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sion of that concern must bear a caveat. Indicators of change, ?nd change itself, have been a way of life since the Coast Guard’s Seption in 1790 as the Revenue Cutter Service. The service has een continually molded in shape and in mission to fit the changing Perceptions of what the federal government needs to do to serve s maritime interests.
The Revenue Cutter Service was founded to enforce the cus- °ms laws. Because the tools and milieu required to do that well ere identical to naval weaponry and discipline, the Revenue utter Service also contributed to the common defense. Indeed, efe was a period of almost nine years when the little ships flying ^fieir distinctive ensigns were this country’s only naval force. And ecause those cutters existed, and because they operated in the uritime approaches to the United States, they were called upon render assistance to ships encountering troubles in the winter °rnis that racked the waters of the Atlantic Coast. Humanitar-
signs are of critical concern to the Coast Guard, but explo
The
T^he words, quoted from the Coast Guard’s March, invoke memories of Coast Guard-manned ships, large and small, which ave roamed the waters of the world on the business of the United . tates. The Pickering with Commodore John Barry’s squadron I? West Indies. The McCulloch with Commodore George ewey at Manila Bay. The Tampa, whose loss is commemorated . y a small plaque near the entrance to Her Majesty’s Dockyard Gibraltar. The Wakefield under attack in Singapore. The little ramble working her way through the Northwest Passage in sup- P°rt of Dewline.
Today, the questions for the Coast Guard are these. Will that 0r>g and proud roll call continue, or is the service to turn away r°m blue water? If it does turn away, what will it turn to? The Questions are not academic. They are suggested by signs that the oast Guard may be just a step away from ending its days at sea.
From Aztec shore to Arctic zone, To Europe and Far East,
The Flag is carried by our ships, In time of war and peace.
The question posed in the title of the article is at the heart of the service's future. The Coast Guard has a long heritage as a seagoing entity, but in recent years the focus has been increasingly in shallow waters and ashore. What's more, the ability of the Coast Guard to do its job has been undermined of late by niggardly administrations which seemingly fail to see the organization's military value. Stringent annual budgets and questions about dismembering the service and civilianizing any number of its function are not likely to boost the morale of Coast Guardsmen who are called upon to perform a wide variety of roles. The signals have been mixed, to be sure. Even as some in the Coast Guard have been operating in hip boots, the launching of new medium endurance cutters (the Harriet Lane is shown here just prior to launch at Tacoma, Washington, on 6 February) does offer promise that the blue water role still has a future.
Captain Moore is a 1952 Coast Guard Academy graduate. He has served in a number of ships and held command of the buoy tender Hawthorn, the high endurance cutter Owasco (WHEC-39), and the icebreakers Burton Island (WAGB-283) and Polar Star (WAGB-10). His shore tours have included service as advisor to the Somali Republic on matters of maritime law enforcement, deputy commander of U. S. Coast Guard activities in Europe, chief of the Military Readiness Division of Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington. and his current assignment as chief of staff to Commander llth Coast Guard District in Long Beach. His Professional Notes on the Polar Star appeared in the October 1978 and December 1979 issues of the Proceedings, and the October 1980 issue carried his article "The Coast Guard in the Eighties."
ianism was certainly a factor in the decision to assign that task, but just as certainly there is no doubt that the overriding consideration was to support the developing U- S.-flag merchant fleet by ameliorating ri$k, thus facilitating maritime transportation.
Much has changed since those days, but that triad of roles remains intact. The relationship of law enforcement, defense, and facilitation of transportation is a synergistic one and is the core of the Coast Guard’s effectiveness. This “multi-mission concept” is deeply embedded in the Coast Guard's structure and, simply stated, means that the service combines within a given facility the wherewithal to perform any of the Coast Guard’s missions with which the unit might reasonably be tasked. The result is real economy in operating cost and in force structure. Unfortunately, it is an approach which also complicates planning since the relationship between the tools needed for each of the three basic roles is much like that of the legs of the “fire triangle” so prominent in damage control courses. Whatever change is made in the capabilities to accomplish one of the tasks impinges upon and changes the capabilities available to do the other two. This requires a delicate balancing act during the management of change, particularly so today as we examine how the Coast Guard is to perform each role in the future and at what level.
