if only a few characteristics of a limited conception and imagination are required for this, the general must get down to the general geographical objects of a province and one Land, always vividly seeing the train of roads, rivers and mountains, without being able to do without the limited sense of place. It is true that news of all kinds, maps, books, and memoirs are of great help to him for general subjects, and the assistance of those around him for the details, but it is certain that a great talent in a quick and clear understanding of the area unites all his actions gives him a lighter and firmer step, protects him from a certain inner awkwardness and makes him less dependent on others. "

The old text describes well, from the tactical level to the strategic management of a theater of war, the importance of precise knowledge of geography in armed conflict and thus the demand on the intelligence service that has always existed in this regard. If modern technology and geographic information systems make comprehensive and precise information possible for this basic task that was previously unthinkable, many modern reconnaissance systems (such as radar images from AWACS aircraft or information from sensors and cameras from drones or also centrally connected sensors of combat helicopters on site) nor the possibility of additionally sorting the current position of the enemy units and forces in this precise geographical image.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Defense Imagery and Geospatial Organization (DIGO): What is GEOINT? , accessed March 17, 2014
  2. ↑ Carl von Clausewitz: Vom Kriege , first book: About the nature of war , 3rd chapter On the warlike genius ; Reprint of the 2nd edition from 1832: Edition Frankfurt / Berlin, Ullstein 1991, pp. 66–68; The e-text at the biliotheca Augustana

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