The global value of the U.S. Coast Guard to the nation and U.S. combatant commanders has never been higher, but it remains the least-funded U.S. armed force, making it difficult to keep pace with the increasing demands placed on this multimission, military, and maritime agency.
“I also told President Xi that we will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific just as we do with NATO in Europe—not to start conflict—but to prevent conflict.” – President Biden, Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress, 28 April 2021
Current Coast Guard funding constraints leave the majority geographic combatant commands (GCCs) and international partners with only a fleeting or niche presence, if any. The U.S. government needs to establish a funding mechanism to provide the Coast Guard a reliable budget stream to fully support the increasing operational demands in distant waters. In the 21st century, GCCs deserve to have the world’s best coast guard as a persistent presence in their theaters of operation to serve as a multi-tool where a more expensive Department of Defense (DoD) hammer will not work. At a minimum, the government must sufficiently fund and advantage itself of the Coast Guard for dynamic force employment of the service—a unique instrument of national power well-suited to operate across the spectrum of 21st-century conflict. As near-peer competitors and bad actors continue to operate below the threshold of armed conflict to challenge traditional rules and norms, a more present and highly capable Coast Guard could serve as a less escalatory tool for all GCCs to have “always ready” to employ.
Valuable to GCCs
The Coast Guard is a useful sentinel in theater engagement and freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS), offering GCCs a less-escalatory asset than a warship. All are familiar with the official government position spoken from national podiums and U.S. Navy press rooms: ‘The United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows to uphold the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging unlawful restrictions and excessive maritime claims.”
These transient operations, while effective in preventing overreaching nations from making customary international law claims, can lead to escalatory acts in an effort to save-face and preserve national pride. The use of the Coast Guard in FONOPS in various theaters could keep things on simmer rather than bring them to a boiling point. Whether working for Indo-Pacific Command in the East and South China Seas or serving U.S. Northern and Southern Commands in the Arctic, eastern Pacific, or Caribbean, the Coast Guard is as capable of flying the nation’s colors and preserving international rules and norms. In addition, the Coast Guard’s bilateral partnerships with affected nations might prove more useful in more directly challenging excessive maritime claims through various international forums rather than just sailing through.
USCGC Kimball (WMSL-756) conducting exercises with the Japan Coast Guard in March 2021.
International Partner of Choice
Coast Guard efforts within GCCs enhance theater security cooperation with island nations and hard to access places where a larger navy just cannot go or might not be welcomed. From Oceania to the West and South Pacific, the Coast Guard’s 225-foot ocean-going buoy tenders and 154-foot fast response cutters (FRC) ply the waters as part of the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative (OMSI) to reduce and eliminate illegal, unregulated, unreported (IUU) fishing, combat transnational crimes, and enhance regional security with and for nations whose economic livelihood rely largely on their exclusive economic zone (EEZ) resources. These relationships, when built and maintained, expand goodwill, grow alliances, protect against encroachment, and maintain the U.S. sea lines of communication critical to U.S. war plans.
If properly resourced, the Coast Guard would be the partner of choice for nations where the frequency and duration of these visits matter and a lack of sustained, reliable, or timely presence is felt. Leveraging the Coast Guard to build partnership capacity also serves as an entrée for GCC engagements with allies and near-peer competitors by tapping the service’s existing global relationships in various regional fishery, coast guard, and Arctic nation forums, as well as its more than 60 bilateral agreements worldwide. What the Coast Guard lacks, however, is staying power—the capacity, basing, DoD advocacy, and overall funding support to execute in a more sustainable fashion.
USCGC Hamilton (WMSL-753) in route the Mediterranean Sea escorts two 154-foot fast response cutters on a transatlantic voyage toward their new homeport of Bahrain in April 2021.
More than a Military Instrument of Power
Beyond just cutters, the Coast Guard’s maritime law enforcement authorities enable increased intelligence and information sharing with trusted international partners. Coast Guard international training teams and schoolhouse programs at Coast Guard training centers also are a powerful force multiplier that help prepare partner nations to face growing illicit transnational maritime challenges. Foreign military sales and procurements assistance with proven coast guard platforms also net sustainable gains when anchored by training. Education on maritime and contractual law underpin EEZ protection and at sea enforcement and is important to the sustainment of their EEZs. Listening to what these smaller nations want and tailoring solutions to their needs is what ultimately sets the Coast Guard apart from the typical DoD-military approach. Coupling proven bilateral ship rider and ship boarding agreements with a more lasting Coast Guard at-sea presence would only serve to strengthen and reinforce this framework, but finding a way to fund it remains elusive. GCC commanders’ desire for increased presence in their theaters needs to be communicated within DoD and to the congressional posture hearings to garner increased support. There remains a disconnect with armed service budgets and the GCCs’ needs that could be mitigated tapping Coast Guard resources; exacerbated by a Coast Guard budget predominantly sourced by the Department of Homeland Security.
