This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
The Coast Guard cannot significantly improve its naval wartime performance until it concentrates more of its resources on that objective during peacetime—such as the USCGC Rush (WHEC-723) seen maneuvering with a combined battle group during FleetEx 1983—especially if it acquires new or expanded naval wartime missions in the near future.
Since its creation in 1915 when Congress combined the Revenue Cutter and Life-Saving services, the U. S. Coast Guard has struggled with an organizational split personality. The Coast Guard is rooted partly in peacetime, life-saving service and partly in wartime armed conflict. Tension between the two personalities is rising, and the service is fast approaching a crossroads.
The Coast Guard’s rapid post-World War II growth in Peacetime services and regulatory tasks, and its drift away riom traditional naval wartime missions, are symptoms ot aPhenomenon I term “institutional vulnerability.” Unlike tile other military services, the primary threats to the Coast Guard’s raison d’etre— its ability to employ its naval forces effectively in wartime—are home-ported not on the Eurasian landmass but in Washington. The most crucial factor in attaining that wartime effectiveness is how well the service uses its resources during periods of peace to Prepare for war.
To understand and strengthen the fifth armed force, the focus must be on the relationship between the Coast Guard’s wartime and peacetime missions. This relationship, at once a strength and a weakness, dictates the service's current readiness posture and sets limits on the means to an improved posture in the years ahead.
From the beginning, Congress deemed the Coast Guard a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times.” Yet Congress has also looked
upon the service as something other than a small carbon copy of the Navy. Consequently, the Coast Guard’s congressionally specified primary duties include law enforcement, aids to navigation, ice-breaking, and search and rescue (SAR), all in addition to maintaining a state of readiness to function as a specialized service in the Navy in time of war.
The Coast Guard’s peacetime duties do develop basic skills with a wartime application. For example, the same seamanship skills and ships used to rescue fishermen off the North Carolina coast during peacetime could rescue torpedoed merchant seamen during wartime. But these same duties also set limits on both the scope and sophistication of the service’s more traditional naval wartime missions, such as antisubmarine warfare.
To appreciate how drastically the Coast Guard s peacetime duties affect its wartime preparation, see Figure 1. The trend clearly favors the non-military readiness programs. Even when the cost of Navy-provided weapon systems is added to the Coast Guard’s military readiness budget, the other five programs still receive the lion’s share of the budget pie. There are several reasons for this.
A Plethora of Missions: Unlike the other armed forces, the Coast Guard lacks a central wartime design around which the service’s programs are organized. Within the Army, Navy, or Air Force, there is little debate over the organizations’ primary purpose: to prepare today, and
when directed at a future date, to exercise military force in the national interest. Day-to-day peacetime training and distant wartime responsibilities are tightly bound together.
Lacking such clarity of purpose, the Coast Guard’s top-level decision-making process is easily fragmented by competition among diverse program areas. Military readiness is only one of the Coast Guard’s many missions during peacetime. Since 1915, Congress has assigned the service a broad potpourri of maritime missions more in response to ad hoc civil needs rather than to a well-thought- out, integrated peacetime-wartime organizational plan.
Consequently, through a kind of benign neglect of the Coast Guard’s long-standing wartime responsibilities, Congress has, with the passage of each additional statute assigning the Coast Guard one more peacetime job, forced the service to accommodate yet another drain on its limited managerial and financial resources. Drug smugglers must be found and stopped this week; distressed seamen must be plucked from the water; and a burned-out buoy flasher is a hazard that demands quick attention.
The result is no surprise. Search and rescue, aids to navigation, law enforcement, and other programs compete with military preparedness for available peacetime resources. This competition also places conflicting requirements on the design and employment of Coast Guard ships and aircraft.
Grassroots Politics: Most congressmen are far more impressed with the morning news coverage of yesterday’s haul of marijuana, or a daring at-sea rescue, than a cutter’s participation in U. S. or NATO military exercises. Congressional support remains high for those grassroots peacetime programs—such as environmental protection, law enforcement, and aid to the boating public—that touch voters more personally than national defense does. Further, the congressional authorizing committees overseeing Coast Guard affairs are not directly involved with national defense. Finally, the Coast Guard’s peacetime location outside of the Department of Defense (DoD) only serves to further emphasize and focus congressional and executive branch debate on its peacetime missions.
Gresham’s Law: Another institutional barrier inhibiting the Coast Guard’s wartime preparedness involves the way people in organizations deal with the present versus the future. Gresham’s Law of Planning maintains that: “Daily routine drives out long-range planning. Stated less cryptically, we predict that when an individual is faced both with highly programmed and highly unprogrammed tasks, the former tend to take precedence over the latter even in the absence of strong over-all time pressures.” (See James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations [New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1958], p. 185.)
This “law” is commonly used to explain why, when competing with an organization’s daily routines, activities such as long-range planning, research and development, and basic research are allocated only a fraction of the organization’s available resources.
