Today’s security environment appears to be quite different from that of only ten years ago. Major shifts in both the threat to national interests and security, and the technologies and information, especially those related to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or enhanced high-explosive weapons, are increasingly within the reach of potential adversaries to governments and inhabitants across the region.

Surveillance and Reconnaissance are interdependent concepts, a continuous process delivering a state of awareness with better anticipation of future conditions, precise assessment of the threat, and enhanced focus of target visualization. Surveillance is “systematic” observation to collect whatever data is available, hence providing a wider perspective of the threat, while reconnaissance is a specific mission performed to obtain specific data, leading to extensive details about a specific target of interest.