The Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Admiral Paul Zukunft, said in his State of the Coast Guard speech on 23 February, “By leveraging the intelligence community we are able to attack maritime
threats with greater precision and balance risk across all of our mission areas to surge limited resources where they are needed most.” Later in this speech, he spoke of the need for intelligence to drive Coast Guard operations. To achieve this goal, the Coast Guard should embrace its 12th statutory mission—intelligence—that was codified into law on 28 December 2001. At that time the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 amended the National Security Act of 1947 by adding the Coast Guard as an element of the national Intelligence Community within Title 50 of U.S. Code.
This legislative change created an additional Coast Guard statutory mission, adding to the 11 the service presently acknowledges in “Doctrine for the U.S. Coast Guard” (commonly referred to as “Publication 1”):
• Marine Safety
• Search and Rescue
• Aids to Navigation
• Living Marine Resources (domestic fisheries)
• Marine Environmental Protection
• Ice Operations
• Ports, Waterways, & Coastal Security
• Drug Interdiction
• Migrant Interdiction
• Defense Readiness
• Other Law Enforcement (foreign
fisheries).
Within the Coast Guard, these statutory missions drive budgetary priorities, performance metrics, asset design, and workforce-management decisions.
For this reason, and to foster intelligence-driven operations, the Coast Guard should formally recognize intelligence as its 12th statutory mission.
Since its establishment in 1915, the Coast Guard has played a pivotal role in U.S. national security and intelligence activities. During World War I, the Coast Guard conducted counterintelligence and anti-sabotage efforts in ports across the United States. These efforts were in response to German saboteurs lighting a fire at an ammunition facility on Black Tom Island, New Jersey, in an effort to hamper the U.S. war efforts. The fire resulted in a series of explosions that devastated New York City on 30 July 1916. In response Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, which contained provisions enhancing the Coast Guard’s authorities to control ports and vessel movements. Following World War I, the Coast Guard used intelligence extensively during the “rum war” to enforce Prohibition. During World War II, the Coast Guard was part of the formation of the Office of Strategic Services, which later evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite this long history of conducting intelligence activities, the Coast Guard has never considered intelligence a mission focus.
There are several reasons why the Coast Guard may not yet formally recognize intelligence as a statutory mission—despite being written into Title 50—in documents such as the “Doctrine for the U.S. Coast Guard.” The first may be because the Title 50 intelligence authorities are relatively new and fall outside the statutory authorities—Titles 10 and 14 of U.S. Code—under which the Coast Guard has been accustomed to operating. The second may have to do with concern for tarnishing the Coast Guard’s “white hat” lifesaver versus warfighter image. The third reason may be because many within the Coast Guard see intelligence as a mission enabler, but not an actual mission set. The fourth reason may be because the Coast Guard is already task-saturated with its other 11 statutory missions and unfunded mandates that make it difficult to adequately perform the missions already assigned in law.
Regardless, Title 50 is clear that intelligence is a statutory mission for the Coast Guard. Furthermore, Executive Order 12333 “Intelligence Activities,” signed 4 December 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and amended on 30 July 2008 by Executive Order 13470, now states, “the Commandant of the Coast Guard shall: (1) Collect (including through clandestine means), analyze, produce, and disseminate foreign intelligence and counterintelligence including defense and defense-related information and intelligence to support national and departmental missions.”
Consequently, the Coast Guard should formally recognize its 12th statutory mission. Doing so will result in intelligence-driving operations while also benefiting risk-based decision-making associated with the Coast Guard’s other wide spectrum of statutory missions that are critical to our nation’s homeland security, national defense, and maritime commerce.