I contend the following corollary to Gresham’s Law explains why the Coast Guard will tend to increase its peacetime activities over time and decrease its naval wartime missions: “When, during long periods of peace, an organization is faced with both highly programmed, time- sensitive (and reward-filled) peacetime duties and relatively unprogrammed (and unrewarded), long-range wartime duties, the peacetime duties will take precedence over the wartime duties.”
S
>
During peacetime, the Coast Guard’s decision-making and resource-allocation processes treat military readiness more like a long-range planning or contingency function rather than a day-to-day, high-priority mission toward
‘V " 'r •: |
| i | iflk 1 |
|
’ J* * ■ ■ |
|
|
| |
• k, * , | 1 | ! It L 1 Ml |
41435
sumc
GV)A,R0
COAST GUARD (M. W. RODRIGUES)
'''hich the entire organization is aimed. Since the fruits of resources allocated to military readiness are distant and Ur>certain when compared with the quickly realized, more tangible rewards of the service’s peacetime operating pro- Erams, the Coast Guard is inclined to hold to a minimum the resources for military readiness.
Ship and Aircraft Design: Each time the Coast Guard Purchases a new ship or aircraft, it has to decide whether to build it to wartime or peacetime standards. This reinforces the organization’s view of itself and the degree to "'hich it is able to fulfill both its peacetime and wartime Preparation missions. Since World War II, the trend has been to build ships and aircraft primarily to meet the Peacetime mission requirements, including space and height reservations for sophisticated, and costly, naval ^•ssion weapon and sensor systems, and dependence on a retrofitting program to upgrade Coast Guard vessels and a,rcraft once hostilities have begun. The more ambitious Plans call for only one ship in the 378-foot and 270-foot Masses to carry a full naval weapons suite in peacetime.
Consequently, Coastguardsmen and their commanders are not only greatly limited in their peacetime, hands-on Gaining and tactical employment of complex naval sensors and weapon systems, but it is also doubtful that a retrofit- tlng and quick-train program to upgrade Coast Guard asSets would be effective during a “come as you are” war.
A few years ago, seeing the need to reexamine and up- ate the Coast Guard’s wartime missions, the Coast Guard and Navy formed the Navy-Coast Guard Board, headed by
Proceedings / February 1984
The “You Call, We Haul” sign displayed on the USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166), when she was recruited to haul garbage during the New York tugboat strike, shows how far removed from a wartime mission the Coast Guard can stray. The Coast Guard personnel preparing to escort the USS Ohio (SSBN-726) into Bangor, Washington, above, are a step closer to military duty but are still limited in preparing for such wartime missions as antisubmarine warfare.
the Vice-Commandant and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The board’s 1981 report, “Review of Coast Guard Wartime Tasking: A Report,” identified a wide range of possible new and expanded future wartime missions for the Coast Guard and recognized that to remain responsive to our nation’s changing defense requirements, the Coast Guard’s military readiness missions must also evolve (see Table 1).
Because the new and expanded wartime tasks found in Table 1, with the exception of SAR and surveillance and interdiction, are not now direct extensions of the Coast Guard’s current peacetime duties, the challenges in the report are largely institutional. For the Coast Guard to expand its technical expertise and assume some, or all, of these wartime missions, the service will need to alter its peacetime allocation of resources significantly. This reallocation process, assuming a constant level of resource availability, might require the following:
► Downgrading or eliminating some of the Coast Guard’s existing peacetime missions to free up resources during
43
peacetime to prepare for the new or expanded naval wartime missions
► That Congress forego politically sensitive grassroots services currently offered by the Coast Guard
► That the Coast Guard take a longer range wartime perspective in lieu of the short-range, peacetime service orientation that now dominates the organization
► A redesign of Coast Guard ships and aircraft
If significant gains in the Coast Guard’s peacetime preparedness to carry out its naval wartime missions demand a radical shift in the peacetime employment of the service’s forces, several organizations must be involved.
Congress: Only Congress has the power to change the Coast Guard’s legislative foundation and, by eliminating some of its peacetime functions, free the service to concentrate more of its energies on military readiness tasks. Congress is the final judge of how much military preparedness is enough. But, it is also responsible for ensuring the Coast Guard’s level of military readiness meets the minimum level of professionalism demanded in the missile age. Naval warfare has become too sophisticated for the ill-prepared and ill-equipped.
Congress must assign specific naval wartime missions to the Coast Guard and then ensure the service is equipped and trained to perform these missions. Those peacetime training and operational duties that directly support the Coast Guard’s stated wartime missions should be given top priority for resources. Peacetime activities must be looked upon as the means to wartime ends—not ends in themselves.
The Department of Defense: Another change agent is DoD’s growing recognition of how the Coast Guard’s potential wartime missions can best be integrated into its worldwide strategies. As the Coast Guard further strengthens its ties with DoD, the Coast Guard’s military missions will be in a far better position to compete against other Coast Guard programs for peacetime resources in Congress and the executive branch. In the absence of strong DoD support,various lobbying groups representing fishermen, recreational boaters, the merchant marine industry, and law enforcement interests, among others, will continue to dominate the Coast Guard’s year-to-year peacetime resource allocation process.
