Strategies for Civil-Military Geographical Support to Defence and Security Operations

The possibilities offered by modern GIS and remote sensing technologies provide great opportunities for their dual purpose. The availability of applications, materials as well as appropriate training and literature makes them relevant in geographic intelligence support to military operations (GEOINT). Even usage of the open sources, such as Copernicus and USGS, enable limited operationalization in area survey and detection of changes with significant potential for education and training of the expert staff. In order to make the best use of this potential, a significantly improved civil-military cooperation is needed, whereby defence and security organizations are given the opportunity to acquire professional knowledge from the relevant scientific fields, and academic and private partners are enabled to acquire knowledge and practical experience in the skills and organization of military operations. This work, using the method of multicriteria analysis, an objective comparison of available strategies are made. The result of the applied multi-criteria analysis favours a permanent, integrated civil-military organization with a high degree of coordination and interoperability based on the existing organization of state ministries, without the need to establish new specialized institutions.