Short of sizable increases in Coast Guard defense discretionary spending, the Coast Guard Maritime Force Protection Units (MFPUs) at Kings Bay, Georgia, and Bangor, Washington, offer glimpses into a Navy-owned/Coast Guard-operated model, albeit on a smaller scale. Imagine a construct in which the federal government, more specifically DoD, built a national fleet with sizably lower construction and operating costs that offered GCCs a broader range of options against the wide-array of 21st-century threats. With the 418-foot NSC and 154-foot FRC production lines rapidly winding down to cold status, there would need to be rapid action to enact a Navy-owned and Coast Guard–operated model on a grander scale for the benefit of GCCs and the nation.
More Affordable and Highly Adaptive
The nation could save significant costs in U.S. Central Command. Without going into a lengthy debate on NSC vs. littoral combat ship (LCS) utility, comparative annual operational savings of an NSC dwarfs an LCS by over $30 million per hull. This annual operating cost of an LCS, nearing the cost to operate a destroyer (DDG), is again about to be magnified as the U.S. Navy decommissions the 179-foot patrol coastal (PC) and finds a frontline mission for the LCS in the Persian Gulf. Coincidently, the first two Coast Guard FRCs’ in Bahrain now perform the same mission as the PCs at a fraction the cost of the LCS also assuming traditional PC duties. In fact, the Navy could opt to procure an FRC (or multiple, to replace the PCs overseas) and have the Coast Guard operate it for several years to include crew costs for less than the annual operating cost of one LCS. The Central Command theater is only one example of how the Navy outsourcing to capable Coast Guard platforms could save some national treasure.
There is benefit to the nation keeping the industrial base fully employed as China continues to outpace the United States in building a navy with global ambitions, as well as a sizable coast guard that continues to misuse and tarnish the well-recognized racing stripe throughout the South China Sea. In the end, steel sharpens steel and a strong national maritime industrial construction and repair base, and the skilled workers that come with it, remains critical to fighting and winning the nations wars. Navy-owned and Coast Guard–operated up-armed NSCs homeported with U.S. naval forces in Japan and Europe could offer a game-changing dynamic and directly counter and confront a rising China and resurgent Russia’s growing ambitions more directly.
With regard to Russia, I made very clear to President Putin that while we don’t seek escalation, their actions have consequences. – President Biden, Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress, 28 April 2021
USCGC Hamilton (WMSL-753) operating with the Turkish Navy in the Black Sea, 30 April 2021.
The recent announcement of the addition of the Navy Strike Missile on the LCS also could be outfitted on board the NSC. A bolder step for the nation, though, would be to pursue the production of international security cutters (a Navy-owned and Coast Guard–operated up-armed NSCs) in addition to the Navy’s future frigate. The combination of the two could more rapidly swing the Indo-Pacific and European naval balance of power back in a favorable direction while further strengthening the U.S. industrial base and offering GCCs a full range of military, law enforcement, and diplomatic options. GCCs having a Coast Guard olive branch in their quiver of arrows would be a prudent approach to not seeking escalation, but instead maintaining a critical, reliable, and affordable presence in multiple theaters. The time is right to expand the Navy-owned/Coast Guard–operated model throughout GCCs and reexamine the cost of a national fleet-mix before these two production lines grow too cold to act. This must not be done at the expense of medium endurance cutter recapitalization as brave patriots continue to independently sail in harm’s way thousands of miles from shore on board half-century-old cutters.
