After nearly four decades of service, and being a middle child in my family, I find myself and the Coast Guard to be a natural fit. Among the other military services, the Coast Guard is the middle child in birth order. It compromises. It gives way. Hell, it accepted green timber from the Navy at its inception to build its first ten cutters. That said, only a fool would perceive this agreeable nature as weakness. The Coast Guard has proven its mettle repeatedly throughout history. One need only read A Blood Stained Sea or Utmost Savagery to grasp the value of its members as warfighters.
President Ronald Reagan said the following at the 1988 U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony: “The Coast Guard is the hard nucleus about which forms the Navy in time of war.”[1] The Coast Guard is uniquely positioned to offer the United States another option in today’s battle for maritime hegemony between the United States and China in this new age of great power competition on the high seas.
The Coast Guard should pivot from an overwhelming underway focus on counterdrug operations to a more balanced maritime governance role, with the South China Sea being a timely example of where it could start. Further, the Coast Guard’s value comes not from adding to the combatant commander’s (CoCom’s) menu of warships to task, but from its ability to project power starting from the diplomatic end of the military-diplomatic spectrum, while still making clear that its military nature remains available when needed.
A Look East
From 1405 to 1433, China had a fleet of 1,681 ships. Massive fleets were mean to “shock and awe,” making clear the power and reach of the Ming Dynasty. On seven voyages, Admiral Zheng did not hesitate to use military force when opposed. Subsequent dynasties dismantled that navy and penalized shipbuilding with death sentences. China went from launching broad expeditionary ventures to an inward facing and backward nation.[2]
What implications does that have for the United States and the greater world at present? China emerged from the “century of humiliation”—spanning the 1840s, when the Chinese first experienced British imperialism, to its invasion by Japan and the growing pains of its early communist years. Beginning with its enlightened opening to the world in the 1970s, China used its history to energize its future. Despite obvious progress in trade and economic liberalization, China has not engaged in political reform and willfully disregards the current world order and seeks domination over maritime trade routes. [3]
China does not accept the U.S. standard of diplomacy or the sanctity of agreements. China does seek a strategic relationship with the U.S. to balance neighbors it considers both covetous and powerful.[4] China is an aggressor, almost a pirate state, in the South China Sea, where it ignores the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea’s (UNCLOS) Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling on its construction of facilities there, and threatens and harasses its neighbors.[5] China refuses to accept the PCA decision that its nine-dash-line claim is invalid, refuses to be observed, and continuities to makes up the rules as it goes along, often mistakenly asserting mutatis mutandis as its rationale. This bullying action calls for an “ocean sheriff” capable of both diplomatic and military responses, as means of dealing with misapplied claims and UNCLOS.
The Law of the Sea
The crux of the matter: Part VIII of UNCLOS: The convention makes clear, artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), or the continental shelf.[6] China has violated of UNCLOS by creating islands and calling for the international observance of a 12-nm claim, and claiming the EEZ seaward from these installations. These repeated violations have potentially grave consequences.
By geography, the South China Sea is home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Ships carrying exports and imports between markets in Asia and Europe, Africa, and the Americas must transit through this sea; an estimated $5.3 trillion in trade passes through the region annually. As a result, most nations have a direct stake in ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. That sea, however, is home to longstanding disputes.[7]
China’s posture demands an appropriate action short of war. In accordance with UNCLOS, (which the United States has not ratified, but should), there is no basis for constructing defense installations on the shelf (artificial islands), nor does it prohibit such installations, so that they may be lawful if some other legal justification exists. To suggest that coastal states may create defense installations and prohibit comparable activities by other states runs the risk of justifying a security zone over the whole shelf area. Artificial islands, installations, structures, and the safety zones around them may not be established where interference may be caused to the use of the recognized sea lanes essential to international navigation.[8] China asserts it owns international shipping lanes and tribute is due.
