Given its growing multi-mission requirements, the Coast Guard must prepare officers better to perform in more and more "purple" joint operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard does not normally come to mind when examining joint warfare, yet most 20th-century conflicts had Coast Guard participation to varying degrees; many a Marine and Soldier went ashore in World War II in landing craft conned by Coast Guard coxswains. Today, the Coast Guard remains a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Working in the joint environment is full of unique opportunities and is a fascinating experience for any officer, regardless of service. It is especially challenging for Coast Guard officers, for duty in a joint billet is more the exception than the rule. A Coast Guard officer will likely arrive at a joint billet with very little of the education, experience, and training necessary to succeed. Yet joint doctrine, as shown in the chart below, includes the employment of Coast Guard Forces.1 To ensure success, the Coast Guard must better prepare its officers to participate in the joint environment.
Joint Operations Learned
The United States found itself entering the Cold War when General of the Army Dwight D. Elsenhower penned a memo to Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz in June 1946. Referring to the establishment of an Armed Forces College, General Eisenhower wrote: "This is the only college in the school system where the basic mission will be to give instruction on the theater and major task force level." Fortunately, the Cold War ended peacefully in Europe, but it remains firmly entrenched on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea and the United States technically remain at war; they only signed an armistice in 1953. The threat posed by North Korea's massive army remains very real. It is estimated that North Korea has 70% of its active force-including 700,000 troops, more than 8,000 artillery systems, and 2,000 tanks-staged within 90 miles of the Demilitarized Zone. They face about 29,500 U.S. and 550,000 South Korean troops.2
Such a viable threat has kept U.S. forces committed to South Korea's defense and means the United States must he able to deploy forces in theater and rapidly get them into the fight. Each year Americans and South Koreans test the ability to accomplish such a complex and dynamic strategic logistical orchestration in a virtual war against a notional North Korean invasion in Ulchi Focus Lens 2005 (UFL '05). The exercise's Korean name harks hack to the 7th century, when General Ulchi Munduk led the army of Goguryo. the former name of Korea, to victory over an invading Chinese army.3
The exercise took place from 22 August to 2 September, with active and reserve support coming from all services as well as civilians from the Defense Logistics Agency, Army Material Command, and Naval Supply Systems Command. The U.S. Transportation Command deployed a joint 30person team to augment the Combined Forces Command (CFC) and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) for the exercise.
4 This team augmented USFK's J-4 (Logistics Directorate) in standing up a Joint Deployment and Distribution Operations Center (JDDOC) identified in theater as the U.S. Pacific Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center-Korea or PDDOC-K, located on Camp Walker in the central South Korean city of Taegu.5 The mission of the center was to provide CFC and USFK leadership the necessary in-transit visibility on all strategic airlift and sealift coming to Korea in support of notional combat operations against the invading forces of North Korea and to maintain situational awareness on the state of in-theater ports (aerial and sea) as the war progressed. I had the opportunity to make th at deployment while assigned to the Coast Guard Reserve Unit of the Joint Transportation Reserve Unit at U.S. Transportation Command. I served as the mid-watch mission division chief and oversaw strategic air and sealift operations during the exercise.Joint operations in modern wars have expanded in size and complexity, and that trend will continue. Since the passing of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense (DoD) Reorganization Act of 1986, DoD has made strides to train and tight joint.6 Today we accept joint operations as a necessary requirement in modern warfare, and our history is replete with examples when fighting "purple" proved decisive. Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Rear Admiral David D. Porter fought a highly successful joint operation along the Mississippi River that led to the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863. Conversely, examples also abound when an absence of joint operational planning and execution led to disaster. Certainly the state of coordination between the Army and Navy commands in Hawaii contributed to the success Japan achieved on 7 December 1941 with its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent attacks on Guam and the Philippines.
Focus on Joint
The Coast Guard needs to prepare its officers to meet the many challenges present in the joint environment. Three suggestions are to mandate joint professional military education certification for officers, promote joint assignments, and examine the idea of National Billets to encourage the best reserve officers to request a joint assignment. Funding issues and billet availability are possible impediments, but the Coast Guard is going to find itself operating increasingly in joint operations, and it needs to prepare its officers for it.