If we examine history, particularly that of the last 50 years, we see that the number of laws that the service enforces has expanded. The Coast Guard is now the federal maritime law enforcement agency, and its chores still include enforcement of the customs laws and suppression of smuggling. Today there are others to be enforced as well, and those deal with a wide and diverse range of things. The defense role has likewise become more complicated. The Coast Guard is one of the five armed forces of the United States and functions as a specialized service within the Navy during time of war or when the President so directs. Service during the Korean War ; and in Vietnam was performed without transfer to the Navy. It is in the facilitation of transportation, however, that there have been the most sweeping changes. What started in 1831, when Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane ordered cutters of the Revenue Marine to render assistance to those in need, has grown in scope and complexity past all belief. Facilitation has become a “cradle to grave” involvement with the safety of ships and ports. The Coast Guard reviews construction plans for commercial ships, inspects their construction, and follows them throughout their employment to ensure their safe operation. Their crews are certificated by . the Coast Guard for competency, and in U. S. waters those mariners are guided by Coast Guard-operated aids to navigation and Coast Guard-generated vessel traffic management measures. While in U. S. ports there is Coast Guard oversight of movement and cargo handling. In recent years the umbrella of fa- ' cilitation has been extended to embrace protection of the marine environment since control of pollution is one determinant of the price the nation pays far its use of its waters. The early and modest effort to save lives and property has grown into the world’s most extensive maritime search and rescue establishment.
Within each of the three roles, there have been other and externally less visible changes. Since the 1950s, for example, the character of search and rescue has altered, focusing ‘longshore, with more involvement with pleasure craft than with commercial vessels and aircraft. The growth of transoceanic flight gave rise to the ocean station program and now. with propellers replaced by jets, that job has gone the way of most technologically obsolete things. When the ocean station role ended, many of the Coast Guard's high endurance cutters were laid up or disposed of, and the offshore capability to do all jobs was greatly reduced. The importance of law enforcement has been reborn as drugs have climbed to third rank in our list of imports. And this catalog is far from complete.
Inexorably, the nature of these changes has moved Coast Guardsmen ashore. Staffs and shore facilities have grown, and administrative and technical skills have been emphasized. Operational and seagoing experience—like the opportunities for them—has diminished, and there have been changes in require' ments for various skills. The shifts in emphasis among the service’s missions combined with the serious retention problems of the 1970s to exacerbate prob' | lems stemming from low skill and experience levels- The effects of these changes are modified and i*1' ,
tensified in the resulting perceptions Coast Guardsmen have of themselves. As a result, the service has gone through a period when to some it seemed that the way to fame and fortune was with the Gilbert and Sullivan dictum of . . never go to sea. . .” There are those who still see the keys to advancement as consisting of a succession of desks. For those who felt—and feel—this way, initial tours at sea were viewed as holding patterns, to be endured Ur|til something real and important came along. A concomitant problem was an increase in the number who regarded the service as simply an eight-to-five Proposition, a job with a large conglomerate which as an unfortunate propensity for moving people at refluent intervals and which is altogether too preoccupied with a distressingly archaic dress code. “And, °h yes, the pay’s simply not that good.” In addition, changed mission emphasis has raised problems of Joh security and unfulfilled expectations, a feeling often articulated by our young people in words like i enlisted to save lives, and here I am a cop.” These considerations have also raised a matter which is institutionally of far graver concern. The P his and experience of people have made the Coast uard the flexible maritime instrument that it has een, and the skills and experience of its people must keep it an effective maritime instrument in the mure. Should the professional status of Coast uardsmen as mariners erode, one of the key links hat gives cohesiveness to the three roles will have cen lost. How critical this is may be seen by considering the many interactions between the Coast
S- COAST GUARD
Guard and other professional mariners in areas such as traffic routing, regulation, and control. In discussing and deciding these issues, it is not enough for the Coast Guard to be represented by an operational analyst or to say “My computer study indicates.. . .” Coast Guardsmen must be able to examine the issues based upon those things, but they must also be able to examine them with an understanding that was acquired by having been there themselves. They must speak to other mariners from a position of shared experience and a knowledge of the pressures and margins for error which exist on the bridge of a ship. And the Coast Guardsmen must have been there often enough to understand the wide variation in conditions, rather than to have just ridden once for the experience. The Coast Guard is thus faced with a critical problem. The element which binds the triangle of roles together is maritime skill, and that is the thread that makes the Coast Guard organizationally viable. Snap that thread, lose the base of extensive experience with the sea, and the mathematics of the budget process will argue that not only can other agencies do the jobs as well, they can do them cheaper. The Coast Guard’s future thus depends in large measure upon whether or not it can keep a significant percentage of its people at sea where those skills can be acquired and honed.
