"I want to emphasize that our analysis of the threats and risks will drive the structure, operations, policies, and missions of the Department, and not the other way around. We will not look at the threats and our mission through the prisms of the Department's existing structures and functions."
—Secretary of Homeland security Michael Chertoff
2 March 2005
Our commandant has told us that the Coast Guard must transform itself, and that the "Deepwater" capital acquisition program will drive Coast Guard transformation.1 But transformation is a journey, not an end in itself, and individual Coastguardsmen must have clarity regarding a clearly articulated and measurable end state—which is an armed force that ensures the security of America's maritime approaches.
What national objectives should the Coast Guard contribute to? What should no longer be done, or devolved to other agencies or the private sector? How, and in concert with whom are those contributions best made? What can be transformed? What should not be? What are the best means by which these transformations will be accomplished? Answers to these questions, some of which are the provenance of policy makers, are key determinants of successful transformation.
Secretary of Homeland security Chertoff is undertaking a "wall-to-wall" review. Through the lens of "consequence, vulnerability, and threat," he intends to examine the mission, organization, capabilities, and programs of each component in his department, including the U.S. Coast Guard.2 His review will not be inhibited by old structures, turf, program boundaries, or jurisdictions; and he will consider intergovernmental as well as other Federal agency capabilities.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's next Quadrennial Defense Review will focus on how the Department of Defense can: Form partnerships with failing states to defeat internal terrorist threats; defend the homeland, including offensive strikes against terrorist groups planning attacks; influence strategic choices of states at a strategic crossroads, such as Russia and China; and prevent acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by hostile states and terrorist groups.
Transformation in General
Transformation is multi-dimensional. Actions in each mission must be carefully thought through and synchronized with the others, since the Coast Guard performs eleven statutorily authorized missions, not all supporting the Homeland security Department's core missions.
Overdoing or under-doing transformation efforts in one of them will unbalance the service, and will increase likelihood of transformation going off track or failing entirely. Presidential, secretarial, and legislative policy hugely drive or inhibit transformation, as do agency ambitions, bureaucratic imperatives; technology or lack thereof; and internal culture, history, and tradition. DoD conceptualizes transformation through many elements, each with its own degrees of freedom, and all affecting the others: Continuing process; creating/anticipating the future; coevolution of concepts, processes, organizations, and technology; new competitive areas/competencies; revalued attributes; fundamental shifts in underlying principles; new sources of power; and behavioral changes.
Perhaps of more immediate usefulness are the following transformational venues: Cognitive/cultural/personnel; technological/doctrinal/command-and-control; joint/interagency/intergovernmental; definitional and legal (safety/security-security/defense; uniformed/military)
Cognitive/Cultural/Personnel Transformation
This is the key to any transformation. People in any organization buy into its folkways and self-concept, form judgments, make decisions, take actions, and create or effect outcomes. Internal dissonances are tremendous inhibitors to effectiveness; harmony produces results. The Coast Guard is a cultural amalgam—one can still see the seams from the 1915 combination of the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service to form the modern Coast Guard. In the 1970's the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, Ports and Waterways Safety Act, and the oil Pollution Act of 1990 substantially increased the environmental protection mission.
While the Coast Guard is not a line-and-staff service, it has well-defined officer and enlisted specialties. Before Coast Guard reserve and active force integration, the reserve was dedicated to mobilization port security tasks. Personal competence in cutter and small boat operations, aviation, marine inspection, pollution prevention and response, and aids to navigation is not wholly transferable, so tribes persist.
