Coast Guard Essay Contest Prize Winner
The Coast Guard’s humanitarian reputation puts it in high demand worldwide—here, the Coast Guard cutter Gallatin (WHEC-721) visits pierside in Cork, Ireland, alongside the Italian frigate Euro during its deployment with the U.S. Navy in July 1996. With better funding, the Coast Guard could do more.
The Coast Guard is quietly building expertise in international interaction. Although it has been interacting with foreign nations for years—along with its Department of Defense (DoD) counterparts—the international mission now is getting more of a priority throughout the service. The deployment last summer of the Dallas (WHEC-716) in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gallatin (WHEC-721) in the Baltics, for instance, directly contributed and supported the national security and military strategies. Such operations should expand, given the worldwide—and currently unmet—demand for Coast Guard expertise. In addition, the Coast Guard needs to measure and market the value it adds in the areas of peacetime engagement and conflict deterrence to validate its endeavors to a wider audience that includes the Unified Commanders-in-Chief and the general U.S. public. While acknowledging the realities of the current austere budget environment, the Coast Guard value added to the national security and military strategies could be greatly expanded by an increase in the Coast Guard budget or with a relatively small outlay from the Department of Defense or the Department of State.
Given the Coast Guard’s humanitarian reputation, the Sixth Fleet Commander sent the white high-endurance cutter Dallas into ports that were perhaps not quite ready to have a gray Navy ship tied to their docks. While in port, the Coast Guard crew members and officers were prepared to conduct military-to-military contacts, discussing issues of mutual significance that any U.S. Navy combatant could, including unit readiness and task unit operations. In addition, however, the Dallas's crew was equally versed on issues such as search and rescue, counterdrug operations, and maritime interdiction.1 This deployment was so successful that the Coast Guard Cutter Gallatin (WHEC-721) completed a follow-on deployment last July to the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.
Not long before the Dallas's deployment, events in the Caribbean began raising U.S. concerns. Time magazine, for example, documented a number of such events:
- A series of drug-related murders in St. Kitts, including the prime minister’s son and the investigating police commissioner
- The conviction of a son of the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda for trying to smuggle cocaine into the country
- The implication of another son of the prime minister in trying to establish a mercenary training school for the Medellin cartel
- The establishment of offshore banks in Antigua to launder cash for Russian and Colombian criminals.2
In addition, drug use is up throughout the Caribbean islands.3 In fact, drugs have been characterized by one Caribbean expert4 as the number-one threat to security in the Caribbean— whether it stems from the direct use of drugs by its people, or the fallout effects from suppliers and rival gangs battling for turf and its consequential effect on tourism, the main industry in the region. Mr. Robert Gelbard, of the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, stated his concern about the “. . . substantial risk that these islands could be taken over by criminal cartel groups.”5 Last year, the U.S. Ambassador to Grenada, Ambassador Jeannette W. Hyde, highlighted similar security concerns about the nations under her accreditation6 to Vice Admiral James M. Loy, then the Atlantic Area Commander.
Admiral Loy committed forces to provide a Coast Guard component in support of Ambassador Hyde’s goal of countering the drug threat, which included a call for full U.S. interagency support. Shortly after their meeting, the U.S. strategy to counter the drug threat began taking shape: Recurring U.S. interagency working groups and coordination meetings were arranged; U.S. delegations that included representatives from Coast Guard Headquarters began negotiating a series of bilateral counter-drug agreements throughout the Caribbean basin to facilitate counterdrug enforcement activities. In addition, more cutters began calling at Caribbean ports, and Coast Guard units began implementing the ship-rider provision of the bilateral counterdrug agreements to facilitate combined operations with the signatory governments’ applicable maritime services. Island nations’ marine police or coast guards that earlier could not get under way for a daylight patrol began recalling crews regularly, getting under way, and boarding suspect vessels at night.