This recapitalization will bring further savings to the U.S. national fleet as the Coast Guard turns its focus on recapitalizing these geriatric workhorses, the 210-foot and 270-foot medium endurance cutter fleet, with the very capable 360-foot OPC. These extreme endurance crews operating Vietnam War–era vessels deserve high praise operating in the far reaches of the Galapagos in the Eastern Pacific to working with European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners in the Arctic. In the near future, the OPC will offer GCCs the sustained presence of an NSC and will be an important asset to the national fleet mix, serving as the backbone of the Coast Guard’s white hull sea-going counter-drug and fisheries enforcement fleet and be more seaworthy for beyond the western hemisphere independent operations. While the retiring medium endurance cutters will bolster international partner strength worldwide through foreign military sales—another important bargaining chip Coast Guard recapitalization provides to partner nations that GCCs can leverage. In addition, the polar security cutter (PSC) programs remain instrumental to U.S. surface presence in the Arctic and are underway as this region becomes increasingly important to great power competition.
Finding a way to accelerate the procurement and construction of OPCs and PSCs cannot come soon enough. With steps being taken by the Biden administration and soon Congress to renew U.S. infrastructure, perhaps the time has come to take innovative steps toward cooperative regional shipbuilding in the panhandle states to build back better along with accelerating the infrastructure needed to homeport these larger and more advanced platforms. Progressive steps could speed production and expand the U.S. industrial base capacity by leveraging current strengths at certain shipyards with capacity in a more cooperative effort to help pick up the collective pace—this is a national security issue that deserves national attention. A more cooperative approach in shipbuilding might also be the key to finally overcoming the high hurdle of satisfying pet congressional programs that the armed services do not want by retooling these lines to expedite the collective programs that are needed by the services.
Eastern Shipbuilding rendering of the 360-foot offshore patrol cutter (OPC).
Furthermore, it is time for the elected representatives in Congress to look at total cost of ownership of the national fleet and its return on investment to the nation. This includes shutting down expensive programs with inordinate total costs and exploring more affordable avenues in their place, such as up-arming more affordable Coast Guard cutters to provide for not only the nation’s defense, but also to replace frontline players to better play the ‘below armed-conflict’ game at hand.
Turkish helicopter operating with the Hamilton in the Black Sea on 30 April 2021.A Key Enabler of International Security
The Coast Guard’s statutory missions of drug interdiction, aids to navigation, search and rescue, living marine resources, marine safety, defense readiness, migrant interdiction, marine environmental protection, ice operations, law enforcement, and ports and waterway security are all worthy, all necessary, and important to the nation. Likewise, or the GCCs to recognize, these missions are all exportable and are skills sought by partner nations within their respective regions. GCCs remain the key to unlocking fuller development of these missions and skills within their areas by advocating for more constant Coast Guard presence in their theaters—cutters, training teams, niche deployable specialized forces, school house capacity, and other enablers to sustainment. While their counterparts within the DoD-armed services play a zero-sum game of Pentagon self-preservation, the combatant commanders have an opportunity to speak truth to power of what is needed in their theaters of operation for the greater good.
Invest in Sustainable Partnerships and Affordable Presence
We also have to get at the root of the problem of why people are fleeing to our southern border from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. The violence. The corruption. The gangs. The political instability. Hunger. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. – President Biden, Presidential Address to a Joint Session of Congress, 28 April 2021
As President Biden clearly recognizes man-made and natural disasters upend hemispheric stability. Hurricanes, transnational crime, and even transregional terror networks in the Western Hemisphere remain existential threats that erode hemispheric stability leading to migration of hundreds of thousands annually from the Northern Triangle. This torrent of illicit activity and associated violence also pervades U.S. borders. Investments in networked law enforcement presence and collaborative international partnership are necessary to turn the tide against these illicit networks that undermine hemispheric stability and also to counter the growing out of hemisphere influence from the likes of China, Russia, and Iran. A worthy defense to combat the broad ranges of threats and challenges within the Western Hemisphere remains a layered, multi-domain, multinational, networked, and, most importantly, present partner—the Coast Guard remains that partner of choice at sea and ashore.
Recognizing the various U.S. instruments of national power—diplomatic, information, military, economic, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement—arguably, no other government entity is as well-positioned, has the reputation for fiscal stewardship, nor has broader authorities and existing bilateral relationships to collectively exercise the full range of these instruments as effectively as the Coast Guard. It is time to properly include the Coast Guard in military rebuilding efforts to properly attend to business beyond U.S. borders that is booming with no remedy in sight. Coast Guard leaders need to get all GCC commanders on board to craft a 24-star letter expressing their need for a more robust and constant Coast Guard presence for the greater good of not only U.S. international partners, but also our own national interests.
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