Put the Coast Guard in charge of the 1,000-ship navy and let the Navy do what it does best—fight wars.
In 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet—a naval force of 16 white-hulled hattleships and their escort vessels—on a 'round-the-world tour intended to show that the United States had finally become a serious naval power and was now a force to he reckoned with.
It is time for this nation to thrust another white licet into the global limelight-the U.S. Coast Guard's white-hulled cutters, with their signature diagonal stripes. This time the mission should not be merely to affirm America's power on the high seas, but to lead a worldwide fleet in fighting the war on terrorism.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Navy is fashioning a new global maritime strategy. Last June. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen (recently nominated to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) sketched out a plan under which the Navy would seek to maintain control of the seas to deter rogue states and strategic competitors, expand its operations in near-coastal areas to interdict terrorists and smugglers, and provide tire-support for ground troops. To carry out these vital missions, the United States would seek help from a 1,000ship global fleet that would require the cooperation of the Coast Guard, foreign naval and coast guard forces, and merchant marine vessels.
The Navy already has sought to reshape itself to operate in littoral areas. However, under Admiral Mullcn's proposal, the Fleet would take on new tasks: It would help with counterinsurgency operations on land, conduct riverine warfare where needed, and track and suppress terrorists in both deep and shallow water. It also would help provide humanitarian assistance in case of natural disasters like tsunamis. In meeting these challenges, the Navy would have to act as a combination maritime policeman, rescue worker, and peace corps volunteer. While some of these tasks overlap, they are generally quite distinct and require different kinds of forces. And they require different mind-sets from those of traditional naval warfighters.
To be sure, in principle there is no reason the Navy cannot rise to the challenge. It has transformed itself in the past and can do so again. But it will have to overcome some organizational impediments.
One is a sort of Gresham's law that governs large organizations. Most have one major core competency-manufacturing cars, delivering mail, or selling food, for example-and they're most efficient when they specialize. Few can do more than one thing at a time. The Navy's core competency is fighting wars, and, as the record shows, it has served the nation well in that capacity.
As in all organizations focused on a single task, the Navy chooses its top officers on the basis of how well they can carry out that warfighting mission. The good warfighters rise to the top; the others are passed over early in their careers. The same is true in enlisted ranks: from the moment they join the Navy, young men and women understand that the Navy exists to fight wars, and the most ambitious among them seek careers in warfighting billets. The weapons the Navy buys are designed with specific missions in mind. All of these factors are bound together tightly.
While an organization can alter its culture, its aspirations, and its image, the change is not easy, and it seldom happens merely by adding a new set of tasks to existing core competencies-particularly if they run against the grain. Consider how long it has taken the Army to shift from its traditional role of using overwhelming force to defeat a well-armed enemy to conducting peacekeeping operations, as it did in the 1990s, or thwarting a guerrillastyle insurgency, as it has been trying to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both the peacekeeping operations and the counterinsurgency efforts call for a different approach from the Cold War-era missions of defeating the Soviet Army. They require patience, cultural awareness, and restraint in using force. In effect, they call for a different mindset. Making the change requires enormous effort, and it is seldom entirely successful. The Marine Corps is trying a similar new approach, but the jury is still out on how effective it will be.
Core Competency
In the abstract, there is no reason why the Navy could not take on the new missions likely to be assigned to a 1,000-ship fleet. But the odds are that the service will have its hands full continuing its traditional role of maintaining control of the seas and deterring potential competitors such as China. Why not let the Navy continue to focus on its warfighting core competency, and let other organizations-which specialize in other kinds of missions-take the lead on the rest?
For example, combat operations in support of counterinsurgency involve launching riverine operations, conducting coastal patrols to interdict terrorists, providing logistical and intelligence support for military forces on land, and sending in supplemental ground troops. While the Navy can do all these tasks to some extent, the Army and the Marine Corps can perform them more effectively. Both of these services operate boats, and there is no reason they should not develop and expand their own riverine forces.
At the same time, the kinds of humanitarian and police operations needed to suppress piracy, patrol the global sea lanes, and bring help to victims of natural disasters call for a very different kind of force. This component, which is the core of the 1,000-ship navy that Admiral Mullen proposed, is not really a warfighting force. It is a combination of police force, rescue team, and peace corps-just the operations the Coast Guard performs every day.
So why not let the Coast Guard take the lead in forming the 1,000-ship navy? It is as large and as capable as many of the world's navies, has transoceanic capabilities, and can readily be beefed up to whatever size is necessary.
Critics may argue that the Coast Guard already is busy carrying out its homeland security missions. Its central task in the post-September 11 world is to patrol the United States' littoral waters and keep American ports and coastlines safe from terrorist attacks. Moving the Coast Guard to the Department of Homeland security symbolized this shift in organizational focus.
But as Stephen Flynn, a port security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, has asserted frequently, ensuring that U.S. ports are safe requires fighting terrorism not only in domestic waters but in foreign ports and international sea lanes as well. Of course, U.S. ports should be made safe and secure. But to do that most effectively, we also must seek to make the ports of Malaysia, Brazil, Indonesia, and China safe and secure. It is exactly what experts have in mind when they call for making the United States safe by suppressing terrorism at its source-abroad. The Navy already has invited the Coast Guard to participate in developing the new global maritime strategy. It ought to go a step further, and put its sister service in charge of organizing and running the 1,000-ship fleet.
