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.
^matter of days. Domestic political concerns and the the Coast Guard’s peacetime duties foreclosed the
Vears C*)rnPeting institutional roles is not easy. In recent Po^wever, this balancing act has become nearly im- PeaCet e' Saddled with an enormous slate of demanding Pffioc ltTle Juries, the Coast Guard has necessarily become V?ied whh the business of just getting by. Over’ undermanned, and badly underfunded, an in- ^ep jj y beleaguered Coast Guard has been unable to s °perating units primed for battle.
^er relieve the Coast Guard of its statu- r ry combat readiness responsibility or j s°)Ve the service’s quandary by separat- 0 ^ ** into two component organizations— e for combat operations and the other r Peacetime challenges.
1. April 1988, the increasingly active naval campaign ^ lhe Persian Gulf called for a handful of small com- [j ^atants capable of extended service overseas. The isfy Goas* Guard operates the hardware best able to sat- cjs a's need, and U. S. military planners began the pro- order°^ 'ntcgrating those assets into their Persian Gulf in a battle. Yet, they had to abandon this undertaking Pre abr0 n.of Using the service’s resources for military activity C0a&a ' While the tactical situation that had called for a Solv Guard presence in the Gulf has been largely re- Servj ’ die institutional factors that conspired to deny the theQCe a contributing role in that episode remain. Unless chan °ast Guard is able to effect a prompt and fundamental Ce^g 'n its organization and orientation, it may soon forCci/° he a functional component of the U. S. armed
the p
derjv , °ast Guard’s current defense readiness dilemma ^horf ^r°m 3 l°ngstanding statutory requirement that the 3gen s Principal maritime safety and law enforcement h)rCe t must also function as a standby naval auxiliary ^e$e „~ Ven die best of times, the reconciliation of
Yet the Coast Guard still has a military readiness obligation. Consequently, the service has sought for some time, to discharge this basic statutory duty in a way least likely to aggravate the operational burden already imposed by its myriad peacetime responsibilities. Instead of maintaining a credible short-term readiness capability, the Coast Guard has elected to concentrate its defense-related efforts around various national mobilization scenarios and longterm preparations for supporting a general war at sea. Accordingly, it has been able to limit most of its everyday military readiness workload to the rear-echelon realms of administrative, organizational, and contingency planning activities. The potential “trigger pullers” operating in the field remain largely unaffected. The Coast Guard’s current enthusiasm for the Maritime Defense Zone concept is one recent manifestation of this trend.
Three basic assumptions are implicit in the Coast Guard’s current approach to the service’s primary national security role.
► The Coast Guard will continue to perform most of the service’s critical peacetime functions during a state of general hostilities.
► The Coast Guard will have ample warning of any conflict that would involve its units directly in the fighting.
► Most of that conflict’s maritime component will effectively replay World War II’s classic submarine-convoy battles at sea.
The inevitable product of these defense planning assumptions is an organization in which most of the Coast Guard’s operating units remain essentially unarmed for and untrained in the conduct of modem naval warfare. Oriented almost exclusively around the performance of peacetime duties, each would require months of feverish preparation before it could successfully engage an armed adversary in battle. Moreover, the martial expertise of those cutters that do pay more than cursory attention to the development of their combat skills is focused almost entirely on ocean escort duty and antisubmarine warfare operations. Yet these units often duplicate existing and much more capable U. S. Navy resources. Thus, in terms of unique operational assets available for immediate combat duty, the Coast Guard’s current defense readiness efforts offer the nation little in the way of any type of meaningful
39
dlngs / Junc 1989
the
try illegally by sea; more acts of terrorism and poh1
liti^
violence involving targets located in a marine envi1
military capability.
