Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't
(See B. Olson, pp. 22-30, September 2007 Proceedings)
Captain Raymond B. Wellborn, U.S. Navy (Retired)-Bradley Olson did his homework on this article to get the facts straight, but failed to address how these incidents of sexual promiscuity could be handled better by non-judicial punishment instead of judicially by courts martial.
The young men and women at our military academies are a cut above regular college students. As aspiring officers, they represent some of our best and brightest. Many envy them and what they do, as well as the national scholarship by which their college education is subsidized. Being of such caliber, I submit that they are not from criminal backgrounds nor exposure, and thus should not be tried as criminals for sexual promiscuity.
At their virile age, sexual promiscuity is a crouching tiger of rampant desire inside each of them-that's human nature. Those responsible for their well-being and their character development must have zero tolerance for any unbecoming conduct of a sexual nature, whether inside Bancroft Hall or outside the Yard.
If such unbecoming conduct is not readily apparent to these young people-who will maintain that they do know-then it must be repetitively explained to them in daily doses of plain terms so that they do not have a lapse of memory or good judgment. Tacit approval of unbecoming behavior by any supervisor cannot be condoned. The inaction of looking the other way must be avoided, no matter how petty or embarrassing it may be to confront. In a military organization in which men and women must be trained to fight together, and in many cases live in close quarters with one another, they must be sternly advised often that sexual promiscuity will not be tolerated, nor overlooked as "boys will be boys, and the girls love them for it."
As a matter of pragmatism, in my long study of human nature and hard-learned lessons from experience, most sexual promiscuity cases involve a party of two, one male and one female. Thus, there will be no immunity for testimony given by one of the involved parties against the other party. That's not the code to which we want young warriors exposed. Both parties must stand before the Mast. Their parents should be aware of this policy, and be summarily advised in writing of any incident that rises to the level of being heard at Mast, UCMJ Article 15, or non-judicial punishment, and that any further act of sexual promiscuity may result in dismissal.
Neither do I buy the lame excuse that, "this is too embarrassing for me." If it's too embarrassing for you to stand up and tell it like it is without whimpering or whining, then mortal combat is not for you. With regard to intoxication, it is neither an excuse nor a defense that you lost control of yourself.
These cases do not rise to the level of criminality to be tried judicially by a courts martial. Take them to Mast, and hammer them-whether male or female. It's a cleansing experience-as will be the letter to their parents.
And, by the way, you must sign acknowledgement to these proceedings at I-Day-before you stencil all your gear.
Keeping Faith with the 'Purple Thumb People'
(See R. Madonna, p. 10, September 2007 Proceedings)
Bob Gabbert-The author indicates one lesson to be learned from Vietnam is that rapid withdrawal from Iraq will leave the country open to similar attacks by massed forces. He suggests we create U.S. bases similar to islands in the sea where we will not act unless massed forces are about to attack. Who will these massed forces be? Who is "the enemy" in Iraq? We invaded them. The reasons we went into Iraq have long since been proven false.
What is happening in Iraq is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia when the last of the dictators left the scene, leaving a power vacuum-the country went back to age-old differences held in check since 1918 when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
We should have learned from that experience, but we did not. We created the power vacuum in Iraq, and their age-old differences came forth.
The solution in Iraq must be political. Let happen what should have happened in 1918-create three countries: The Republic of Kurdistan in the north (Kurds), the Islamic Republic of Iraq in the south (Shia), and Mesopotamia in the west with the three major Sunni provinces. This division is where the major populations live now. A Geneva peace conference should be called immediately with Sunni and Shia Arab Iraqis, Kurds, Iran, and all other neighboring countries to create the three independent nations.
With such a political solution, U.S. troops can be withdrawn immediately without leaving chaos. Of course there will be border conflicts for a while as they settle differences, but after all it is their country-their future.
By the way, the reason so many Shiia Iraqis voted (Purple Thumbs) in the 2005 election had nothing to do with democracy, which the Islamic Code does not allow. The voters went to the polls because the Shia Grand Ayatollah instructed them to do so.
Carrier Aviation: Dollars and Sense
(See N. Polmar, pp. 90-91, September 2007 Proceedings)
Chief Warrant Officer Chuck Berlemann, U.S. Navy (Retired)-I normally have the utmost respect for Norman Polmar's work, but I think he has made a major error in evaluation of the relative merits of STOVL aircraft and conventional take-off and landing aircraft. What really surprises me is that he would use the example of the British use of Sea Harrier aircraft during the Falklands conflict. The sinking of HMS Sheffield and subsequent loss of life is directly attributable to a lack of effective AEW (airborne early warning) aircraft. A study of the World War II carrier battles shows that both the Japanese and U.S. forces spent a considerable amount of time and resource allocation doing visible-range searches for the other side's ships. If either side had had an effective AEW platform they would have had complete control of the ocean battlefields of the Coral Sea and Midway, as well as the struggle for control of Guadalcanal.
