The Patriot Files Forums  

Go Back   The Patriot Files Forums > Branch Posts > Coast Guard

Post New Thread  Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 06-05-2019, 10:50 AM
Boats's Avatar
Boats Boats is offline
Senior Member
 

Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Sauk Village, IL
Posts: 21,784
Arrow The U.S. Navy-Coast Guard Partnership Is Heading For Trouble: Here's How To Fix It

The U.S. Navy-Coast Guard Partnership Is Heading For Trouble: Here's How To Fix It
By: Craig Hooper Aerospace & Defense & Forbes 6-5-19
RE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigho.../#6d8f62aa37e2

Photo link: https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/9...F1000w_q95.jpg
To confront contested seas, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy must work through interoperability and collaborative challenges. Here, Navy crew perform helicopter maintenance aboard the flight deck of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf (WMSL 750). PHOTO US NAVY; PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS DAVID WEYDERT

The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy enjoy a maritime partnership that stretches back to the earliest days of the American Republic. Strengthened in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the strong partnership between America's two major maritime forces is now under stress. Today, as America reorients to confront state-based threats, daunting fiscal, logistical and operational challenges are weighing upon the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard partnership. It is time for the U.S. Congress to acknowledge these challenges and help the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy reorient for the shared missions ahead.

A Proud Partnership Under Stress:

The Department of Defense and the U.S. Coast Guard have long been strong partners, and the U.S. Coast Guard has proudly supported the U.S. Navy in virtually every modern maritime conflict. In that regard, both of America's major maritime forces contribute an enormous amount of energy to ensure their diverse assets and authorities can integrate and work together. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy crafted a detailed collaborative doctrine in 2013 and a shared National Feet Plan in 2015 to better confront the threat of maritime terrorism.

All that detailed doctrinal groundwork has paid off; the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Defense are working together every day to reduce the risk of maritime terrorism. At sea, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments serve aboard naval ships, allowing military vessels to carry out law enforcement-oriented Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations. Coast Guard Maritime Force Protection Units serve as the “Secret Service of the Sea” protecting the U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarines and other critical maritime assets slip in and out of port.


In turn, the Department of Defense provides the U.S. Coast Guard access to many of their sophisticated resources, inventories and supply chains. Defense Department support can range from allowing the U.S. Coast Guard access to exquisite national intelligence resources and temporary use of naval ships in support of Coast guard missions to ensuring the mundane resupply of widgets, seals and filters required for modern military endeavors.

The challenge is to ensure that this collaboration--as it changes focus--remains equitable, responsive and sustainable over the longer term. But as state-based national security priorities demand more and more Coast Guard resources, an increasing proportion of the Coast Guard's remaining ten statutory missions risk getting shortchanged.

The Department of Defense appetite for U.S. Coast Guard assets is growing. In the Persian Gulf, six 110-foot patrol boats make up the USCG Patrol Forces, Southwest Asia. A vital contributor to regional security, this Coast Guard detachment has been confronting the threat of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps every single day for years. And more recently, the USCG Cutter Bertholf (WMSL 750) advanced America’s delicate diplomatic dance with China, transiting the Taiwan Straits, making a friendly Hong Kong port call and conducting search and rescue exercises with the Philippines Coast Guard. Other large Coast Guard cutters are set to follow in the Bertholf's wake.

Forward collaboration between the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy is smart and healthy. But the strain is showing, and while the U.S. Coast Guard has some ability to support conventional national security priorities overseas, Coast Guard resources are limited and, without fiscal, operational and logistical help, Coast Guard performance in drug interdiction, search and rescue, migrant interdiction, marine safety and other statutory non-defense-based Coast Guard missions may suffer.

2nd Photo link: https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/9...000w_q95-1.jpg
The U.S. Coast Guard is diverting large cutters like the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf (WMSL 750) from anti-drug patrols to represent America overseas. In this April 15, 2019 photo, the Bertholf was entering Hong Kong harbor-- the first time a U.S. Coast Guard vessel has moored in the city in 17 years. USCG; PO1 MATTHEW MASASCHI

Areas To Refresh And Refocus:

While the Coast Guard's anti-terrorism partnership with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense is deep and extensive, the collaborative focus is moving beyond terrorism to better address “near peer” national security priorities. Certainly, the risk of terror remains, but urgency that once fueled the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Defense collaboration in the early stages of the "War on Terror" has faded. State-based threats are where the action is.

Today, as the specter of great power competition looms, the U.S. Coast Guard /Department of Defense collaborative effort must formally evolve to better address the new priorities. It is time; the antiterror-focused doctrine backing U.S. Coast Guard and Navy collaborative goals have gone unchanged since 2015. While the collaborative Coast Guard/Navy framework is still strong, those frameworks should be re-forged to address new financial realities, new mission demands and new mutual support practices between U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy.

The first priority is to address serious financial mismatches. With a severely constrained budget, the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security cannot backstop the U.S. Navy without added fiscal support. And while the U.S. Coast Guard hates to say "no" to a defense readiness mission, those missions are not free. And while the U.S. Coast Guard estimates that their service provides about a billion dollars in support to the Department of Defense, reimbursement from the Department of Defense is capped at about $340 million dollars a year. Given that the resource mismatches are marked and unsustainable, Congress must, at a minimum, reset this reimbursement cap.

Second, if the USCG is being asked by the Department of Defense to support work in the deep Pacific Ocean, far from the Coast Guard's traditional operational areas, then the collaborative focus may need to shift, reflecting the operational realities of a far forward-deployed and far more Pacific Basin-oriented Coast Guard.