Develop JPME-trained Officers. The Coast Guard needs to require its officers to become certified to Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) Phase I as a requirement for selection to O-5. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 1800.01A states that such education is "designed to develop progressively the knowledge, analytical skills, perspectives, and values essential for U.S. officers to function effectively in joint, multinational, and interagency operations." Service schools such as the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, offer programs that once completed earn an officer the phase 1 certification.7 The Naval War College, through its College of Distance Education, offers a three-course correspondence program: Strategy & Policy, National Security Decision Making, and Joint Maritime Operations. It is a rigorous, structured program that requires regular reading, critical thinking, online discussion, and writing at the graduate level.
The Coast Guard docs not have its own school to either grant phase 1 certification or study joint operational warfare. Fortunately, Coast Guard officers can apply directly to the Naval War College's web-based program, request annually to attend one of the courses as a two-week seminar at the college, or participate in a fleet seminar program offered at select naval installations across the country. To function effectively and perform as a peer requires training and education such as that obtained when working toward the JPME Phase I certification. The other services now require their mid-level officers to obtain such certification, and the Coast Guard should do the same.
Encourage joint assignments. Coupled with the need for Coast Guard officers to obtain certification is the need for those interested officers to seek joint assignments. Deploying to places such as South Korea for exercises or longer-term temporary assignments in support of ongoing contingency operations or disaster operations such as last year's Hurricane Katrina are just some of the opportunities that come with a joint assignment. Events following the hurricanes of 2005 show that DoD will definitely play a large role in response operations after major disasters. The Coast Guard needs to encourage its officers to apply for joint assignments beginning at the O-4 level. Knowledge of what the Coast Guard does best is a major example of what they could bring to the table at a joint assignment.
The Coast Guard is an excellent fit for the U.S. Northern Command. Its rescue of more than 33,000 citizens by helicopter and small boat after hurricane Katrina recently earned the service a Presidential Unit Citation and cemented its role in future disaster response operations. By the end of Fiscal Year 2006, the Coast Guard plans to have stood up a reserve unit at Northern Command. A cap of 8,102 reserve billets means the Coast Guard had to take reserve billets from units at Southern Command. Joint Forces Command, and Transportation Command.
Provide National Billets at joint reserve assignments. Many combatant commands are located far from the traditional areas of Coast Guard activity along the eastern, western, and Gulf coasts. For example. Transportation Command is at Scott Air Force Base, about 20 miles east of St. Louis, and Northern Command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. Both commands do not have a deep pool of local Coast Guard officers, so those who do seek assignments there often have to foot the bill for their travel to Individual Duty for Training assemblies. One idea recently suggested is the concept of National Billets-select billets that would have travel funding provided as an incentive.
The ideal solution in a non-budget-constrained world would be to designate all Coast Guard reserve billets at Northern Command as National Billets. We don't operate in such a world, so a possible alternative is to provide limited travel funds for a percentage of a member's travel during a fiscal year. The Coast Guard needs to offer some inducement to make accepting such a distant assignment attractive to the largest pool of eligible officers.