Due to electronic component weight and size, the present AEW aircraft need the luxury of catapult-assisted conventional take-off. This may change, but even if AEW radars can be condensed to the size of a laptop computer, the aerodynamic problems that limit the effective range of vertical take-off aircraft continue to affect this type in a negative manner. To be effective, AEW aircraft must be able to build their search at a distance from the ship, which in turn allows them to muster fighters far enough out to engage and defeat an incoming raid beyond the attacker's weapons release range. Maybe the V-22 Osprey can do this mission in the future, but it's not ready yet. Drones might be the answer, but again, not yet. Many technologies hold promise if they mature. Naval leadership should keep an open mind to their use. However it would be too much of a gamble to rely on them to protect our Fleet and project power at this time.
Ever since the carrier was developed it was thought by many to be an expensive toy. The battleship folks thought it wasn't up to the challenge; it proved them wrong. After the atomic bomb was developed, the carriers were thought by many to be superfluous, but Korea and Vietnam showed that the carriers provided the only viable air support until the ground forces could take real estate and build runways for the Air Force. How many times do we need to re-learn this lesson? Build the big decks-we still need them.
Russia Resurgent?
(See N. Friedman, pp. 88-89, September 2007 Proceedings)
Rear Admiral Albert L. Kelln, U.S. Navy (Retired)-Much has been reported over the past few months about the symbolic importance of a Russian minisubmarine planting a Russian flag on the sea floor at the North Pole and thereby enhancing the country's claim to the ten billion tons of oil and gas deposits under the Arctic Ocean's continental shelves. What is generally not known, or lost in the Navy's history, is that the U.S. Navy as early as July 1958 had done the exact same flag-planting, except that this time it was a U.S. flag.
This occurred during a U.S. Navy aircraft overflight of the intended track of the USS Skate (SSN-578) for her historic voyage to surface at the North Pole and explore the Arctic Ocean. The aircraft was a Navy P2-V. Passengers on board the aircraft were then-Captain Dennis Wilkinson, the first skipper of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), Lieutenant Commanders John Nicholson and Jeff Metzel, and me, Lieutenant Albert Kelln. Captain Wilkinson was the submarine squadron commander in charge of both the Skate and Nautilus arctic voyages. My job was to sit in the nose of the aircraft to photograph and record the size and frequency of ice openings. When we reached and circled the North Pole, an aircraft crewman dropped a U.S. flag attached to an iron staff. A prayer was given as the flag descended to the North Pole. I personally witnessed this event. That flag symbolically still rests near or at the North Pole ocean floor.
The next year, the Skate surfaced at the North Pole and while there, on 17 March 1959, left a U.S. flag and cairn in a waterproof container. A photograph of the flag and cairn is in Commander Jim Calvert's book Surfaced at the Pole. The contents of Jim Calvert's note in the cairn is worthy of review.
Calvert's book and the eyewitness accounts of those participating in the operations counter the Russian claim of sovereignty of the Arctic shelf. I encourage our national leadership to soon announce a similar claim. With Canada and Norway entering this arena with their own claims, it is time for the United States to step forward and prevent these claims from becoming an unchallenged reality.
Time for a Change
(See H. Ullman, p. 8, September 2007 Proceedings)
Clonel Talbot N. Vivian, U.S. Air orce (Retired)-Mr. Ullman missed the mark on this one. The lack of advice is not a structural issue. It will not make any difference if the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is in the chain of command or not as the issues are really two-fold. The first is how the Chairman is selected (and all four stars for that matter) and second how many layers exist between the President and the Joint Chiefs.
Every four star must undergo an interview process with key members of the civilian side of the Department of Defense, culminating in an interview with the secretary of Defense. The interview questions may range from something as benign as "Do you speak well in public?" to more touchy questions as "Will you support my policies to draw down the military?" or "Do you support the president's views on going to war?" etc.