Tasking the Coast Guard with providing for global maritime security would give that service a single, clear mission. And having the Coast Guard head the overall effort is likely to make it easier politically for many countries to buy into the program. The service's white-hulled cutters are regarded less as warships than as law-enforcement vessels.
Costly Conversion
Admittedly, the switch would not come cheaply. Expanding the Coast Guard to take on the job would take billions of dollars to increase the size of the service and to buy more oceangoing ships and coastalarea vessels. As Admiral Mullen has said, foreign naval forces will have to do much of the heavy lifting. The United States simply does not have the resources to do it all. And lawmakers may have to provide substantial monies to finance some construction and equipment for foreign naval and coast guard vessels, to offer an incentive for other countries to participate in the 1,000-ship fleet.
The concept of a 1,000-ship navy has the potential to revolutionize both diplomacy and the politics of global anti-terrorism efforts. As Admiral Mullen has pointed out, humanitarian assistance in the Asian tsunami had a positive impact on the attitudes of the Indonesian people toward the United States. Disaster relief was the Navy's primary aim following the tsunami, but the operation also proved to be a cost-efficient way of winning hearts and minds. Gaining the good will of the rest of the world is one of the most pressing issues for the United States today.
The 1,000-ship navy also could spawn a new kind of alliance politics. While the U.S. Navy has had long experience operating with allies against a defined adversary, the "enemy" in today's world is not a state-sponsored military but thousands of terrorists and pirates. It takes an alliance of everyone, against no one in particular. And the job cannot be contracted out, as the United States did with mine countermeasures during the Cold War. We must maintain a central role in making the 1,000-ship navy work, or the rest of the world will see the concept as only a hollow gesture.
At the same time, there has to be something in the 1,000-ship navy concept for every country that participates. What do foreign governments get out of it? It is not enough to point to the future common benefit of global security; foreign navies need to be able to justify their participation in more immediate terms. If the United States subsidizes the acquisition of new naval vessels for these countries, or provides access to U.S. intelligence, they can point to tangible benefits.
Finally, everyone must buy into the concept-including China. If the 1,000-ship navy idea works as it should, then countries that do not participate will be seen as rogues or outcasts. We cannot afford for China to fall into that category. If it did, the effort would be seen as an alliance designed to contain China. Is that what we want?
Not only must China be a key player in the 1,000-ship navy, but India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, and others must sign on as well. We need to head off a competition for regional hegemony among these emerging maritime powers. One way to help avoid it would be to deploy the foreign components of the 1,000-ship navy regularly on cruises far from their home waters. In that sense, we should look forward to the day when we see Chinese ships in the Mediterranean as part of this international fleet.
The grand strategic purpose of the 1,000-ship navy should be to build confidence and move toward collective management of the world's oceans. If that succeeds, it will be a major step toward world peace.
Humanitarian Relief
What types of ships and other craft will be needed for this kind of navy? Not large-deck aircraft carriers, for a start-or heavily armed and protected surface combatants. The fleet should be composed of large numbers of patrol vessels-Coast Guard cutters and patrol boats or lightly armed naval vessels. It should have as many general-purpose-and low-cost-humanitarian relief ships as can be built. And it should have the most sophisticated global intelligence capability that can be imagined.
For a decade now, the U.S. Navy has been telling anyone who would listen that much of the world's population lives in the littorals. During that same period, it has become increasingly certain that global climate change will generate more and more climatic disasters in those areas. Some say the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina were harbingers of a storm-filled future. The demand for maritime disaster relief may rise exponentially.
When disaster strikes in the littorals, the most important thing is to get there quickly. The obvious way to do so is to have a widely distributed fleet of humanitarian assistance ships. It is better to have one small ship arrive a day after such a storm than to have a larger, more capable ship arrive a week later.
These humanitarian assistance ships should be specially designed for rapid delivery of supplies and help. In most instances, they do not require much protection, and they do not need the expensive capabilities that it takes to enter a country during a conflict. It is a false economy to argue that warfighting amphibious assault ships should be the centerpiece of humanitarian assistance. They can do the job, but they are expensive and inefficient. They were not designed for rescue or aid missions. We need a ship class specially configured for this job.
Such ships should be able to move fast and carry some helicopters. Their job would be to move emergency supplies ashore rapidly and transport injured personnel to wherever they could obtain medical attention. These vessels could be augmented later by larger ships bringing more supplies, construction equipment, constabulary forces, and more capable logistics and communications.
Similarly, Coast Guard and foreign ships that patrol the high seas in the fight against terrorism must be able to intercept any ship or boat. Again, speed is more important here than warfighting capability. It may be possible to drop by air small go-fast boats that could intercept pirates and smugglers. And they need to be part of the best global intelligence system that can be created.
The Navy should stick to what it does best-warfighting-and give the Coast Guard the lead in putting together the 1,000-ship fleet that Admiral Mullen envisions. The Great White Fleet we send out this time should have the Coast Guard's diagonal stripes painted on its vessels. It could do as much for the United States as President Roosevelt's armada did-and in a 21st-century way.
Professor Roxborough teaches sociology and history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and has studied the organization of the military services.