Much of the turmoil arid many of the concerns found within the Coast Guard may really be externally generated and no more than reflections of the national uncertainty over where the national interest lies with respect to the sea and to marine transportation. Certainly since World War II, U. S. maritime policy has not been consistent or clear-cut. It has even been argued that such policy has been nonexistent—that this nation gives too little weight to maritime affairs for its own good. That conclusion is supported by what has occurred throughout our maritime spectrum. The Navy has shrunk, the deep water merchant marine is hardly commensurate in size with our economic dependence upon seaborne commerce, and our general capability to use the sea for the benefit of the nation is less than it should be.
By contrast, as the few exceptions that prove the rule, it is only the internal traffic on the river complexes and the development of some of our ports that seem appropriate reflections of the nation’s in-
Despite the understandable concern about changes in Coast Guard functions, it is well to keep in mind that the service should not be completely static. It must evolve with technology and requirements. The cutter Sebago (WPG-42) is shown here in the 1960s with the rough seas often typical of the ocean station program. The program developed to meet a need, and now that the need has gone away, so have the ocean stations.
dustrial capacity. While examples of the pluses are few, negative examples abound. We have but to look about us to see an immensely long coastline, one that forms an important frontier, and yet one where we cannot control what comes and goes. Although we are critically dependent upon overseas sources for fuel and raw materials, and although without those imports our industries stop, we possess too few merchant ships by which to sustain ourselves. Somewhere along the line the United States became a continental power, and it is the heartland that now speaks loudest. I suggest that in a word association test today, the majority of Americans would link "oceans” and "whales,” "coast” and “recreation,” "water” and “pollution.” We seem to have done a poor job of bringing home the harsh economic realities of the sea and, in consequence, we do not think instinctively of the oceans as a key to all that we have and are. Given this, is it surprising that the Coast Guard is at times uncertain about what its role is to be?
In addition to maritime policy there is today another matter to further complicate things. The new element is the fundamental question of the proper federal role vis-a-vis state and local governments and the private sector. Until we sort out who will do what to whom upon our waters, the Coast Guard’s future will remain uncertain. The only thing that can be said now with certainty is that sweeping changes have occurred in the past and have carried the Coast Guard with them, essentially intact. We are again at one of those points at which the service and the Transportation Department of which it is a part must examine the Coast Guard and its three roles to assess what is needed to do each one tomorrow—or if they need doing at all.
There are currently two landmark actions in progress which, when completed, will help define that future. The more catholic of these efforts is a “Roles and Missions Study,” the object of which is to take the various taskings assigned by law to the Coast Guard and lay out what functions the Coast Guard needs to accomplish in order to discharge those responsibilities. The study, being accomplished by a group of which some members are drawn from outside of the Coast Guard, will also seek to identify functions which should be incorporated into those currently assigned or, conversely, ones now being done which should not be continued. The second key action is a joint Navy-Coast Guard study, the NavGard Board, which seeks to define more explicitly than has heretofore been done what the Coast Guard’s contributions to defense should be. And while it is not particularly fruitful to attempt to predict the board’s findings and recommendations, it is worthwhile examining some of the more important pressures which will shape the Coast Guard in the immediate future. In general terms, those pressures may be considered as falling into four major categories:
► National goals relative to the use of the seas and to waterborne commerce
►The changing role of the federal government
►The requirements of national defense
►Technological change
There is significant spillover between categories, and this is particularly apparent when we take into account the multi-mission nature of the service.