Those who pass the test get nominated to the Senate. A most recent and obvious example of this process was the selection of the Chief of Staff of the Army after General Eric K. Shinseki retired. ThenSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could not find someone who could pass the interview from the active-duty general officer population and had to go to the retired general officer list and recall General Pete Schoomaker to serve. When one is beholden to a particular secretary of Defense for their position, there is either a genuine support of, or at least an unwillingness to openly go against, their benefactor.
The second structural issue is that the Joint Chiefs provide advice when asked. But they do not frequently get asked directly by the President. Their advice is filtered by the secretary of Defense. Placing the Chairman in the chain of command would not necessarily give him greater access to the President.
If a change were made it would seem most appropriate that the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency be members of the National Security Council as opposed to merely advisers to the NSC.
Adapt or Die
(See J. Lacey and K. Woods, pp. 16-20, August 2007 Proceedings)
Marc D. Hamilton-The article by Jim Lacey and Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Woods was an enjoyable and historically-connected piece on the need for agility and cultural adaptation in our warfighting communities. The authors cite a need for research on "how to build a system and culture in which rapid adaptability is feasible."
I do, however, take exception to the authors' hypothesis that the American public will give the military only "three years to win." There is no argument about how long we may stay in Afghanistan to kill or capture the men responsible for 9/11. What is enraging to many is a civilian leadership that has hurled our military into a conflict that had nothing directly to do with the attacks on our country. This justifiable rage comes not from a war that has been going on for more than four years. Rather, it stems from the absurd list of errors the civilian leadership has committed and arrogantly dismissed as this enormous endeavor has unfolded.
I am saddened at how little (aside from Proceedings, which honestly, keeps my faith up) disagreement with the administration's war policies was heard from within the military.
The fundamental error in this war is not so much a failure to adapt to a flexible foe; it is in not killing him to begin with. The defeat of this new kind of enemy does not require a grand new strategy or brilliant innovations; rather it requires the basics: Find him and kill him. There is ample historical evidence that suggests we would actually win more hearts and minds in these cultures this way than by trying to build schools and escorting children across roads.
As all good military theorists have noted: Use our strengths (global, naval power projection) against our enemies, don't fight them from our weakness (lack of massive, inexhaustible ground forces). If a nation harbors terrorists, make them pay. Obliterate their navy, disrupt their power grids, knock down palaces where their leaders might be staying, keep on striking, and keep the pressure on until they relent or their own people get sick of them. But don't invade the entire country and spend trillions of dollars and buckets of blood rebuilding it. For even if a transformed, egalitarian, democratic, tolerant, and wealthy Middle East arises from these difficult and bloody years I am sure will follow in Iraq, there will be no effect on the terrorists.
Those who plotted 9/11 were from an erstwhile allied state, planned their machinations from free, Western democracies and in Dubai (a gem of tolerance and free-markets in the Middle East), were trained here in America, and because of a lack of systematic law enforcement information-sharing, were able to get away with murder on a grand scale. A democratic Iraq affects none of that. The very foundation of our current administration's war policy is based on a false assumption.
I would say to the authors to give the American people a bit more credit than "three years or bust."
Thank you for Proceedings. I only wish that the open, frank discourse that occurs in these pages would also occur in Washington and on our news broadcasts.
The Navy and Its DDG1000-Heading Wrong
(See R. H. Smith, p. 10, August 2007; B. Gabbert, R. Downie, p. 6, September 2007 Proceedings)
Commander Kenneth L. Williams, U.S. Navy, DDG-1000 Section Head-Requirements and analysis drive ship development and procurement, not "techno-babble" or hyperbole. The Zumwalt (DDG-1000) encompasses the development, test, and production of numerous new technologies necessary to meet Joint Staff-validated operational requirements while enhancing survivability and reducing life-cycle costs over current platforms.
Any discussion of DDG-1000 should be based on meeting joint warfighting needs. Technology has changed since the USS Wilkinson (DL-5). These changes have improved warfighting capabilities to meet various threats in different ways. Perhaps 40 years ago critics viewed GPS as "techno-babble" during early science and technology phases. Yet today no one questions the enhanced warfighting capabilities associated with GPS. New technologies have a record of saving lives.
The Zumwalt fields significantly enhanced warfighting capabilities over current destroyers. Designed to dominate the littoral and help win battles ashore, DDG-1000 will project warfighting effects never before available to ships. The combination of stealth and advanced systems such as Dual Band Radar (DBR), Advanced Vertical Launch System (AVLS), and two 155-mm Advanced Gun Systems provide unmatched capability for precision, high-volume fires in support of joint forces ashore, as well as vastly improved air warfare capability in the difficult radar environment at the sea-land interface. This ship will be critical for its independent value in the war on terrorism and any future conflicts.