Contradictions cannot be long sustained.3 Coast Guard officer personnel policy has as its premise that an engineering or technical background will enable just about any competency or performance level. Any senior officer is eligible to command highly sought-after operational shore units. This is commendable, but has increasingly stressed certain high-mission-growth communities (such as marine inspection and technology), leading to successive in-specialty tours, and, at least in the perception of those officers, diminished potential for promotion and career-enhancing assignment past commander. Since broad-gauged officers most often get promoted to captain and flag ranks, officers in high-demand specialties get frustrated when told that the service cannot afford to give them a careerenhancing, out-of-specialty tour. Since 9/11, officers with port operations and port security experience have been at a premium, because much of the Coast Guard's port, coastal, and waterways security mission performance rests upon those who are captain-of-the-port qualified. Laws enforced by individuals holding such positions, especially the 2002 Maritime Transportation security Act, are the bedrock legal authority for this mission. The regulations can be mastered by intelligent and dedicated officers and enlisted personnel, but this is not a pick-up game. The Coast Guard has begun to remove some personnel policy contradictions through competency-based enlisted assignments, but the officer corps is over-technical, stove-piped, and specialized.
The Coast Guard often repeats that it is a "military, multi-mission, maritime service" disguising its still-nonintegrated nature; it is still not the sum of its parts because missions and internal cultures are so different. Key questions for cognitive, cultural and personnel transformation are: "In the light of 9/11 and the movement of the Coast Guard to a new department, what is the Coast Guard? What has changed? What has not?" Voices call for strategic devolution of roles or missions to other agencies, or that the Coast Guard should take on more responsibility.4 The Coast Guard should re-think the organization it should become (or remain), implications for mission devolution or accretion; and smart functional specialization through contracting or civilianization. It should fearlessly examine and resolve internal costs and contradictions in its mission portfolio and personnel policies. The Coast Guard has long needed—now, more than ever—a much better-balanced combination of generalists and specialists.5
Technological/Doctrinal/Command-and-control Transformation
Technology is not transformation. But some technologies are hugely transformative. HMS Dreadnought, perfection of carrier aviation, and precise, all-weather electronic navigation signals are exemplars. The battleship Dreadnought caused instantaneous world naval obsolescence; later, the new capital ships—aircraft carriers—forever changed power projection and war at sea; but the perfection of global, 'always-on,' precise positioning signals revolutionized a key constant of warfare-mass-changing it from headcount or platform count to massed kinetic or psychological effects of precision fires.
Much has been written about the value of netted forces, and pushing intelligence/targeting data to the cockpit, vehicle, or helmet visor. But what does a Coast Guard common operational picture imply? If everyone knows and sees the same situation as everyone else, who at what organizational level makes decisions? Who is the Coast Guard "on-scene commander" if everyone is virtually, not just physically, "on scene?"6 Answers to these questions have enormous significance for Coast Guard command-and-control doctrine, and much has been written on the ability, both positive and negative, of net-centric senior commanders to be virtually there with engaged unit commanders.
Today's Coast Guard command echelons and geographic unit arrangement are the same as when voice radio was in its infancy, a situation that begot "on-scene commanders." Since everyone can be at least virtually "on scene," the Coast Guard can be flattened and command-and-control hierarchies compressed.
But a net-centric common operational picture does not create omniscience. Coast Guard eyeballs still need proximity to determine threat, risk, and hostile intent. Platform numbers (hence presence) count in maritime security and safety. Managing risks of "known unknowns" while acknowledging that "unknown unknowns" exist is a key balancing concept for Coast Guard command-and-control doctrine, force structure, and costs.7
Joint/lnteragency/lntergovernmental Transformation
In arranging the post-9/11 government, President Bush directed that:
* "The secretary of Homeland security leads Federal domestic incident management [caused by man-made or natural forces];
* "the Attorney General "lead[s]. . . criminal investigations of terrorist acts or terrorist threats by individuals or groups inside the U.S., or directed at U.S. citizens or institutions abroad. . . as well as for related intelligence collection activities within the U.S. . . ." and;
* "... the secretary of State coordinatefs] international activities related to the prevention, preparation, response, and recovery from a domestic incident, and for the protection of United States citizens and United States interests overseas;
* "The secretary of Defense's responsibilities for war-fighting and for civil support in domestic incidents are unchanged"; and
* [truly interesting] "The Federal Government recognizes the roles and responsibilities of State and local authorities in domestic incident management. Initial responsibility for managing domestic incidents generally falls on State and local authorities. The Federal Government will assist State and local authorities when their resources are overwhelmed, or when Federal interests are involved!' [emphasis added]
Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, U.S. Navy (Retired), presciently observed that ". . . we have high quality vertical and horizontal integration for collaborative planning purposes. However, right now, that's confined to the Department of Defense. We need to push that out across government, because we now realize, of course, that national security is all else, plus defense. We are talking about a new kind of convergence now. A new, higher level of jointness."8
The Coast Guard has always operated jointly at the tactical level. But the Maritime Transportation security Act's assignment of Coast Guard captains of the port as federal maritime security coordinators, responsible for maritime security planning in each captain of the port zone, brings the Coast Guard into true intergovernmental jointness. These duties entail preparation of intergovernmental and federal interagency area maritime security plans, and first-level approval authority for private sector vessel and facility security plans. Previously, Coast Guard operational jointness was associated only with DoD (in certain defined tasks) and with the Environmental Protection Agency (for pollution).