Even on those rare occasions when the Coast Guard can contribute something to satisfy the country’s short-term national security needs, the political ramifications may make the use of Coast Guard assets more trouble than they are worth. At a minimum, the diversion of already overextended Coast Guard resources from their regular duties at home inevitably means they will not be available to perform duties the voting public regards as useful. In addition, most Coast Guard units are scattered among and work directly for the benefit of countless coastal, Great Lakes, and riverfront communities, which gives the service a decidedly local “hometown” aura. Sending those local boys off to war hints strongly of national mobilization and is sure to raise the emotional stakes of whatever military undertaking is afoot. Most Americans tend to view the Coast Guard not as an armed service but as something of a seagoing federal fire department that also keeps an eye out for bad guys. Consequently, there is a definite political difference between sending sailors from the local Coast Guard station to engage in hostilities on a foreign shore and doing the same thing with the servicemen assigned to USS Iowa (BB-61), a Marine Expeditionary Brigade, or the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
The troubling events of April 1988 were ultimately destined to take place in this institutional milieu of Coast Guard overload and limitation. Persian Gulf operations revealed the need for a U. S. surface platform capable of plugging the resource gap between the Navy’s largest patrol boat hardware (the 65-foot Sea Spectre special operations platform) and its smallest major combatant (the Oliver Hazard Perry [FFG-7]-class frigates). The Coast Guard’s new fleet of Island-class patrol boats seemed to present an ideal solution to the problem. Although several months’ time would be needed in order to arm and train these particular units sufficiently for battle, the benefits appeared to be well worth the wait. By the last week in April, therefore, the decision was made to deploy a squadron of six Island-class cutters to the Gulf.
Yet a Coast Guard combat deployment to the Persian Gulf was never meant to be. The diversion of the service’s patrol boats from the politically charged war on drugs would have been a hugely unpopular measure given the drug-busting frenzy of the day. Moreover, the addition of yet another operational drain on the Coast Guard’s already scarce people, hardware, and time was sure to convert that issue into election-year political dynamite. Equally important, assigning Coast Guard resources to the Persian Gulf’s regional hostilities suggested a widening U. S. presence and invited the unwelcome impression that the nation was again being drawn into the morass of another Third World military intervention. A groundswell of popular opposition to the deployment began to gain momentum at once. Congressional legislation to block the assignment was quickly introduced and the deployment plan was abruptly abandoned. According to The New York Times, Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci rather predictably concluded that “the benefits from adding the six small vessels to the gulf fleet were not worth the political fight that seemed to be brewing over the proposal.”2
In announcing its decision, the Pentagon explained tha the spring of 1988 “would not be the right time to take Coast Guard vessels [away] from the United States. This comment implies that a more favorable time mig*1' arise in the future. Were that the case, then April’s Persia1! Gulf episode could be dismissed as merely an insignifican historical anomaly. Yet the principal factors that kept the Coast Guard out of the Gulf in April will remain in the decades ahead. At the same time, the United States Wj almost surely face an increasing need to call upon a read) force of coastal warfare specialists for immediate service abroad. Thus, without a significant change in th country’s ability to respond to demands of this nature, th£ events of April 1988 are certain to be repeated.
At the root of the Coast Guard’s inability to answer call to battle in the Gulf was its overwhelming preoccupy tion with a slate of politically sensitive peacetime duties' and that situation is not going to be relieved anytime soon- An impending era of pronounced fiscal austerity all h guarantees that the Coast Guard’s budget will not increas appreciably and may even continue to decline. Moreove1' the peacetime challenges requiring immediate Coa Guard attention are not likely to abate. Technological a vances and the trend toward privatization will ultimate • reduce the organization’s workload in its traditional m>s sion areas of search and rescue and aids to navigation, B mushrooming demands in the service’s critical regulat°r- and law enforcement capacities will manage to take up afl slack. t
Underlying tomorrow’s greater demand for C°af Guard enforcement and regulatory activity is an unvary1®1 theme of “more”: more interdependence between 1 United States and other nations of the world, leading • more maritime commerce and trade; more exploitation mineral and energy resources in more demanding 1°\ tions at sea; more commercial, recreational, and gove mental activity in offshore and littoral environm®a owing to accelerated population growth in the coastal f gions; more reliance upon domestic fisheries stocks cause of many more mouths to feed; more protection o* - increasingly threatened maritime environment; mot® practically everything concerning a people who must pend on the sea to survive. Each of these items will req11 “ thoughtful application of a comprehensive regulat0, scheme. . ^
Other projections give “more” a disturbingly sintfj cast: more disparity between the wealth of the develop nations and a more destitute Third World, leading to n1 < international criminal activity against U. S. citizens property both on and under the sea; more of a sih1*^ disparity between the “haves” and “have nots” -v, U. S. population, resulting in more general criminal ac ity afloat; more people making attempts to enter the c°
ro1'
• • hi#
ment; more criminals employing increasingly sopri ^
cated techniques in smuggling more goods and peop
sea. These sordid features of tomorrow’s world will .