The Dual Band Radar provides area air surveillance, including over-land, through the cluttered sea-land interface. It also supports requirements for reduced radar cross-section, periscope detection, counter-targeting, and reduced manning. It also complements Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers by vastly improving a strike group's situational awareness and area defense though the Cooperative Engagement Capability and the family of Standard missiles.
The Zumwalt is also designed to defeat anti-access systems like advanced cruise missiles, sea mines, and submarines. With comprehensive signature control it can be as quiet as a submarine and as small as a fishing boat on radar. The ship will be hard to find and harder to target by our adversaries, engaging the enemy well before being targeted by them.
Persistent, all-weather precision and volume naval fires is a key Zumwalt capability. Answering 90 percent of Marine calls for fire support within five minutes is not something carrier aviation can do. For deep strike, the ship can carry up to 80 Tactical Tomahawk cruise and/or a variety of other missiles, launched from the AVLS.
The Zumwalt is affordable when one considers the time value of money. For example, DDG-51 was purchased in 1985 for $1.2 billion. Accounting for realistic inflation in the shipbuilding industry, it would cost $2.4 billion today. The Navy will continually work to lower the cost of DDG-1000, but $3 billion for the lead ship versus $2.4 billion for the lead DDG-51 is a good value. Furthermore, the Zumwalt's technology is being developed at a third less than the cost of the Aegis program despite having a new hull, combat systems, and engineering plant.
The Zumwalt is on the right course in my opinion: All Ahead Full.
Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion
(See J. B. Bryant, pp. 82-83, August, 2007; E. Offley, pp. 78-79, September 2007 Proceedings)
Captain Jim Bryant, U.S. Navy (Retired)-Ed Offley vigorously protests my negative review of his book in the August 2007 issue of Proceedings. Offley attempts to reiterate that the U.S. Navy orchestrated a grand conspiracy, then cynically concealed the whole affair. Since a torpedo did not sink the Scorpion as claimed in Offley's book, there could be no conspiracy.
The book claims that a Soviet torpedo breached the hull on the port side of the control room. The boat rapidly filled with seawater, smashing the internal bulkheads, and then the boat imploded as she sank to the bottom. Offley can't claim to have both an implosion and an explosion because you can't have an implosion if the pressure hull was equalized with sea pressure. It would sink to the bottom intact with a hole in it. The pictures taken of the wreckage show that the operations compartment containing the control room imploded at about the same time as the engine room. There is little of the operations compartment's hull left, the engine room was forced forward 50 feet into the machinery space and the sail was ripped off. There is no visual evidence of a torpedo explosion as stated in a declassified secret Navy report and by many experts who have looked at the pictures. The Navy analysis of the acoustic recordings reports that it was an implosion and not an explosion that crushed the boat. The whole premise of the book is false.
The official evidence, revealed in great detail by author Stephen Johnson in his 2006 book Silent Steel, indicates conclusively that the Scorpion's hull was crushed by implosion as the submarine sank below crush depth.
If there was no explosion, there was no Soviet torpedo. The claim in Offley's book that an Echo II-class Soviet nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine could outrun, target, and kill the Scorpion borders on the ludicrous.
Please ask any Cold War ASW experts. There was no secret search for the Scorpion directed by Vice Admiral Arnold Schade prior to the day it failed to return to Norfolk, as alleged by Offley.
I recently spoke again with retired Navy Captain Joseph Bonds who commanded the USS Compass Island (AG-153) that mapped the seafloor prior to the search for the wreckage. He confronted Offley at a book signing in Florida and told him there was no secret search involving his ship and that his ship did not find the Scorpion in early June 1968 as reported in the book. All the author could say in response was that he thought Bonds was dead. Mr. Offley called Captain Bonds later and said that could he not locate him for an interview; it took less than a five-minute Internet search to find him.
Bonds told me he met with the Sailor who was Offley's source. The Sailor, a boiler tender, explained to Bonds that he wanted his former ship to "get credit" for what it did.
As I said in my review of this book, it is pure fiction.
Don't Split It, Grow It
(See C. Doane and J. DiRenzo, pp. 38-41, August 2007 Proceedings)
Commander Matthew Fenton, U.S. Navy Reserve-I could not disagree more with the position taken by the authors in this article. The Coast Guard does many things well, but marine inspection is not one of them. The idea that a military service can be an effective regulator of a civilian industry has never made sense. Civil aviation is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, not the Air Force. Marine inspection has never been a desirable assignment for Coast Guard officers, which is why so many of them spend as little time there as possible. Shipping companies are very reluctant to complain about the Coast Guard out of a well-placed fear of retribution. This has bred an attitude of "We Are the Law" in that service, which has further degraded their effectiveness.
