Evolution of Space and Geospatial Intelligence in Japan
PREFACE
As a decades-long geospatial professional, this is my perspective on how the U.S. started GEOINT, nurtured it with NATO, and how Japan is on path to becoming an important member of global GEOINT community.
GEOINT has developed exponentially since NGA started in 2003, and is a primary thrust of progress in advancing GIS, High Performance Computing, and AI/ML. The development has also been fueled by intelligence and operational needs of a series of conflicts such as Desert Storm(1990), Kosovo War(1998), 9.11(2001), Afghan War(2001), Iraq War(2003), Ukraine War(2022), and other humanitarian as well as natural disasters. But are conflict and disasters the reason for GEOINT as we know it today? Through my encounters with great people, I am convinced that the passion for national security of the founders of GEOINT is the true source of development of GEOINT.
HISTORY
How far should we go back to the source of GEOINT? I had a pleasure of being coached by an exceptional person of U.S. Intelligence Community on how GEOINT history could be captured based on open source information. Undoubtedly, the start of CORONA Project is the epoch of ‘space-based ISR’. Soon after a U-2 was shot down by Soviet surface-to-air missile in May 1960, first CORONA satellite was deployed in September the same year and proved its power.
My GEOINT journey began when I designed an image analyst training program. In preparation I had the honour of conversing with the late Dr. Fred Doyle, the father of CORONA Project. He told me that CORONA stopped World War III when it revealed American over-apprehension about USSR’s ICBM capability. Then I knew the core purpose of space-based ISR. CORONA led to NPIC, DMA, CIO, NIMA and eventually NGA and ODNI.
In Europe, the Satellite Center in Spain evolved as a strategic European effort to conduct space-based ISR for GEOINT for the European Community. As part of my study for the IGS of Japan, I had important conversations with French Air Force, CF3I and French Defense & Space industry, a country which once surpassed the U.S. Landsat with SPOT in commercial imagery satellite capability. France, however, had a loud wakeup call when U.S. Forces demonstrated in Desert Storm what warfare is like with surgical strike capability underpinned by space-based ISR. NATO engagement in Kosovo War showed next-step challenge of integrating satellite imagery and maps. The conflict also showed the importance of inserting a ‘Commander’ in the ‘Sensor-to-Shooter’ chain to assess Serbian deception of civilian transport disguised as military vehicles to lure NATO strikes and win condemnation from international community.
The first Head of Japan’s CSICE (Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center) to run IGS was General Kunimi. He was always in the center of the first row in workshops for CSICE, and the first to ask a question from the floor. His commitment to make CSICE a global leader of GEOINT organization was unquestionable. Before CSICE, he was the first Head of DIH (Defense Intelligence H.Q) of JMOD. There is no doubt he was the commanding trailblazer of GEOINT in Japan.
In America, the founder of GEOINT is without question the Honorable James Clapper, the first D/NGA and the fourth DNI, created to rectify the shortcomings of intelligence stovepipes that failed during 9.11. As a result, collaboration among the INTs and ‘Need to Share’ became more important than ‘Need to Know’. As a new intelligence discipline, how GEOINT was defined was at times elusive, depending on the context of its use.
What NGA called CIB(Controlled Image Base), DTED(Digital Terrain Elevation Data), DPPDB(Digital Precision Point Data Base) and others ‘Foundational GEOINT’, it was paraphrased as ‘GeoINF’ by European allies to strictly discriminate INF from INT. CIB induced an international co-production of basemaps, called MGCP (Multi-national Geospatial Co-Production), and DTED induced TREx (TanDEM-X High Resolution Elevation Data Exchange Program), among NATO and allied countries of the U.S. Japan joined the co-production leagues as an associate member. HG(Human Geography) data became modernized and digitized especially for Afghan War and the following ISAF activities for peace-keeping.
As a Japan-U.K. Security of Information Agreement was being negotiated, Mr. Stuart Haynes, Head of DGC(Defense Geographic Center) of U.K. visited Japan. He met with Hitachi Defense Systems about the importance of HG data. He said that DGC considers HG data to be ‘ammunition to protect our boys’. This was a moving statement on the value of GEOINT for military planning and operations.
