The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing the world to reconsider the foundational assumptions of the globalist age, and many hard choices will soon need to be made. The most pressing of these must certainly be when and how to reopen the economy, but others also loom large. Among these is the appropriate role of the U.S. military, including the Coast Guard, in the post-COVID-19 world, which has constant bearing and decreasing range. While the military provides unquestionable capability around the globe, it is also fantastically expensive. The United States spends more on defense than the next seven highest defense-spending countries combined, but—as the economic toll of the pandemic becomes clear—the country will increasingly have to decide between military activity around the globe or caring for its citizens at home.
For the past 30 years, the United States has been the world’s lone superpower, a consequence of the fall of the Soviet Union and a strong U.S. economy. But this military might—and the use to which it has been put during the Global War on Terror—has been financed by ever-increasing annual deficits and a national debt of $24 trillion. Given the support of both parties for trillions of dollars of coronavirus stimulus, deficit-spending shows no sign of slowing. While it is surely right to prioritize the short-term needs of millions signing up for unemployment benefits, defense discretionary spending will inevitably receive increasing scrutiny as a result.
Hard times mean hard choices, and it is better to consider U.S. national security goals after COVID-19 in a measured, deliberate way. While uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic exists, it is clear even at this stage that national security will mean something different than the counterterrorism-focused approach of the past two decades. Since COVID-19’s onset, cities, counties, states, and countries have been analyzing functions to determine what is essential. The pandemic provides a reason to do likewise with national security.
The the military services will be forced to examine their roles post-COVID-19. What is an army for after a pandemic? Why do we have a navy in such times? Where should we deploy the nation’s expeditionary force-in-readiness as countries sicken? What does air superiority mean against a virus? How does a country maintain maritime security while also guarding against infection? In short, the world is changing, and the meaning of national security is going to change with it.
The Coast Guard Will Be Ready
For the U.S. Coast Guard, this period of self-assessment requires analyzing the meaning of “ready, relevant, and responsive” to a nation reeling from the twin shocks of the psychological devastation of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of citizens and the economic impacts of the state stay-at-home orders.
In many ways, the pandemic may serve a similar function for the country as the 9/11 attacks did, in that it could fundamentally reorient the country’s national security goals. After 9/11, the United States assessed that radical Islamic terrorism was the primary threat, eventually ramping up to a global counterterrorism campaign that now conducts operations in 39 percent of the world’s countries. In contrast, the pandemic—whose current death toll in the United States stands at more than fifty times the number of those who died in the 9/11 attacks—will cause the country to focus on the other things that contribute to a nation’s security, including pandemic preparedness, public health, domestic manufacturing, and strategic reserves. In this new world, “ready, relevant, and responsive” means a domestic focus, combining multiple functionalities in a single organization, inherent organizational flexibility, and an obvious return on investment for the U.S. taxpayer.
First, the nation’s eyes will inevitably turn inward as it takes stock of its economic health after pumping trillions of dollars of liquidity into markets and banks in the first half of 2020. There will be renewed calls for greater self-sufficiency by restoring the U.S. manufacturing base, and vulnerabilities in the global supply chain exposed by the coronavirus will be addressed as the United States rediscovers an ability to fend for itself. Consistent with this fundamental reorientation, the nation will prioritize agencies that have a domestic focus. This is nothing new for the Coast Guard, because it has been there when the country called since practically the beginning. Unlike Department of Defense (DoD) forces, which are stationed in garrison until deployed to the combatant commands, the Coast Guard is embedded along the entire 95,000-mile U.S. shoreline, ready with the right assets in the right place at the right time. Combined with the service’s bias for action and trained initiative, it is ready to take advantage of its broad assistance authorities to support state and local governments as they rebuild after the coronavirus.1 While there will always be an international component to national security, these will be subordinated to domestic concerns over the next several years. Given its robust set of legal authorities, the Coast Guard will be well-situated to address them.