As a marine surveyor based in the Far East, I board a large number of ships, and deal with many shipping companies. I can state categorically that the U.S. Coast Guard is one of the least respected maritime safety organizations in the world. Their personnel are well-known for their poor technical skills, lack of experience, and arrogant attitude. The additional restrictions placed on merchant seamen and enforced with an iron hand by the Coast Guard have alienated the world's merchant fleet. Merchant seamen could be a valuable source of intelligence in the war on terrorism, but the Coast Guard has essentially blown any possibility of that happening. I have heard many complaints about the way seamen are treated by aggressive Coast Guardsmen who approach a routine port state control inspection as if they were parachuting into a war zone. I'm the one who has to field these complaints, not the Coast Guard, which makes my job more difficult. It is embarrassing that I have to help train our member's crews in how to manage my own nation's regulators.
As for marine inspection, I have experienced first hand the poor training that their marine inspectors have. Ships have been hyper-regulated out of existence by ambitious Coast Guard officers looking to make a name for themselves. Sixteen weeks in Yorktown learning to read the Code of Federal Regulations is not a substitute for actual experience at sea.
Here in Hong Kong, we have a different approach to marine safety. Law enforcement is handled by the Marine Police, which is part of the Hong Kong Police Force. They are well known for being effective in combating both smuggling and illegal immigration and handling port security. Marine inspection is the responsibility of the Marine Department.
The contrast with the Coast Guard is stark. The Marine Department's head is a retired master mariner, and their inspectors all have experience as senior merchant officers. This enables them to relate well to the crews of the ships they inspect, and to enforce the regulations fairly. Their level of experience makes them respected, and from this respect comes compliance. This is the model the United States should follow; hire experienced mariners for marine inspection, and leave law enforcement to those who are trained for it.
(The writer is Senior Surveyor, Asia Pacific Region, for The Standard P&I Club.)
Lieutenant Commander Mike Rodriguez, U.S. Navy Reserve-The authors attempt to connect safety with security to reinforce their view that the U.S. Coast Guard should retain responsibility for maritime safety and safetyrelated services. However, safety and security are not two sides of the same coin. It is unwise to put the two together simply to make a case for keeping maritime safety responsibilities within the Coast Guard.
The notion that the interests of our nation are best served by a Coast Guard that has security teams board vessels to execute their security mission, and then shift gears to perform maritime safety inspections, is fundamentally wrong.
For instance, the public does not expect the police to investigate a crime and then inspect the building for fire code violadons. Similarly, the skills and operating procedures required to effectively perform the maritime security mission are not the same as those required for maritime safety inspections.
To fulfill its security mission, the Coast Guard educates and trains its personnel differently from the way in which the maritime industry educates and trains its mariners. Therefore, Coast Guard personnel view the maritime industry from a military perspective. Adjusting personnel rotation policies will do nothing to bridge this divide.
Linking safety with security will only worsen the worldwide problem of criminalizing seafarers. The goal of maritime safety inspections is to uncover substandard equipment and operations. These are not crimes. Maritime accidents are not crimes either, so accident investigations should focus on finding root causes and preventing future accidents.
Security, on the other hand, is the action taken to prevent crimes like terrorism. The prevention and investigation of crimes is, and should be, the mission of law enforcement authorities.
The civilian world has the experts with the right technical knowledge and the experience to focus on and fulfill maritime safety and safety-related responsibilities. Other maritime nations have civilian agencies that perform these functions. In fact, the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, staffed by civilians, performed the maritime safety mission in the United States until 1942.
Organizations regularly quit lines of business to concentrate their resources on core activities. The Coast Guard is now rightly concentrating on maritime security. However, it has lost the necessary focus and the proper perspective to perform its maritime safety mission effectively.
(The writer is a Coast Guard-licensed merchant mariner.)
Cptain Paul Thomas, U.S. Coast ruard, Commander U.S. Coast Guard sector Jacksonville, Florida-Mr. Doane and Dr. DiRenzo make the very appropriate point that Congressman Oberstar's concerns regarding the Coast Guard's marine safety missions can be addressed, at least in part, by growing the Coast Guard's existing capacity rather than establishing a new bureaucracy likely faced with the same resource constraints. If the marine safety missions have suffered in the post-9/11 operating environment in which maritime security is also a priority, it is because of resources being stretched too thin, not because of a loss of expertise or diminished emphasis. It certainty is not because of the military rotation polices, as these have been in place throughout the history of the marine safety program, and the concerns voiced by the congressman seemed to be focused post-2001.