Think Joint
We are witnessing a massive transformation of the operational environment. The days of decisive battles such as Jutland, Tsushima, or Trafalgar are long gone. Future conflicts, fought in a global battle space, will require deployment of tailored expeditionary forces against asymmetric throats with access to weapons of mass destruction and cyber warfare capabilities. In addition, the United States will deploy special operations forces to a great extent and integrate them with more conventional forces.8 Success in this environment will require "highly qualified personnel. trained to exacting standards and educated to function within a joint force context."9
Learning to fight jointly has not been easy. General Eisenhower learned the hard way in places such as the Kasserine Pass and the bocage of Normandy and thus had good reason to write Admiral Nimitz on the value of joint operations training and education. He went on to write that ". . . it is the only [school] in which the functions of command and staff on that level can be logically and efficiently taught. I feel that this college eventually should be a prerequisite for entrance into the National War College. Selected ground, air. and naval officers will be trained for meeting responsibilities in the highest echelons of the armed forces."10
Former Coast Guard Commandant Admiral James Loy and Donald Phillips in their study on leadership. Character in Action: The U.S. Coast Guard on leadership, make the case that working as a team does not come naturally.11 The human tendency is to default to what we have been trained to do and do what we know works based on training and experience. Yet the wars of the 21st century will require us to rethink how to apply the operational art.12
It is deploying Marines to Afghanistan to tight in a land devoid of a littoral environment, sending the I Marine Expeditionary Force to light more than 300 miles inland to Baghdad, or transforming Ohio (SSBN-726)-class ballistic-missile submarines to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles." It is tapping into the Coast Guard's small-boat and maritime law enforcement expertise to provide shoreside and waterside port security at overseas ports during deployments. It is having a solid understanding of the operational art and how all the elements of U.S. power-military, nongovernmental, economic, and diplomatic-have key roles in waging operational warfare.
The purple covers of publications produced by the Joint Chiefs of Staff include the service emblems of the five Armed Forces-Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard-a visual witness and statement of policy that the U.S. Coast Guard has a role in joint operations. Like our DoD brethren, the Coast Guard needs to ensure its officers measure up and are capable of serving and leading in the joint environment. It must focus on purple.
1 JP 3-0 "Doctrine for Joint Operations," Joint Staff, Washington, DC, p. II-18, 10 Sept 2001. Available at http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/SOML/publications/joint/ JP3_0%20(Joint%20Ops).pdf#search='doctrine%20for%20joint%20operations% 2C%20JP%2030'.
2 Jung Sung-ki, Staff Reporter, "NK Believed to have 6 Nukes: Ex-USFK Chief," Korea Times, 6 Apr 2006. Visit www.globalsecurity.org. This site has un extensive breakdown of the North Korean order of battle.
3 "South Korea to Join Ulchi Focus Lens Exercise," Stars & Stripes (Pacific Edition), 20 August 2005, www.cstripses.com.
4 U.S. Transportation Command has three service component commands that conduct its strategic lift mission: the U.S. Army's Military Surface Distribution and Deployment Command, the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command, and the U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command. For more on U.S. Transportation Command's mission and its component commands visit www.ustranscom.mil.
5 U.S. Pacific Command is the geographical combatant command responsible for much of the Pacific Ocean and is headquartered at Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii. Its area of responsibility includes the Korean Peninsula.
6 Air War College, Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/title_10.htm
7 "Officer Professional Military Education Policy (CJCSI 1800.01 A)," Appendix B to Enclose A. Officer Professional Military Education Framework, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 December 2000.
8 "An Evolving Joint Perspective: U.S. Joint Warfare and Crisis Resolution in the 21st Century." Joinl Staff/J7, 1-4, 28 January 2003. The full text is available at http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/jwcr_screen.pdf
9 Ibid., 3.
10 Memo from Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower to Adm Chester W. Nimitz, 12 June 1946. Available at www.jfsc.ndu.edu/about/12Jun1946EisenhowerMemo.doc.
11 Adm James Loy and Don Phillips, Character in Action: The U.S. Coast Guard on Leadership (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003).
12 Milan Vego, "Operational Warfare," Naval War College, Newport, RI, 2000, 1-15.
13 RAdm Cutler Dawson and VAdm John Nathman, "Sea Strike: Projecting Persistent, Responsive, and Precise Power," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 2002, 56.
Lieutenant Commander Teska is a reserve officer with more than 22 years of service in the U.S. Coast Guard, Army Reserve, and National Guard and is a previous contributor to Proceedings. He has been selected for promotion to the rank of commander. His civilian occupation is with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Kansas City, Missouri, He thanks Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Calisto, U.S. Army, Lieutenant Commander Sarah Wright, U.S. Navy, and Mr. Gary Landreth, U.S. Forces Korea J-4, for their invaluable assistance during UFL '05 and in the research for this article.