questionably require the unstinting exertions of a
trained and suitably equipped force of maritime la"1
40
Proceedings / -lllI1L
f)rcement professionals. Tradition, common sense, and ^ttutory authority all point to that organization being the ■)ast Guard.
Keeping pace with the exponential acceleration of ad- 'ancements in legitimate and illicit activity afloat will in- ®vitably become a full-time job for many of the Coast Sard’s officers and men. Similarly, the service’s stock of °Perational hardware will need to be tailored to perform its Primary peacetime functions with maximum efficiency. hus> even if the Coast Guard could discharge its future j^ilitary readiness obligation with a pool of dedicated part- 016 warriors, most of its personnel and much of their gear be unavailable for the program.
Ironically, the Coast Guard’s eclipse as a functional Jember of the nation’s armed forces comes when the n>ted States is facing an unprecedented demand for mili- ry resources specially trained and configured for coastal jj .rations. The situation encountered in the Persian Gulf s likely to arise repeatedly in the future. Dramatic im- of ®rnents 'n the range, accuracy, and destructive power it n al,Vely cheap precision-guided munitions will make Ss|ble for even non-naval littoral states to contest an y s unwelcome presence offshore. Moreover, the ties T’ °f exposure to mines, fast patrol boat attack sor- teefsShore'based enemy aircraft, and the timeless threat of ip c ’ r°cks, and shoals will continue to make operations stal regions a decidedly unattractive option for high- value naval combatants. While the defense of U. S. interests will inevitably require naval activity in many coastal areas around the world, no specialized coastal warfare force has yet to appear in the U. S. naval order of battle.
Closely tied to this country’s need for an enhanced coastal warfare capability is the growing importance the United States now attaches to the conduct of low-intensity conflict (LIC). The U. S. national security community has recently accepted the view that the collective and longterm effects of LIC—as expressed in numerous insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, terrorism, and low-level regional conflicts—represent a genuine danger to safeguarding U. S. interests. Many believe that while much of the U. S. defense establishment is busily preparing to win an updated version of World War II, the nation is already engaged in fighting World War III through the countless low-intensity conflicts that smolder and flare around the world.
Waging LIC successfully requires a more indirect in-
41
ln£s I June 1989
volvement in local hostilities than has been the practice in the past. This relatively subtle response requires a more active and comprehensive security assistance program. Since the naval needs and aspirations of virtually any nation assisted will not extend beyond operations in its coastal zone, assigning more-or-less permanent coastal warfare advisory missions to our developing allies overseas would provide immense foreign policy gains. The big-ship sailors of the U. S. oceangoing fleet will not be able to respond to this need. As one former commanding officer of the U. S. Military Group in El Salvador observed, the naval component of these Third World battles is “a brown water, not a blue water affair .... we needed riverine guys that knew about small boats, and mud, and that sort of thing. I didn’t need somebody who had come from a nuclear sub or a carrier.”4
On occasion, of course, the United States will have to escalate its involvement in LIC to outright military interventions, that are likely to be quick-hitting, massive, and brief. The 1983 Grenada operation, which lasted less than two weeks, represented a highly visible prototype of this kind of military action. Genuine instant readiness, therefore, will be a military watchword of the future. Any organization that measures its combat-ready response time in terms of months instead of hours, will only be able to read about these actions in the papers.