It is unlikely that the President will transfer the Coast Guard in its entirety to the Department of the Navy. Doing so would severely impair the secretary of Homeland security's responsibility for domestic maritime terrorism incident prevention and management. Since it seems safe to assume a far greater likelihood of maritime terrorist events than military attacks, DoD forces could operate jointly with Department of Homeland security forces such as the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
Jointness for the Coast Guard now means working for the secretary of Homeland security for domestic incident management; the Attorney General for countering terrorist acts or threats; the secretary of State for international activities relating to terrorism prevention; and conceivably for coastal state governors when an event is not federalized and Coast Guard assistance is needed. Conceivably, Coast Guard intelligence forces could find themselves working for the Director of National Intelligence through the Attorney General for domestic terrorism intelligence matters. We're talking command-and-control jointness on steroids!
Definitional/Legal Transformation
In addition to the differences between homeland security and homeland defense, consider security versus safety. From a victim's point of view, these are distinctions without differences. Operationally, these definitions don't matter, but in policy decisions affecting the Coast Guard's military character they matter greatly. It is crucial for the Coast Guard to claim territory in both.
Combatant commander war plan requirements for Coast Guard forces have long been used as a policy rationale for the Coast Guard remaining an armed force. It appears that DoD is developing organic maritime interdiction, port security, and force protection capabilities, and eventually DoD power projection forces could be sea-based, eliminating the need for overseas port defense.9 Because presidential transfer to the Department of the Navy is essentially moot, the transformational question is: "Should the Coast Guard be a uniformed or military service?" A strong case exists for Coast Guard military operating forces. A warship's or auxiliary's international law right of approach is fundamental to getting Coast Guard security jobs done seaward of territorial waters. In the U.S. territorial sea, Coast Guard ships, boats and aircraft have constitutional plenary authority to enforce all U.S. law. In customs waters (the next 12 miles seaward), unquestionable authority exists for Coast Guard enforcement of U.S. fiscal, customs, sanitation, and immigration (but not security) law. If ships, boats, and aircraft are able to operate past 12 nautical miles from the U.S. baseline, there is a need for military-not uniformed-forces to exert security efforts. Argument for Coast Guard shore-based regulatory forces being military is not as strong, except for a statutory provision that allows the Commandant to name only Coast Guard officers and petty officers as captains of the port.
The Coast Guard has cast its lot with homeland security and its non-homeland security missions are not particularly relevant to secretary Chertoff. Far more clarity would come from the Coast Guard positioning itself as an armed force dedicated to maritime transportation security and safety. That covers all Coast Guard missions relevant to the secretary of Homeland security, and guides which missions could be divested or diminished in focus.
Others have concluded that multi-mission costs too much.10 Cost will remain an issue. U.S. Air Force and Navy platform costs have risen to the point that war-fighting ability could be compromised since there will be too few of them. Vice Admiral Cebrowski recently observed that we need to find ways of imposing costs on our enemies, not ourselves.11 There is also a strategic cost to being unfocused. The Department of Homeland security has several agency components in addition to the Coast Guard with aviation and maritime capability. The Coast Guard again faces head to head competition for mission resources, given that Coast Guard operations are similar to sister organizations. The critical policy and resource question will become: "Which agency can provide needed border and transportation security at the lowest cost?"
