The emergence of the east African pirate scourge puts a new spin on a familiar threat vector for the U.S. Coast Guard. As attacks become more brazen and the pirates develop new tactics, it is only a matter of time before a serious incident threatens America's domestic security. While there is no argument that the illegal seizure of commercial property and hostages overseas affects public trust in the global economy, the Coast Guard's counternarcotics and homeland security missions must be viewed through a different lens.
Admiral Thad Allen, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, wrote in the October issue of Proceedings that "the small vessel threat is more insidious since the enemy is not as apparent among the thousands of other legitimate recreational and commercial vessels operating inside our coastal waters." Counternarcotics and countermigrant patrols are nothing new to the Coast Guard. The Seventh District in Miami and the Operations Bahamas and Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) routinely protect the southeastern shore and Caribbean areas. The success of the Somali pirates must serve as a warning to Coast Guard crews everywhere.
Small vessels of unknown origin or intent present a credible, tangible threat to public safety and security. The threat is not only to international commerce, but to coastal and near-coastal cities as well. A renewed vigilance is called for, as the line between friend and foe is blurred. Piracy is not a new phenomenon to the modern Coast Guard. In 1999 three south Asian nationals were interdicted and apprehended trying to hijack a Cuban fishing boat to enter the United States. The case of U.S. v. Singh, Singh, and Chaudhry should be reviewed and disseminated to our combined intelligence services for clues to how these criminals and potential terrorists operate. If not for the heroic efforts of the first mate on that Cuban fishing boat, the trio likely would have gained illegal entry into the United States. The three defendants pleaded guilty, and while it is still unclear what their motives were, the USS Cole (DDG-67) disaster is an example of what may have occurred. Imagine a similar tragedy if those same tactics were used on a cruise ship or an oil tanker near the port of Houston.
For the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and other agencies involved in littoral patrols this threat must translate to increased vigilance. Intelligence services must transmit incidents of this new threat vector to patrol assets. All vessels must be examined closely to determine friend or foe status. It is also incumbent on the civilian maritime community, commercial and non-commercial alike, to partner with border protection services like the Coast Guard to ensure public safety. Maritime domain awareness is not just a theory or buzzword. It means that until an established, automated system of identification for all vessels approaching the U.S. coast is adopted, the burden falls primarily on Coast Guard patrol cutters to detect, deter, and interdict this threat.
Despite the lack of a credible link between piracy and terrorism, retired Navy Commander John Patch, writing in the same issue of Proceedings, agrees that
the U.S. Coast Guard's recent adoption of a risk-based threat assessment process that includes analyzing the likelihood of specific terrorist methods, targets, and attack consequences appears to be a sounder decision-support model, easily applied to piracy.
Ignoring the possibility of these tactics being used against domestic targets is a mistake. The Coast Guard must perform this assessment until the threat is eliminated.
The consequences of failure are disastrous and unacceptable. Ask the citizens of Mumbai, India, how dangerous a team of committed terrorists using small vessels can be. The lessons are clear. Those who patrol the skies and waters of the American coast must not tire in their search for threats. Unlike aircraft crews that can transmit a code when hijacked, surface vessels do not have that capability. Until such a system exists, everyone is a suspect. While that may seem Orwellian, it is the new world order in which we live. The pirates, criminals, and terrorists so far have dictated our response. It is time to stop them.