Tomorrow’s considerable coastal warfare challenge requires that full-time attention be paid to the maintenance of its practitioners’ specialized military skills. The high- tech, high-threat, high-speed battlefield awaiting the warriors of tomorrow will be no place for amateurs. Survival in that hostile environment will be premised upon uninterrupted and sophisticated practice of the modem profession of arms. The missile attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31), the downing of a civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes (CG-49), and the April 1988 destruction of an Air Force reconnaissance plane by the U. S. Navy in the Mediterranean are examples of how even the “first team” of fulltime naval warriors can be overwhelmed by combat afloat in the electronic and missile age. Employing part-time warriors in this lethal environment will inevitably lead to disaster.
For the Coast Guard, today’s watershed in the service’s primary national security role can resolve itself in one of two ways. On the one hand, the organization could be relieved of its statutory readiness responsibility and concentrate fully on performing its many important peacetime tasks. As a civilian agency, the Coast Guard would still contribute to the nation’s wartime mobilization efforts in a manner similar to the FBI or the Maritime Administration. Although it would remain paramilitary in its organization and discipline, the Coast Guard would no longer have a combat readiness mission or military capability per se. Coastal warfare operations would necessarily become the Navy’s exclusive province.
Alternatively, the Coast Guard might resolve its contemporary readiness quandary by separating the service into two component organizations. One would be composed of full-time naval warriors specializing in coastal combat operations. It would be responsible for carrying
out relevant security assistance work abroad, participatinjj in U. S. combat operations overseas, and organizing aa supplying the coastal defense of the United States, other wing of the service would maintain a full-time f°cl1' upon the nation’s multitude of peacetime challenge afloat. While performing most of the missions assignedt0 the Coast Guard today, it would concentrate most of1 efforts within the regulatory and law enforcementrealn^ If this latter reorganization option is adopted, it will tempting to absorb the Coast Guard coastal warfare e ment into the Navy. This impulse should be resisted. • Coast Guard currently possesses much of the hardwa and nearly all of the seagoing expertise necessary to esta lish a naval force uniquely tailored to coastal operation • The Navy would have to start from scratch. The Coa Guard would also have a vested interest in seeing that new outfit receives both the institutional backing an budgetary support it deserves since it would be the s vice’s only naval warfare community. The Navy, on other hand, will continue to be dominated by its n existing warfare specialties. One need only recall the mal fate of mine warfare over the past several decades see what can happen to a small-unit, coastal warfare d* pline when thrown in with the Navy’s other, big_tlC Players. t„
Distinct advantages can be realized from having u
the
three
coastal forces under a single parent organization.
OoSK
pollination of relevant experience and technology w° inure to the benefit of both. People and hardware c°^_ more readily be shifted from one to the other as the tional security needs of the nation dictate. While the ferences between these two commands would be sl£.^er cant, they would have far more in common than el does with the U. S. blue-water nuclear Navy.
The stakes are too high for the United States to {^ repeated replays of the events of April 1988. So°ne^ later the consequences of not having a fighter who ^ answer the bell will be more than merely disturbing- , that regard, the nation has been given a gift. The te^e Persian Gulf episode represents a timely warning United States ignores that warning at its peril. 0f
No one can question the patriotism of the thousan dedicated service members in the Coast Guard 1°^,, Nevertheless, the time has come when their organza f must choose between serving as an effective mein this country’s armed forces or frankly admitting an tional inability to do so. The defense planning needs o nation insist that the Coast Guard finally make a fim1 (o mitment. In or out. Warriors or no. Now is the ti decide.
‘Title 14 U. S. Code, Sections 1 and 2. nP°si'
2“No Persian Gulf Role ‘at this time’ for Coast Guard,” The Washingt°
May 1988, p. A22. 3John H. Cushman, Jr.
‘Coast Guard Role in Persian Gulf i:
Administration,” The New York Times, 3 May 1988, p. 10. ,r,toO ^
“John D. Waghelstein, Oral History Interview, Senior Officer’s Oral W n |0< gram (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U. S. Army Military History Institute,
Lieutenant Abel is currently assigned to law school at the 1 William and Mary. He has served on several Coast Guard cu .^0~ commanded the USCGC Point Warde (WPB-82368) and the
Manitou (WPB-1302). He is a contributing editor to Proceet
42
Proceedings
/ J«"e