Under the 2nd Director/NGA, Vice Admiral Robert B. Murrett, GEOINT had an important evolution for Operational / Tactical use. He said use of Full Motion Video by UAVs in the Afghan War was like “using ISR as the switch for operations.” Using DVDs to record FMV would later become the source of NGA’s current automatic target detection project using AI known as MAVEN. This is now NGA’s marquee Program of Record activity embedded in the fabric of GEOINT-supported military operations.
After the Afghan War, the UK MOD led a move to Fusion Centers combining GEOINT and SIGINT primarily. This concept had already been used in the Afghan War as a Fusion Cell for expeditionary troops. Currently, the UK MOD has a Fusion Center at RAF Wyton known as the National Center for Geospatial Intelligence (NCGI). This was a great advance for GEOINT as a successor to the UK’s legendary Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center (JARIC) at RAF Brampton used to support military operations. Former Air Chief Marshal Lord Stuart Peach told me that the UK chose to create a Fusion Center, not as a fancy modernization of an INT, but to achieve and deliver more meaningful intelligence with the same resource. That was a burning bridge commitment.
Leaving aside past debate on the strict definition of GEOINT, its constant evolution as the platform for intelligence fusion has advanced by leaps and bounds. The success of getting Osama Bin-Ladin and the recent B2 strikes of Iranian nuclear sites shows the decisive power of GEOINT. Moreover, the Ukraine War shows that intelligence is as powerful, or even more powerful than equipment. GEOINT has proven itself as the enabler of knowledge and strike.
In 2019, Honorable Sue Gordon, then PDDNI, made a touching speech in her last appearance as PDDNI at the annual GEOINT Symposium in America. She said we were at an ‘inflection point’ in history as grave as the Cold War and 9.11, with ‘big scary changes’ on the horizon. She cast her mind forward to the life of her first granddaughter born the previous day. Honorable Gordon was clearly treating the security of this world as vital for us now and in the future. She concluded by saying that intelligence is not for someone who wants to know something, but for someone who wants to act to achieve National Security, and that there is nothing in the IC’s focus areas that can be resolved without GEOINT.
Focusing back on Japan, immediately after North Korean launches of ballistic missiles over Japan in 1998, Japan decided to have its own National Technical Means and to establish CSICE to run IGS. Prior to that was the 1997 start of DIH (Defense Intelligence H.Q.) of JMOD and DGI (Directorate of Geospatial Intelligence) under DIH. It is interesting to note that Japan’s first IGS satellite was launched in 2003, the same year GEOINT was created.
Japan has nurtured its GEOINT capability by operating its own NTM and mixing it with commercial imagery. As rule of thumb, Japan has consumed approximately 10% of global consumption of commercial imagery over decades, and has been one of the biggest overseas markets of U.S. commercial imagery.
In December 2022, Japan rewrote its National Security & Defense Strategies, redefined its ‘Defense Capability’, and declared intent to own retaliation capabilities to deter aggression from potential enemies. This means the acquisition of stand-off missiles and targeting capability to be employed in time of need. Japan’s National Satellite Constellation (tentative name of my own) scheme with some 50 small earth observing satellites is mandated to support the fire power. The mandate is more Operational/Tactical GEOINT than Strategic GEOINT, more TacSRT than ISR. This means the reliability and performance of small satellites is no less than conventional big satellites.
This is where ‘space-worthiness’ comes into play. Small satellites over past decades have not yet proven space-worthiness in terms of achieving and exceeding designed lives to guarantee resiliency needed for challenging GEOINT requirements, especially targeting. This is necessary to deter adversaries. These satellites must be more than ISR collectors. Over the next few years, we should learn whether smallsats as fuel for GEOINT meet stringent criteria for space-worthiness as ships and aircraft meet for sea-worthiness and air-worthiness, respectively. Much depends on smart procurement often discussed in the GEOINT community, and an industrial base with passion to deliver strategic and tactical capability.
What do you think? Share your thoughts and join in the discussion around data centricity and literacy in GEOINT at the 22nd annual DGI conference in London from Feb 23-25, 2026.