The first efforts at establishing a virtual “archipelagic law enforcement region” were realized with the stand up of the recurring surge “Operation Caribbean Venture,” executed by the Seventh District’s Greater Antilles Section Command in Puerto Rico. This surge operation strives to render the regional sovereign territorial sea boundaries transparent to the multinational law enforcement vessels that blitz the eastern Caribbean during these operations. This operation has been conducted five times since 1995, resulting in numerous seizures of contraband and disruptions of illegal activity. The biggest advancements probably have been the near-elimination of territorial sea boundaries to participating law enforcement assets and furthering of interoperability in the region between the various maritime services—be they marine police, coast guards, or navies.
The Coast Guard regularly interacts with eastern Caribbean island maritime services. The Coast Guard certainly is not the sole participant in countering the narcotics threat to the region; its efforts compliment the Regional Security Service’s7 work to bolster its effectiveness, with assistance from the British Military Advisory and Training Team. Other U.S. agencies—including U.S. Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Joint Interagency Task Force (East), and Department of State—also contribute to the counterdrug effort. But the recurring presence of Coast Guard units operating with island maritime services, conducting community service projects when in port, and high-level Coast Guard officers meeting with senior island government officials are highly visible demonstrations of U.S. commitment to the region. These Coast Guard activities are prime examples of U.S. engagement, as called for in the national security and military strategies.
What Does the Coast Guard Offer?
Captain J. H. Jones, Jr., commanding officer of the Dallas, summed up what the Coast Guard offered to the various maritime services during the Mediterranean and Black Seas deployment: “To those nations that were developing a navy, we were a model. To those nations that had a developed navy, we were a standard. To all the nations we visited, we provided a vision for what they could become.”
Facing dwindling resources, many nations are contrasting the cost of blue-water navies with the real need—and subsequently are redefining the roles their navies fulfill. Many smaller regional navies are buying new ships and arming them with sophisticated weaponry and technology. They may need to develop and advance skills such as mine warfare and coastal anti-surface warfare, but in cases where no real military threat exists, these navies are increasingly emphasizing peacetime missions similar to those of the U.S. Coast Guard, to maintain an air of relevancy in light of budgetary shortcomings.8 Many of these smaller regional navies realize that smaller littoral conflicts are their most likely future combat scenarios, and they recognize the need to maintain a maritime regulatory agency with a customs/coast guard function.
The U.S. Coast Guard offers great flexibility as a model for maritime force development.9 Evidence of this worldwide appeal is that 109 nations have requested formal Coast Guard assistance or training. The Coast Guard’s humanitarian reputation enables it to maintain a non-threatening presence. This, in turn, enables a Coast Guard cutter to visit ports that may be unduly sensitive to a visit by a U.S. Navy combatant. One reason for the Sixth Fleet request for a cutter was to “expand U.S. interaction with littoral nations beyond traditional (U.S. Navy) military-to-military contact, and expand U.S. presence and contact with nations for which U.S. Navy warship visits are not yet appropriate.”10
The Coast Guard offers other tools that promote international professional liaison. The International Training Division (ITD) at the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia, provides training in general operations (law enforcement, infrastructure building, engineering technical assistance) and maritime safety (port state control of shipping, port safety, and port security). The ITD also conducts assessments of other nations’ maritime services, evaluating the respective service and offering recommendations that help a requesting service achieve its desired end state. Recent assessments include the Colombian Coast Guard, the Haitian Navy (now Coast Guard), and Royal Bahamian Defence Force.
The first Coast Guard military liaison officers were established in Haiti and Barbados for the eastern Caribbean in 1995. This role for experienced Coast Guard officers could provide a Commander-in-Chief with an appropriate representative and perspective to those nations seeking a Coast Guard-style navy in their areas of responsibility.
Coast Guard Headquarters also has developed a comprehensive Model Maritime Code. This code provides the language for a legislative framework that a nation can enact to allow a maritime service with Coast Guard-like missions to operate. It covers the full range of U.S. Coast Guard missions.