i
If we examine the Coast Guard’s current activities from a geographic standpoint, we see most of them concentrated within the coastal zone of the continental United States. That zone, legalistically defined by the Coastal Zone Management Act and modifications thereto, embraces a strip of land and water which includes within it a high percentage of the components of our sea power. Those ingredients include the obvious elements such as the ports, naval facilities, and shipyards. There are less obvious ones as well. The zone embraces the seaward ap' proaches to the United States and is thus an area of confluence for vital overseas trade. Fishing fleets have their bases there and do most of their hat' vesting either in the zone or within a band of water contiguous to it. Continental shelf exploration, development, and exploitation—with all that is thus implied for the future—are there. And demography surveys show clearly that a surprisingly high per' centage of our industrial facilities and our work fore1-’ are concentrated in what may be broadly identified as coastal areas. All of these things combine to determine the country’s ability to use the sea in furtherance of its goals.
Part of the “hip boots” in-shore function of the service is in servicing aids to navigation in rivers and channels. Here crew members of the buoy tender Red Cedar (WLM-688) replace black buoys with green test buoys in the Newport News Channel.
COAST GUARD (MALDONADE)
Historically, matters transpiring on or affecting ae sea side of that zone have rested almost exclusively with the federal government. In peacetime i*ese matters have in large measure lain with the oast Guard since it is the federal government’s Principal maritime operating agency outside of the ePartment of Defense. Outer continental shelf ex- PJoitation and other factors are increasing state in- erest and involvement and thus add to the potential 0r jurisdictional change. States and local interests are making demands for a seat at the table and are increasingly convincing. Even though the extent of ne states’ future roles is still evolving, one can pos- nlate that a law of the sea treaty extending the erritorial sea to 12 miles may well result in assUmption by some states of many of the things which n°w lie with the federal government. The principal stimulus encouraging coastal states to venture sea- ^nrd is obviously the revenue which would accrue rom offshore development.
Only time will tell the degree to which states will assume responsibility for coastal law enforcement, ,°r search and rescue (at least to the extent that it ^nvolves small craft within state waters), and pol- ntion prevention and control within their coastal ones. These changes, as they evolve, will undoubt- >y occur slowly. Right now, only the federal government has the wherewithal to fulfill those roles, °d the infrastructure required for them is both costly and time-consuming to develop. Outer continental shelf revenues notwithstanding, the trigger that encourages states to take the first big step to greater involvement may well be a federal philosophy of general retrenchment. Should that develop, we can speculate that the locus of many Coast Guard interests and activities will move into the deeper water 12 to 200 miles offshore, to what I will term the “approach zone.” More than jurisidictional pressures may contribute to such a move. While the states become more and more interested in their waters, the national focus may move farther offshore, to what may become the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. As activities within the zone increase, or as technology offers the promise that they may, there will be demands for increased national presence. Certainly one source of such demands, at least during the initial period while the world adjusts to the reality of such zones, will be the need to signal the nation’s willingness to exercise its sovereignty in a forceful and easily discernible way.
Inshore, within the 12-mile territorial sea and in ports and waterways, the federal-versus-state issue will also affect the Coast Guard. In many instances, the service was thrust into a vacuum there to fill an urgent need for which there were no local resources. Since those initial intrusions, we have seen the growth—often under federal stimulation—of other resources, and it is now possible to argue that some of the direct federal involvement should end. Oil. pollution, its control and responses to it, provide an excellent case study. The groundings of the tankers Torrey Canyon, and Amoco Cadiz, and events such as the Santa Barbara Channel blowout, combined with a growing sensitivity worldwide to the fragile nature of this planet, helped raise demands that the ecology be safeguarded if pollutants were to be carried on or extracted from the bed of the sea. Within federal waters much of the responsibility for prevention and response fell to the Coast Guard, perhaps for no other reason than that we were there. While the thrust of the enforcement activity has sought to identify and punish the polluter, and to insist that those responsible bear the cost of cleanup, a contingency fund was created by the Congress to provide for immediate response while issues of liability were being sorted out. As the result of the combined incentives of federal funds for cleanup and federal sanctions against polluters, a thriving industry has grown up to deal with the problems, and in many places the greatest response capability now lies in private hands. In general, too, enlightened self-interest has forced producers and carriers toward a more responsible attitude and to some extent those industries have become self-regulating and self-policing. This line of argument supports a stand- down on the part of the Coast Guard from its past levels of involvement inshore.