But in a resource-constrained environment in which the growth advocated by Doane and DiRenzo is not likely to occur, the most compelling argument to avoid the regressive compulsion to split Coast Guard missions is simply this; safety, security, and stewardship in the maritime domain are inextricably linked. To address one of the three independent of the other two is to take a step backward, establish stovepipes where they do not currently exist, and lose opportunities to identify anomalies and trends that help protect our nation from all threats and all hazards.
The U.S. Coast Guard Strategy for Maritime Safety, Security, and Stewardship lays out a systems approach to maritime governance. It identifies six national priorities, each of which impacts our ability to ensure safety, security, and stewardship in the maritime domain. This is not a security strategy; it is a strategy to ensure that we have the laws, awareness systems, and operational capabilities in place, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally, to ensure that all three elements are addressed as a system. You cannot possibly read that document and come away thinking it is good public policy to separate safety from security or stewardship.
At the field level, where the safety, security, and stewardship missions are executed, the logic and effectiveness of the integrated approach is apparent every day. As vessels, crews, and cargo approach our coasts, the Coast Guard uses the regimes and awareness systems we have in place to vet them not just for security threats, but for safety and environmental threats as well. When you add a robust partnership with Customs and Border Protection, immigration, trade, and agricultural threats can and are vetted at the same time. Our control and enforcement decisions, then, are informed by a thorough analysis of all threats and hazards. A vessel that might not hit the threshold to be stopped and boarded off shore based on security risk alone may very well hit that threshold based on the combined security and safety risk.
Finally, very often significant environmental crimes and safety hazards are detected while conducting boardings that were initiated based on security risk factors. These are real threats to our nation that might not be detected if we install stovepipes in the maritime domain.
Cplain Joseph F. Manfreda, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve (Retired)-The proposal to split up the Coast Guard and the authors' response to instead grow the service are not new. Both recommendations tend to resurface together whenever a Coast Guard crisis occurs such as the current Deepwater shipbuilding problems.
The authors' growth solution begs at least two questions: does the Coast Guard want to grow and does it have a plan to grow? The first is a probable no based on responses provided by several pre-9/11 Commandants who, when asked in congressional hearings if they needed anything, often replied that everything was fine or that they could just use a little more money to fix things up. The second question is even more in doubt because no publicized comprehensive Coast Guard-wide plan has ever been published outlining organized unit growth to meet all missions. Deepwater's primary focus is on modernization of equipment and communication systems and, though very promising, its implementation fell short on Coast Guard supervision, cost overruns, execution, and timely delivery. However, these setbacks should not cause Coast Guard leadership to withdraw into a fear of failure. Rather they should rededicate themselves to do better, broaden their horizons, and learn from past mistakes just as other military services have done when a sound strategic concept and plan has gone astray.
Coast Guard vision for its future has historically been hampered by its pride in believing that missions can often be best met with hand-me-down equipment, bailing wire, and minimal cost. This type of thinking may have influenced the recent disastrous lengthening of certain cutters. second, the Coast Guard spent the late 20th century under political appointees, some of whom have not appreciated our value, sacrifices, and contributions to national defense, maritime economic health, and humanitarian safety at sea that Coasties have made since 1790.
The personnel size of the regular Coast Guard has remained fairly constant within numerical boundaries of 35,000 to about 42,000 over the past four decades despite major changes, shifts, and addition of missions. Coast Guard institutional changes and personnel needs have traditionally been in reaction to historical events and budgetary constraints rather than vision driven. On the other hand the Coast Guard's big brother service, the U.S. Navy, has never suffered from a lack of vision and imagination during its history, as routinely documented on the pages of Proceedings and other professional publications.
Because of recent historical events such as 9/11, Coast Guard transfer to the Department of Homeland Security, Hurricane Katrina, and Deepwater, the time may be right for the Coast Guard to remove its blinders and present an imaginative comprehensive plan for its future. Based on traditional military planning systems, the plan should meet all missions with an organization, enough appropriately equipped units, and support systems. Its implementation should be timely and phased in coordination with other agencies. This comprehensive plan should include its Reserve as organized strategic deployable forces, not as part time regulars. The plan should clearly tell everyone whether the Coast Guard needs to grow or not.