Coast Guard and U.S. National and Military Strategies
An underlying theme in the national security strategy is interaction with other nations, to enhance U.S. security.11 Maintaining overseas presence, fighting drug trafficking, and conducting humanitarian missions are included tasks. The national military strategy describes two broad but complementary objectives of promoting stability and thwarting aggression. These are accomplished through a three-pronged strategy:
- Peacetime engagement
- Deterrence and conflict
- Warfighting
The Coast Guard makes a concrete contribution to the national security and military strategies’ objectives, through its international interaction. Given the service’s successes in this area and the worldwide demand for Coast Guard training and contact, expanding Coast Guard international interaction can only enhance U.S. security interests.
- Overseas Presence, Military-to-Military Contacts, Fighting Drug Trafficking: The Coast Guard combines these three components during normal operations.12 The Dallas's deployment was a prime example of overseas presence and military-to-military contacts, as are the Coast Guard’s coordinated, recurring port visits and professional exchanges throughout the Caribbean region. Regular implementation of the shiprider provisions of the various bilateral counterdrug agreements by Coast Guard units give form and substance to these (law enforcement) commitments to combat drug smuggling by facilitating combined operations with signatory nations. These combined operations with Caribbean nations and coincidental operations with Mexico provide insight to these nations on a facet of U.S. operations.13 Two reasons the counterdrug bilateral agreements were signed were to strengthen the ties between the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies and to counter the drug threat to security in nations throughout the Caribbean. Implementation of these agreements demonstrates the U.S. commitment to its drug-war allies in the region.
- Nation Assistance: In addition to the ITD training and assessments, the Coast Guard shares its expertise with Caribbean maritime services through regular engagements such as the maritime phases of the annual Operation Tradewinds (U.S. Special Operations Command) and Operation VISTA (Commander, Coast Guard Atlantic Area). Informal assistance is available through any visiting Coast Guard unit. Informal engagement with the Lesser Antilies’s military and paramilitary entities may not ring true in the warfighting preparedness realm, to advance coalition warfare. It does, however, provide a snapshot of how the U.S. Coast Guard operates both independently and with the U.S. Navy, and can advance the combined law-enforcement efforts in that region.
- Humanitarian Missions: The Coast Guard gained invaluable experience as a result of the Cuban mass migrations of 1980 and 1994 and with the Haitian mass migrations in 1992 and 1994. In addition, the Coast Guard rendered timely assistance to numerous Lesser Antilles islands after the devastation of the 1995 hurricane season and assisted the Dominican Republic when an airliner crashed off its north coast in early 1996.
- Peacekeeping: Following the averted U.S. invasion of Haiti, Coast Guard forces stood up a harbor defense command (HDC) for the Joint Task Force Commander. The HDC coordinated the comings and goings of the myriad vessels transiting in and out of Port-au-Prince. Because of a continuing need for waterborne security, the Coast Guard assigned a patrol boat to Jeremie and Port au Prince after the HDC completed operations. The patrol boat remained for approximately five months until the U.N. mission in Haiti took over from the Multi-National Force, Haiti.
- Sanctions Enforcement: The Coast Guard brings valuable experience in conducting boardings to enforce sanctions and in training forces in boardings and seizures.14 Coast Guard forces participated in the U.N. Operation Restore Democracy, patrolling alongside the multinational naval forces enforcing the U.N. sanctions against Haiti. Coast Guard law enforcement detachments (LEDets) proved indispensable in the Persian Gulf and Adriatic Sea during heightened tensions in those areas.