China’s growing clout in East Asia has corresponded to a weakening of UNCLOS. Its actions undermine the rules-based order. International pressure has been inconsistent. This erosion of law hurts all countries, including the United States and China, which have an interest in ensuring stability and keeping competition, however fierce, within the parameters of law to minimize conflict. It also damages China’s reputation, though China appears willing to suffer reputational damage to achieve military and strategic gains.[9]
The reluctance and inability of Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines to persuade and prevent China to stop illegal actions and cease taking more territory is disconcerting. It is almost as if China is waiting for the U.S. to step in with military power. Unapologetically, China is behaving like a pirate state. “In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States,” said Navy Admiral Philip S. Davidson in an assessment that caused consternation in the Pentagon. An unexpected encounter there could set off an international incident. A 1.4-million-square-mile sea presents a kaleidoscope of shifting variables; hundreds of disputed shoals, thousands of fishing boats, coast guard vessels, warships, and, increasingly, a collection of Chinese fortresses.[10]
A Sea Change
There have been indications that the fundamental U.S. policy towards the South China Sea has become more assertive since the 2016 election. In his confirmation hearings, prospective Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held that China’s island-building in the South China Sea was “an illegal taking of disputed areas without due regard to international norms,” and he went so far as to suggest that Chinese access to the artificial islands should be prevented. Former President Donald J. Trump underscored the “importance of maintaining a maritime order based on international law, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea, indirectly calling on China to “act in accordance with international law in the South China Sea.”[11]
The Coast Guard’s white hulls can go where gray hulls should not, unless one wants to provoke a fight. On its recent deployment to the Indo-Pacific, the USCGC Bertholf (WMSL-750) thwarted illegal oil and coal shipments that violated U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea, transited the Strait of Taiwan amid condemnation from China, and, most importantly, worked with allies to bolster their own coast guard forces. In the words of her captain, “When I keyed up the radio overseas . . . we were not Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf. We were Warship 750. We are painted white, but we are working with the United States Navy, and we were deployed like any other naval or Marine Corps forces.”[12]
The Course Adjustment
The Coast Guard needs adjust its posture to meet the challenges of the future. Since 1984, cutters forces have been engaged in the “war on drugs,” but persistent action is not war. “War” implies lethality and kinetic action. The Coast Guard is enforcing drug laws, and checking and limiting untaxed revenues from entering markets whose profits support transnational organized criminal organizations, which, in turn, destabilize governments Modifications to existing drugs laws could present options to more efficiently deal with the scourge.
Drug cartels pay a corporate “tax” of 8–10 percent when its drug supplies are interdicted, which is lower than the average U.S. corporate tax rate of 22 percent. The service may better serve the nation shifting its focus to disputed areas, such as the South China Sea, and executing its prowess at maritime governance through military-diplomatic ventures. When Congress takes a good look at the reasons behind having two navies, (the Coast Guard and the Navy) in future rounds of budget cuts, it is the Coast Guard that stands to suffer. Congress may realize the Coast Guard’s constabulary role is better suited to a shallow-water, littoral role, and that could threaten its deep-water ambitions (part of its agility) and future acquisition projects. The counterdrug arena should not be the Coast Guard’s mainstay. The service must be prepared to adjust course in the changing sea.
Future Relevance
The U.S. Coast Guard, the world’s ocean-beat cop, is well-suited for the diplomatic-military role required to curtail China’s bullying in the South China Sea, while still retaining its reputational goodwill in disputed regions. The Coast Guard can act as diplomatic warfighters, offering a gloved hand (that can hold brass knuckles.) With a series of minor course adjustments, the Coast Guard can remain relevant in ocean governance and security, may yet thwart the demise of its cuttermen and its fleet.
Endnotes
[1] President Ronald Reagan’s May 18, 1988 Address to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Class of 1988.
[2] Fareed Zakaria, The Post American World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008), 49–50.
[3] Thomas L. Friedman, Thank You for Being Late (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), 314.
[4] Michael Rubin, Dancing with the Devil – the Perils of Engaging with Rogue Regimes (New York: Encounter Books, 2014), 321.
[5] Kevin Baumert and Brian Melchior, “Limits in the Seas, No. 143: China: Maritime Claims in the South China Sea,” U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International, Environmental and Scientific Affairs (2014).
[6] Baumert and Melchoir, “Limits in the Seas.”
[7] Eleanor Freund, Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea, A Practical Guide, (Boston: Harvard Kennedy School), 24.
[8] Ian Brownlie, International Law (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2006), 210.
[9] Gidget Fuentes “Cutter Bertholf’s Indo-Pac Deployment Highlighted Coast Guard’s National Security Role,” USNI News, 24 July 2019.
[10] Hannah Beach, “China’s Sea Control is a Done Deal ‘Short of War with the U.S.,’” The New York Times, 20 September 2018. ]
[11] Beach, “China’s Sea Control is a Done Deal.”
[12] Fuentes, “Cutter Bertholf’s Indo-Pac Deployment.”