In dealing with jurisidictional issues, the Coast Guard and the department within which it resides can be passive or be catalytic. Passivity will place both entities behind the power curve, always “a day late and a dollar short.” I suggest that in the long term the way to properly reflect the national philosophy is to adopt and further goals which seek to transfer to the states those functions which do not intrude upon international or interstate commerce, for which state resources would not be unduly taxed and which do not involve national security. Actually, this particular approach should go beyond clarifying state and federal roles to sorting out the proper mix of governmental and private roles as well.
Roles need sorting out in another place also. There is a certain ambiguity about where the Coast Guard fits into the defense establishment and how it meshes with the Navy in particular. As long as we are talking about a conventional war with a major power, one which develops generally along the lines of World War II, the connections are easily identified and fit very nicely. As we move away from that experience, our way becomes less clear and there are difficulties. The changes in military technology and the procurement and training lead-times that technology introduced cause the first problem. In the past. Coast Guard forces have shifted to Navy control and found that the common base of skills and outfit carried them through. There was time to replace equipments with others more suited to the wartime task. We are today faced with the reality that the combat systems in place at the beginning of a war will most likely be the ones which are employed through to its conclusion. There probably will be neither the time nor the industrial capacity to turn out new systems for backfit, and even if that could be done, the length of the training pipeline could probably not be overcome. This argues quite forcefully that careful consideration must be given to how Coast Guard forces will be employed and that, to the extent possible, differences between peacetime and wartime employment must be minimized.
The second difficulty stems from chain-of-com- mand anomalies which do not begin operating until the Coast Guard changes departments. Incident to mobilization, many of the Coast Guard’s operating forces immediately shift to Navy operational control. Other and critical functions, those associated with the facilitation of transportation—port security, for example—remain outside of the CNO’s chain of command and run from Coast Guard captain of the port up through the Coast Guard to the Secretary of the Navy. In short, just when marine transportation becomes critical, it would appear that much of the government’s responsibility for dealing with it will change gears. The increased likelihood of more small wars, in support of or through a client state, gives rise to a third problem or, more properly, to another variant of the chain-of-command issue. In the smaller conflicts, general mobilization probably will not occur, and the Coast Guard will stay outside of the Navy and the Department of Defense. This condition was made patently clear in Vietnam. Yet a relatively high percentage of the Coast Guard’s forces saw service there, and the Coast Guard played an essential role in the logistics support of the nation’s efforts. The machinery needed to run smoothly through the scale from peace to war requires some adjusting and tuning.
One of the reasons that yesterday’s Coast Guard was an effective addition to the defense forces was that the weapons needed to bring smugglers and other lawbreakers to book were essentially identical to those required for war. The foundation for arming cutters is thus pragmatically stated as law. The application of force afloat for one purpose is similar in requirements to the application of force afloat for any purpose. That obtains today at least in principle but in a more limited sense than it used to. We can still see the basic similarity if we think in terms of ships and smugglers, terrorists, and ports or offshore assets, and it is not difficult to postulate conditions under which a shooting war and law enforcement are all too similar. What can be difficult is making that connection stretch in the face of today’s mili' tary technology. We can make a reasonable case for effective and modern weapons. We can show that the clear presence of superior force is a major deterrent to the need to use any force. We recognize that those who stand outside the law today do have access to powerful weapons, and they may at some point use them at sea. It is also true that cutters must occasionally operate in environments which could turn hostile at short notice. None of these reasons of itself appears to justify a jump from a pedestal mount 3-inch/50-caliber locally controlled main battery to a Mark 75 76-mm. weapon with a Mark 92 fire control system or a close-in weapon system.