Next, fiscal constraints will drive decision-makers to search for efficiencies at all levels of government. As a result, multimission agencies will be preferred over those with a single focus. Unlike the other military services, the Coast Guard has 11 missions: marine safety; search and rescue; aids to navigation; fisheries law enforcement; marine environmental protection; ice operations; ports, waterways, and coastal security; drug interdiction; migrant interdiction; defense readiness; and other law enforcement.2 Pre-pandemic, this laundry list of missions was, at best, a mechanism for addressing most maritime threats short of war and, at worst, an unfortunate liability that resulted in a severe lack of public understanding about the Coast Guard’s role as a military service. Post-pandemic, the U.S. population will know only that there is no maritime problem that the Coast Guard cannot solve. In addition, the fact that the Coast Guard’s budget is non-defense discretionary spending may actually benefit it because—unlike in the 2019 federal government shutdown—it likely will be the defense discretionary budget that receives the most scrutiny.
In addition to its domestic focus and multimission nature, the Coast Guard is flexible, a direct result of its broad legal authorities, diverse responsibilities, and small size. Just as it facilitated commercial shipping in the early days of the Republic by maintaining aids to navigation, charting coastal waters, and rescuing mariners in distress, the Coast Guard stands ready, while minimizing the spread of COVID-19, to administer the nation’s maritime transportation system to facilitate the international trade that will continue to enter through U.S. ports. It will be ready to maintain port security and safety as the nation analyzes which areas of the world are likely to remain COVID-19 trouble spots and how to bring in goods and people from those areas with minimal risk to the country. The Coast Guard will also take on a greater role in maritime border security as nations remember that borders can also be useful for stopping disease. In addition, the Coast Guard is expert at combining its active, reserve, and auxiliary components, surging assets to areas where they are most needed. Such capability will be essential if, for example, a particular Coast Guard District is besieged by an outbreak of illness, because forces can be brought in from other areas of the country to assist with operations.
Finally, and perhaps most important for the post-pandemic world, the Coast Guard is dirt cheap. For example, the President requested $11.34 billion for the Coast Guard in fiscal year (FY) 2020. Here’s what the Coast Guard did with that amount on a given day: conducted 45 search-and-rescues; saved 10 lives and more $1.2 million in property from destruction at sea; seized 874 pounds of cocaine and 214 pounds of marijuana; conducted 57 waterborne patrols of critical maritime infrastructure; interdicted 17 illegal migrants; escorted 5 high-capacity passenger vessels; conducted 24 security boardings; screened 360 merchant vessels for potential security threats prior to arrival; conducted 14 fisheries conservation boardings; serviced 82 buoys and fixed aids to navigation; investigated 35 pollution incidents; conducted 105 marine inspections; and investigated 14 marine casualties involving commercial vessels. Compare that with the $718.3 billion requested for DoD for the same fiscal year. And for what? Continued quagmire in Afghanistan? Incoherent policy in Iraq and Syria? Inconsequential FONOPs in the South China Sea? Tail sections of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that disintegrate at supersonic speeds? Even now, commentators are asking how many facemasks could have been purchased instead of expensive—and arguably unnecessary—weapon systems. Such questions will only increase as Americans demand national security accountability in terms of citizens helped and lives saved from their government. Only those missions that provide obvious return on investment will survive the coming budgetary pressure, and this is precisely what the Coast Guard has provided since its beginning.
The Way Forward
Events such as 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic provide nations with the opportunity to assess priorities. The great ones prove themselves up to the task of recognizing the changing reality and adapting accordingly. Calls to analyze the meaning of national security after COVID-19 must not be ignored. As the entire country—from the smallest rural hamlet to largest metropolis—grapples with the economic fall-out of stay-at-home orders, there will be decreased tolerance for federal expenditures that do not obviously benefit the country. Leaders of all federal agencies must recognize this new reality and position their agencies to provide the services the country needs, not the services that entrenched interest groups and certain industries say it needs.
The Coast Guard is well-positioned for this. It has long been focused on domestic maritime challenges and how to solve them. It is inherently multimission and competent at addressing multiple challenges simultaneously. And it provides obvious value to the taxpayer. After COVID-19, it is the Coast Guard’s time to shine.
1. 14 U.S.C. § 701.
2. For example, the job functions of the remaining four military services are as follows: Army (“seize, occupy, and defend land areas”), Navy (“sea-based global strike”), Marine Corps (“expeditionary force-in-readiness”), and Air Force (“gain and maintain air superiority”). Departmentt of Defense, DIR 5100.0, Functions of the Department of Defense and its Major Components, enclosure 6, para. 4–6 (21 December 2010); 6 U.S.C. § 468.