Forget multi-mission—it's too mushy. Since a key U.S. economic vulnerability lies in its maritime transportation system.12 Narrowing Coast Guard strategic focus to marine transportation system safety and security provides a clear line of sight for all Coast Guard security, safety, and navigation missions; allows arguments for personnel competencies and organizational capabilities in line with these roles; and allows the Coast Guard to focus hard in its current policy context on ensuring that capability and competency costs are in line with current and future resource expectations. This is of critical value as secretary Chertoff conducts his review.
This affects the Deepwater acquisition plan, the Coast Guard's military/uniformed/civilian character, and key personnel competencies. The only missions currently performed with less safety and security fit are environmental protection and polar (not domestic) icebreaking. Law enforcement in all its manifestations; port, coastal, and waterway security; maritime search and rescue; aids to navigation; bridge regulation; and waterway and commercial vessel safety regulation all fit easily into this dual transportation security/safety identity. There are very strong, practical arguments to keep the Coast Guard an armed force. To reduce costs, some activities and logistics functions can be done by civilian Coastguardsmen or by contractors, similar to the Army Corps of Engineers or the Navy's Military Sealift Command. Let the Navy do defense-the Coast Guard will find itself working with, not for, the Navy in maritime security. If DoD wants to impose costs on itself by replicating Coast Guard capabilities for use "over there" that should cause not a moment's concern. Changing the Coast Guard's self perception and gaining self confidence in it is critical. Nothing is more important.
1 Admiral Thomas H. Collins; National Defense University Distinguished Lecture Program; 1 December 2004; and Testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, 20 April 2005.
2 Remarks by secretary Michael Chertott", U.S. Department of" Homeland security, at George Washington University Homeland security Policy Institute Washington, D.C., 16 March 2005.
3 "Seizing the Opportunities Offered by Inevitable Surprises"; Speech by Arthur Cebrowski at the Nortel Networks Policy Forum, Washington, D.C., 4 November, 2004.
4 Bruce B. Stubbs; "Fitting In" Government Executive, 1 October 2003; and lieutenant Commander Geoffrey A. C. Mones, USN "Give the Coast Guard the Lead Maritime Role at NORTHCOM" Proceedings, March 2005.
5 James F. McEntire; "Engineers or Guardians?" U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings December 1990. For more on Cognitive Transformation, see Major General Robert H. Scales, USA (Ret.) "Culture-Centric Warfare" Proceedings, September 2004; and David Brooks., "The Art of Intelligence, New York Times op-ed page, 2 April 2005.
6 "On-scene commander" is a term familiar to the search and rescue community. But in general, Coast Guard Regulations (Commandant Instruction 5000.3B of 1992) defines "senior officer present" and provides for his or her authority over other Coast Guard personnel and units in the vicinity of the event. The oil Pollution Act of 1990 created the "Federal On-Scene Commander" and "On-Scene Coordinator," who have authority over all Federal agency personnel in certain predefined water pollution events.
7 see for instance, "Will Judgment Be a Casualty of NCW?" LCdr. Larry LeGree, USN; U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 2004; "Knowledge Web Plays Big in Transformation", Lt. Pete Majeranowski, USN, Proceedings, July 2003; and "Net-centric Fogs Accountability" Captain Chris Johnson, USN (Ret.), Proceedings, May 2003.
6 Cebrowski; op. cit.
9 "Coast Guard Must Play in Overseas War Plans", Admiral Paul A. Yost Jr., USCG (Ret.), U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 2003.
10 Bnice B. Stubbs, "Multimission Costs Too Much", U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 2004.
11 Cebrowski; op. cit.
12 Steven E. Flynn, America the Vulnerable, (New York: HarperCollins, 2004)
Captain McEntire retired in 2000 after commanding three cutters and serving in personnel, budget, and strategic planning assignments ashore.