Recognition of the similarities between law enforcement at sea and the needs of war brings us to another vital point. In the beginning the weapons and the skills to use them were justified by the needs of law enforcement, not the other way around. The Coast Guard is not and must not become a miniature navy, fighting for resources in competition with the U. S. Navy. The forces, the platforms, the systems obtained for the Coast Guard must first of all be supportable exclusively in terms of the needs of law enforcement and the facilitation of transportation. Once justification has been achieved on that basis, then, and only then, can we address the question of what combat systems may be needed. It then becomes appropriate and necessary to explore whether 0r not the synergy of the multi-mission concept makes 11 realistic and cost-effective for a particular class of Coast Guard cutter to be warships as well. There are, of course, common-sense departures from such a black-or-white approach, but even those should occur only after analysis of the incremental cost of getting more capability within a given platform. This ls a somewhat elaborate way of saying that if the and maintain her capabilities intact throughout her patrol. She must be able to link with other platforms and exploit intelligence and other data which have been correlated ashore. Since the spectrum of her missions will be broad, she must be able to effectively manage and use a massive volume of information. She must support her people in reasonable but not luxurious comfort, and she must be able to expand her sphere of coverage or control by carriage and employment of a helicopter. She must possess the sensors required to acquire her own information and to supplement and support a centralized data collection effort. She must be equipped to impose her will and be able to do so decisively and overwhelmingly should the terrorist or the smuggler show
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U. S. COAST GUARD
k °ls needed for law enforcement or facilitation can e extended at small additional cost to perform a ecessary defense-related job also, then it is plain s°od management to do so. e /ake just one example. A cutter which will op- 2ate f°r the remainder of the 20th century within a (h-ne *2 to 200 miles from the U. S. coast (and in ls’ I include Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico) PrSfiCSSes wliat’ ‘n naval terms, is a very attractive °hle. She must be able to keep the sea in all weather
Symptomatic of the Coast Guard’s inability to muster sufficient funds is the age of many of its ships. Shown here is the seagoing buoy tender Papaw (WLB-308), which was commissioned on 12 October 1943. She was built with icebreaking capability which turned out to be unnecessary during World War 11. More recently, though, as the photo shows, she has been called upon to work in chilly climates. This picture was taken in 1979 when she was breaking ice in Delaware Bay. She will probably be operating for years to come, because no replacement is in sight.
On the opposite page is a demonstration of a mission that has become of considerable importance to the Coast Guard in recent years—the monitoring and cleanup of oil pollution.
remarkably poor judgment and seek to fight. She must be able to move at reasonable speed from one area of interest to another, and to loiter within a patrol area for significant periods of time. A ship which will do all of these things is neither small nor cheap, but the Coast Guard was able to demonstrate to the Executive Branch and to the Congress that new ships of that size are needed as replacements for existing hulls and as additional resources with which to enforce the law. In consequence, the first of the new “Famous” class of medium endurance cutters is already well along in her building. The ship, 270 feet overall and of about 1,700 tons displacement, could make a meaningful contribution to the nation’s total naval force but, outfitted and manned exclusively for peacetime operations, might not be able to do so. With this in mind and with the basic requirements as to size, capability, and number of that class in hand, the Commandant of the Coast Guard went to the Chief of Naval Operations and said, in effect, “Do you see a wartime role for these ships?” and “If you do, what additional capabilities do those roles require?” The CNO’s response and detailed staff work on both sides have produced a compromise ship. She will do her Coast Guard required missions, probably better because of the enhanced capabilities gained through the combat systems, and will also fill a needed role in the protection of the sea lines of communication in war. There is no question that the “Famous” class has weaknesses, and that the design is stamped with the hallmark of compromise. There will be arguments for years to come over outfit and such basic considerations as speed. More, perhaps, than most ships, the vessels of this class grew out of a series of compromises which sought to combine the best of the profiles for each individual mission, and the result has not necessarily been the sum of only the virtues- The ships are building, however, and they do hold the promise of accomplishing a number of things well. In the present instance, they serve as excellent illustrations of how consideration of incremental capability functions as part of the Coast Guard’s day- to-day planning. I think this case also explains the reasoning which led to the more sophisticated weaponry, and helps recognition of the fact that in today’s
technology just a little bit more sometimes results in a pretty big jump. Until recently this approach to the determination of platform, facility, and force structure was applied only to ships. The Coast Guard now appears to be moving closer to applying similar logic to all of its activities. Doing so is really essen- dal if maritime transportation is to be capable of shifting smoothly from a peacetime to a wartime/ emergency footing and if all of the Coast Guard functions within the port and coastal complexes are fo mesh with other defense efforts.
