Nobody Asked Me, But …

Proceedings / Ap^r11

Pushing past the MDZ

As a result of overemphasis, many people believe that the Maritime De­fense Zone (MDZ) is the Coast Guard’s only national defense role. This is ex­tremely misleading and harms the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard needs to define its national defense role in terms of a force-in-being capable of many mis­sions. Its versatility goes far beyond the limited horizons of MDZ.

Today, as the other armed services prepare for low-intensity conflicts (LIC), the Coast Guard gets ready to fight World War III with the Soviet Union. By focusing almost exclusively on its MDZ role in a global war, the Coast Guard is missing opportunities to establish itself as the lead agency for LIC maritime capability.

National command authorities can use the Coast Guard’s readily available and well-trained forces for a variety of support and limited combat purposes throughout the world. The Coast Guard is slated for use in a host of contin­gency plans by almost every U.S. com­mander-in-chief. In all likelihood these contingency plans will be implemented before the MDZ commands.

Today the Coast Guard is a well- trained military force, with 38,000 ac­tive-duty men and women (plus 12,500 selected reservists) crewing 190 combat support aircraft and 240 ships and small craft more than 100 feet long. Its large, frigate-type cutters are config­ured for escort and antisubmarine war­fare functions, while its smaller, high­speed patrol craft can operate easily in coastal and restricted waters. It has an extremely useful force mix of surveil­lance and interdiction units: fast patrol boats, helicopters, fixed-wing recon­naissance aircraft, airborne early warn­ing aircraft, interceptor aircraft, aero­stats on ships, and many cutters. These platforms are tied together with an ex­cellent command, control, and commu­nications system. With the addition of some relatively inexpensive combat weapons, these platforms would be­come a valuable resource for a force

102 commander in a conventional, regional conflict.

Without a doubt this is a force-in­being; the ships are in active service, armed, and fully crewed. Their person­nel are especially trained to patrol and interdict—key roles in LIC. Indeed, the ongoing Coast Guard drug-interdic­tion efforts represent a significant LIC- type operation. The Hamilton (WHEC- 715)-class cutters are undergoing mod­ernization to increase their combat ca­pability (Harpoon and the close-in weapon system are being installed).

And the new Coast Guard HH-60J heli­copter procurement as well as the APS-137 upgrade to the C-130 patrol aircraft will further enhance Coast Guard military effectiveness. In addi­tion, the Coast Guard is specially able to assist less-developed nations to build and train their own coastal-defense forces.

The service must institute several fundamental changes to lessen its over­emphasis on the MDZ. For one, the Coast Guard is the only armed service in the world that places its contingency plans division in a program office that is also responsible for reserve personnel matters. This would be like the Navy giving its reserve program office re­sponsibility for ASW. It also may have confused the other armed services about Coast Guard’s priorities. The contingency plans division belongs, as in most military services, in the pro­gram office for operations, the office whose platforms will actually conduct the contingency plans. In Coast Guard talk, this is the Office of Law Enforce­ment and Defense Operations. This re­location would also return the contin­gency plans division to the mainstream of the operational Coast Guard. More­over, it would lessen the perception that contingency planning is principally a reserve responsibility focused on MDZ. And it would ensure the defense establishment understands that the Coast Guard places a high priority on its national defense role.

This reorganization would also bene­fit the service’s personnel system. Plac­ing the active-duty and reserve person­nel offices together would give the

Coast Guard one set of personnel pro­grams, streamline training systems, an ease mobilization. Plus the “Office ol the Total Force” has a nice ring to it-

Another necessary change for the Coast Guard is the creation of a doc­trine that formalizes its national defense role so that it is more widely known and understood. The Coast Guard re­acts to defense issues without any g°^v eming doctrine defining its role in na­tional security or its relationship with the Navy. By stating how it sees itsel as an element of defense policy, the service would develop a strategic vision that would give an intellectual founda­tion to its existence as an agency.

That intellectual foundation would show that there is more to the Coast Guard’s national defense role than MDZ. Doctrine would help the Coast Guard react more aggressively to the ^ Defense Department’s increased emph^a sis on LIC. The Ikle Commission’s report correctly points out that the United States must consider LIC as a form of warfare that goes beyond Do • Just as defense planners must consider a wide range of LIC, so must they fully consider the capabilities of the Coast Guard. But without well-known doctrine from the Coast Guard, they will not be able to do so.

Consequently, in the sense that no national policy statement exists that recognizes the value of its resources national defense purposes, the Coast Guard is not integrated into the na­tion’s defense strategy. The existence ^ of such a document may help the Co • Guard far more than whatever the MDZ program could possibly genera •

As long as the Coast Guard conti n ues to focus on the MDZ program ^t0^ the exclusion of other national defen^s roles, its specialized and, in many cases, unique capabilities will not be adequately recognized. The MDZ P^r° gram is not and never should be the essence of the Coast Guard. The es­sence of the Coast Guard is a force-¹ being capable of many missions.        ^

Commander Stubbs is the commanding offi^cer the USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903).

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