- Fighting Combined and Joint: The Dallas's complementary role with U.S. Navy forces in the threat environment with minimal work-up is testimony to Coast Guard readiness.15 The characterization of the Coast Guard as a “medium-sized navy” instead of “the largest Coast Guard,” able to integrate (to a certain degree) with the U.S. Navy illustrates that the Coast Guard—with its similarity to many small or medium regional navies and its routine interaction with the U.S. Navy—is the ideal service to train medium-sized navies in the intricacies of coalition warfare with the U.S. Navy.16
Expanding Coast Guard International Interaction
World stability enhances U.S. security. Coast Guard international interaction enhances the professionalism, trust, and understanding of those international services with whom the Coast Guard operates. Coast Guard operational commanders need to market the value the service adds to the National Security and Military Strategies, Unified Commanders-in-Chief’s peacetime engagement plans, and Coast Guard international goals and objectives, as set by Coast Guard Headquarters. It would advance the security perspective of the United States if nations that would most benefit from Coast Guard assistance were identified, and if forces were provided to make it happen. Dedicated funding must be secured.
Despite the Coast Guard’s best intentions—or even some budgetary help from the Department of Defense or the Department of State—chances are that Coast Guard operational commanders rarely will have the resources to carry out their operational tasking, let alone dedicate resources solely to international interaction. The Coast Guard does have a means to focus service resources where they can most make a difference. The Commandant’s International Advisory Group was chartered to make recommendations across program lines on the Coast Guard’s international objectives and activities. The Coast Guard should establish similar working groups at the Area or District levels to make the same sort of recommendations and to implement specific tasking to carry out the recommendations of the International Advisory Group or goals set by the district or area commander.
The Coast Guard has been interacting with foreign nations for years, but it can—and should—do more in the interests of U.S. security. The service can offer part of the creative and constructive engagement the President calls for, while making a contribution to foreign maritime services in support of the Unified Commanders-in-Chief s objectives and the National and Military Strategies.17
1 Capt. J. H. Jones, Jr., USCG, commanding officer, USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716), “USCGC Dallas After Action Report: Mediterranean and Black Seas Deployment,” 28 August 1995.
2 Cathy Booth, “Caribbean Blizzard,” Time, 26 February 1996, pp. 46-48.
3 Ivelaw L. Griffith, The Quest for Security in the Caribbean: Problems and Promises in Subordinate States (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp, 1993), p. 247.
4 Griffith, p. 14.
5 Booth, p. 47.
6 These nations include Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
7 The Regional Security Service (RSS) was created in 1982 through a Memorandum of Understanding between Antigua-Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines. St. Kitts and Nevis and Grenada later became signatories. The RSS become a treaty organization in March 1996.
8 See Cdr. David Guy Jamieson, South African Navy, “Maintaining First World Standards in the Third World,” Proceedings, March 1996, p. 70.
9 The author argues this from the Coast Guard’s operational structure of coastal stations, groups, and marine safety/inspection offices, as well as cutters patrolling offshore and in tactical chokepoints. An emulating service can easily break this structure down to a “building block” approach.
10 Capt. Jones, “USCGC Dallas After Action Report,” 28 August 1995.
11 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, White House, 1995 p. 7.
12 See Cdr. W. R. Webster, USCG, “The Changing of the Guard,” Proceedings, August 1996, pp. 40-42.
13 “Coincidental operations” describes the recurring operations between the Mexican Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. No units of either nation control any of the other nation’s units. The U.S/Mexican Bilateral Agreement covers a different scope of cooperation than other agreements, thus the coincidental nature of these operations.
14 Col. John C. Scharfen, USMC (Ret.), The Dismal Battlefield: Mobilizing for Economic Conflict (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), p. 167.
15 Capt. Jones, “USCGC Dallas After Action Report,” 28 August 1995.
16 J. H. Tritten, “Learning Multinational Doctrine at Home,” Proceedings, March 1995, pp. 89-90.
17 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, p. 2.
Lieutenant Carlson is Commanding Officer of the USCGC Vashon (WPB-1308). He served previously on board the USCGC Jarvis (WHEC-725) and the USCGC Mohawk (WMEC-913), and on the Seventh Coast Guard District staff.