The Coast Guard: While these external forces for change are important, Coast Guard leadership must ultimately decide the fate of its own military readiness program with a firm, top-level commitment to a first-class military force.
Since the Coast Guard is, by law, a uniformed, armed force of the United States at all times, military readiness must rank above all other responsibilities.
Ashore Undersea Warfare | X |
|
Antisubmarine Warfare | X |
|
SAR/Salvage Surveillance and | X |
|
Interdiction | X |
|
Convoy Escort | X |
|
Icebreaking Explosives Ordnance |
| X |
Loading |
| X |
Aids to Navigation |
| X |
Port Security Security of Locks |
| X |
and Dams Surface Vessel Ferry |
| X |
Command |
| X |
Anchorage Regulation |
| X |
Mon-Combat Operations |
| X |
Intelligence Control of Pilot |
| X |
Qualification |
| X |
Source: U. S. Navy/Coast Guard Board. Review of Coast Guard Wartime Tasking: ^ Report (Washington, DC: 1981), p. 35.
Table 1 Coast Guard Wartime Mission Assignment Summary
Mission New Expanded No Change
Maval Control of Shipping X
Harbor Defense and Security X
Mline Countermeasures X
The following six-point program of change, if implemented, will vastly improve the Coast Guard’s military readiness by increasing the peacetime resources allocated to military mission preparedness, and it will reduce the Number one threat to the Coast Guard’s readiness—its institutional vulnerability.
* The military readiness program at Coast Guard headquarters must be raised from a mere division, headed by a Captain, within the Office of Operations, headed by a rear a(hniral, to at least the level of an independent office. Currently, the SAR and law enforcement programs—also ^visions within the Office of Operations—have formal stature equal to that of the military readiness program. The marine safety and aids-to-navigation programs actually enjoy the prestige and clout of a free-standing office with their own two-star chiefs. Just as the Navy is rediscover- lng the importance of mine warfare, and has, within the Past few years, given it some of the status and visibility needed to compete with the more glamorous components °f our nuclear Navy, the Coast Guard must now dramatize the resurgence of its military readiness program.
* By concentrating its trained, senior grade, military madiness advocates at the chief of staff and above posi- t'ons throughout the service’s headquarters, area, and district hierarchies, the service can signal to all hands the revitalization of the military readiness mission. Let us not forget Admiral H. G. Rickover’s role in transforming the U. S. Navy’s postwar, diesel submarine fleet into the world’s finest nuclear undersea force. His personal convictions and determination to implement change overcame strong resistance from the Navy’s surface and air arms. Similar resistance will be found among advocates of the Coast Guard’s peacetime missions.
► Eliminate the notion that military readiness activities will be scheduled during peacetime on a “not to interfere with ‘regular’ Coast Guard missions basis.” This sleight- of-hand, bureaucratic tactic has no place in a professional military service. Military readiness is a “regular” Coast Guard mission—and has been for 68 years.
► Organize the Coast Guard along wartime mission, not peacetime program, lines. The Coast Guard’s peacetime structure is a barrier to military preparedness. In peacetime, individual Coast Guard vessels rarely operate as a part of a multi-ship team in pursuit of a common naval mission. Yet successful antisubmarine warfare, ocean escort, and other Coast Guard wartime missions demand sophisticated multi-vessel, joint-service teamwork. Practice is the only road to professional seamanship.
► How can Coast Guard commanders train for their wartime missions when all they have at their disposal during peacetime are space and weight reservations? They cannot. The practice of retrofitting satisfies only the budgeteer and must be eliminated. A military service with semper paratus for its motto will need more than space and weight reservations in the next “come as you are” war
► The Coast Guard should avoid designing its own highland medium-endurance ships. Peacetime requirements predominate construction decisions to the detriment of the Coast Guard’s military force capabilities. The slow speed (19 knots) of the new 270-foot Bear-class cutter, for example, is a severe limitation in wartime. Commonsense solutions, such as buying frigate-class ships proven in production—the FFG-7, for example—must be taken seriously in future decision-making forums.
The challenge the Coast Guard faces today is not so much how, technically, to make the service a more effective military force, but whether Congress, DoD, and the Coast Guard are ready to make the necessary commitment to that end. These organizations must make a basic decision: Is the Coast Guard a military service with an assortment of additional peacetime duties, or is it a multipurpose, civil agency with one—and, during peacetime, a minor one—of its many jobs being military preparedness?
If the decision is that the Coast Guard is a professional military service, then it is time to provide the peacetime means to that wartime end.
Commander Fraser has served as operations and communications officer afloat and reserve group commander ashore. In 1982-1983, he was a student in the Naval War College’s Off-Campus Employment of Naval Forces Curriculum. He is currently a readiness planner on active duty at Coast Guard Headquarters.