Radio Frequencies in the Intelligence Ecosystem
Radio Frequencies Are a Vital, yet Underutilized, Asset in the Intelligence Ecosystem
Last updated 06:27 AM EDT • Read time: 4m
For decades, imagery has been the dominant method GEOINT analysts have used to evaluate the world. Unfortunately, our adversaries know it. They have learned to evade imagery surveillance - but they didn’t stop there. Adversaries have also gotten better at managing their digital signatures and concealing movement by exploiting the gaps in our known collection patterns and revisit windows. They have deliberately adapted across multiple observable signatures to avoid detection – for instance, maritime vessels go dark and assets move under cover of darkness and spoof their location to hide where they are and what they’re doing there.
The intelligence community already fuses multi-source intelligence to address this. But if we shift radio frequency (RF) collection further upstream in the data collection and workflow process, it can tip and identify activity worth investigating and enable cueing other collection against it. The intelligence community can better leverage an underutilized data layer in their analysis.
Every modern vessel, ground vehicle and spacecraft emits a radio signal. Radio frequency detection, done from space, gives analysts a persistent, taskable, wide-area layer that does not depend on a target choosing to cooperate with its own detection. Radio frequencies can be detected across millions of miles, alerting analysts to anomalies that are undetectable visually.
It cannot be overstated how this changes - and improves - the intelligence collection workflow.
Rather than starting with imagery and searching a broad area, RF can help narrow the search first. It can flag activity that looks unusual and give analysts a better sense of where to focus other collection. Imagery and other sources of information can add additional context, corroborate what RF data has surfaced or show that the initial assessment was wrong. AIS history can add even further context.
That approach is especially useful in gray-zone activity, sanctions evasion and other situations where the behavior observed is meant to be difficult to categorize. Here, the advantage comes from finding the anomaly early enough to bring the right sensors and analysis to bear.
If we take, for example, damage to the undersea communications cables (like those in the Baltic Sea, which were severed in November 2024). Radio frequency analysis can help analysts examine historic patterns of vessel activity to identify which targets warrant deeper investigation. Once a vessel is identified, it can be tracked anywhere on the planet with its unique radio frequency “fingerprint,” and countries can take proactive measures to protect their infrastructure. This is the kind of actionable intelligence that comes from radio frequency emissions. It doesn’t replace other types of intelligence - it enriches the picture alongside imagery, patrols, AIS analysis, and human judgement.
For that reason, the time to adopt radio frequency emissions detection is now. I have spent three decades watching the intelligence community adapt its tradecraft to new sensing layers, from the earliest commercial imagery constellations to the current explosion of unclassified, commercially available data. Radio frequencies are the next layer in that progression, and it belongs in the hands of defense analysts now.
Thankfully, the barrier is no longer technical. Space-based radio frequency detection is mature, proven, and operating today.
What is most needed is a process shift - educating the current cohort of analysts to see radio frequencies as a primary tipping and cueing source rather than a secondary supplement to imagery.
The organizations, and the nations, that adapt fastest will end up with a much more efficient, layered architecture where each sensor makes the next one more effective. In a contested world where adversaries are actively designing around our imagery, the side that can hear what it cannot yet see will have the edge.
The next generation of GEOINT will not be defined only by pixels. It will be defined by how well we listen for the pulses that first tell us where to look - especially when an adversary is trying to avoid our gaze.
Craig Brower is the president and CEO of Unseenlabs U.S., a leader in space-based radio frequency (RF) detection. He previously directed global analysis at BAE Systems and began his career serving in the CIA.