If the Coast Guard is directed to funnel resources towards far-forward areas, then Congress is obligated to, at a minimum, help define minimum U.S. maritime presence requirements in America's border zones, ensuring sufficient resources remain in place to secure America's southern maritime borders. We know that Coast Guard Cutters are invaluable in conducting anti-drug operations, but naval surface ship assistance in anti-smuggling efforts is also enormously helpful. For example, Operation Martillo, a multi-national anti-smuggling operation off Central and South America, was only able to interdict some 693 tons of cocaine and $25 million dollars in cash with U.S. Navy assistance. But U.S. Navy surface ship participation in anti-smuggling efforts has been erratic; today, naval vessel participation in anti-drug patrols is at a historic low.

Certainly, the surface Navy has tried to help advance U.S. Coast Guard priorities off the coast of central and South America when possible, sending warships like the USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) to conduct fisheries patrol exercises off Ecuador in late 2018, but, overall, an occasional naval visit off South America is a poor substitution for long, regular patrols by the Coast Guard’s large and capable National Security Cutters—the ships that are currently being diverted from the Coast Guard's counter-drug mission to confront Chinese encroachment in the Pacific.

In addition to changes in U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy ship deployments, existing forward maintenance and support frameworks must evolve to account for the U.S. Coast Guard. With the U.S. Coast Guard planning on home-porting new Fast Response Cutters and other patrol assets on Guam and elsewhere in Oceania, those vessels, aircraft and crews will need steady maintenance and support from naval forward maintenance bases or even from a dedicated Oceania-based surface-ship tender. And at home, the Coast Guard’s primary maintenance base, a woefully under-funded and oft-overlooked government-owned shipyard outside of Baltimore, may benefit from being folded into the Department of Defense’s wider recapitalization of the U.S. Navy’s four government-owned shipyards.

Third, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard's collaborative tactical toolbox may need to shift. The Department of Defense regularly requests Coast Guard law enforcement detachments to serve on USN combatants. In turn, the U.S. Navy may, in a bit of a switch, be asked to send some of their useful personnel to support U.S. Coast Guard cutter deployments. Increased capability, in the form of intelligence experts, maintenance support personnel and aviation detachments would likely always be welcomed aboard the newer Coast Guard ships.

Helicopters, in particular, are a vital need. Rotary wing assets are a critical part of maritime force projection. For large Coast Guard cutters, embarked aviation detachments are one of the cutter's primary “weapons” systems, supporting the cutter’s situational awareness, aiding complex boarding missions, search and rescue efforts and more. In a more contested sea, naval helicopters and other rotary wing airframes have potential to be force multipliers for Coast Guard ships, offering a means for lightly-armed U.S. Coast Guard cutters to expand their role as a viable low-end deterrent.

Enhancing Navy/Coast Guard rotary-wing interoperability should be a priority. With some structural changes, training tweaks, operational re-alignments and manning/berthing adjustments to account for generously-sized naval flight detachments, short naval helicopter deployments aboard modern Coast Guard cutters can become just as commonplace as the deployment Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments are aboard naval vessels. By facilitating U.S. Coast Guard cutter operation of the more sophisticated (and arguably more lethal) MH-60R or MH-60S Seahawk helicopters, a forward-deployed cutter may be able to operate with a bit more confidence in contested areas, knowing that capable naval helicopters are either on board or available nearby to cover a unexpected breakdown or support a military contingency. While the operation of Department of Defense rotary wing craft might offer an integration challenge and training burden, the operational benefit for the both the USCG and the Department of Defense would be unmatched.

With high-level support and Congressional encouragement, stronger rotary-wing integration should not be a heavy lift for either party. The U.S. Coast Guard already operates a Blackhawk helicopter variant, the MH-60T Jayhawk, off large cutters. And, for its part, the U.S. Navy conducts many traditional Coast Guard rotary wing missions with aplomb. Over the past year, U.S. Navy rotary wing platforms have met the call throughout the Pacific, airlifting ill passengers from cruise ships, rescuing shipwrecked fishermen, and conducting collaborative search and rescue efforts.

Conclusion: Don’t Take the USCG/DoD Partnership For Granted

The partnership between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Defense is strong and long-lasting. But, like any marriage, partners cannot be taken for granted. Any attempt to frame the presence of the U.S. Coast Guard in the Pacific as simple way for U.S. Department of Defense combatant commanders to solve a complex resource problem should be rebuffed.

Reorienting the Coast Guard to address "new" state-based threats is a complex problem that will require patient investment and a lot of preparatory work to be successful. The Coast Guard is part of America’s large National Fleet, and the tighter integration of Coast Guard forces—along with the U.S. Merchant Marine, NOAA’s research fleet and other Federal maritime assets—into the U.S. national security mission space merits thoughtful consideration as the Donald J. Trump Administration moves forward in confronting new and evolving national security challenges.

About this writer: Craig Hooper
I offer blunt, uncompromising guidance on national security solutions, bringing complex security issues and oft-neglected defense topics to the attention of interested policymakers and the general public. I have focused on maritime, homeland defense and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) challenges for over a decade, spanning from academia to the defense industry. Currently working for a consultancy just outside of Washington, DC, I served as an executive for naval shipbuilder Austal USA, helping deliver the Littoral Combat Ship and Expeditionary Fast Transport to the U.S. Navy. Previously, I taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California, and earned a doctorate in Immunology and Infectious Disease from Harvard University. In my spare time, I support think-tank studies, discuss naval matters at NextNavy.com or write about the Navy, publishing op-eds and papers in places like the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the Naval War College Review, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and beyond.
__________________
Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
sendpm.gif Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

All times are GMT -7. The time now is 10:52 AM.


Powered by vBulletin, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.