The effects of technology and of policy upon the Coast Guard offshore must, I feel, be treated as a ^ngle issue. Both are uncertain in detail and impact, both are capable of demanding major restructuring °f the Coast Guard and its employment. We have s.een one such example in the end of the ocean sta- hon program, and another sweeping restructuring m>ght well occur should the importation and use of ^urijuana be legalized. Energy concerns appeared o hold potential for revolutionary change, what with ueir spur to offshore exploitation and the possibility m icebreaker support for Alaskan production, but he Present oil glut seems to have dampened down Possibilities considerably. Actually, the realities of ue changes ahead will most likely be evolutionary rather than dramatic. Certainly, evolutionary changes can be extrapolated from the chain of other tech- n°l°gical events which have affected the Coast Guard jd sea. Look at aids to navigation. Electronics aside, ®chnology has permitted reduction in the number °t buoy tenders servicing aids to navigation. As improvements have been made in preservation techniques, power sources, and control mechanisms, the requency of the service required has decreased, and ?s a result many of the ships previously employed ln those tasks have been reassigned or decommis- s*oned.
The Coast Guard’s duties offshore will, I believe, 0cus strongly upon law enforcement for the foreSeeable future. I include under law enforcement the c°ntrol and monitoring of activities within a 200- de exclusive economic zone, the suppression of muggiing, an(] prevention of acts of piracy or err°rism. It is most difficult to predict the priority r scope of each of those, and their relative impor- ance will undoubtedly wax or wane as reflections external pressures. It seems clear that fisheries anagement will remain high on the list, if for no w.her reason than the importance of food in a world here it is not everywhere abundant. The United ates has also been extremely casual about its bor- Iters ar>d the control of what and who crosses them, th Wou^ be idle to speculate upon the length of time at such casualness will continue, but it is hard to j^?ePt that we will live with the present condition ehnitely. Moral issues aside, now that drugs are eUr third largest import, the problems of foreign change and balance of payments alone argue rather
persuasively for a change. The unrestricted entry of illegal aliens also may reach the point at which it is a problem worthy of more attention. Additionally, there will be the traditional role of search and rescue and other tasks of opportunity, perhaps dealing with aspects of developing marine technology such as underseas mining.
The Coast Guard’s role in the international arena should increase for several reasons. Presence, in the classical sense of naval presence, may well be allimportant to the effective establishment of the revisions to the law of the sea. Not only will presence be required as a means of asserting jurisdiction, it may be necessary to preclude acts by U. S. citizens which might, at best, prove embarrassing. One focal point for presence should be the Caribbean, where the zones of a number of nations will intersect in a highly complicated fashion. There, perhaps, the Coast Guard could also serve as a role model for the naval forces of the smaller nations. Intercommunication, the exchange of personnel for training, joint operations when a major problem warranted, all could improve inter-American cooperation and understanding. It is not unlikely that the Coast Guard’s successful blend of naval power, humanitarianism,
and police powers would excite interest beyond that region as well.
One of the other tasks of opportunity offshore may well lie in pollution response. I mentioned earlier that an infrastructure had developed along the coast and in the ports that provides good pollution response capabilities from within the private sector. There is a clear distinction in this between inshore and the open ocean approaches to the coast. Offshore, the threat is just as real. A major tanker accident there can represent a major threat to the coastal zone even though the event itself happens well outside that zone. The possibilities posed by such a scenario are high and dramatic, but the probability
Pr
Befitting the Coast Guard’s lineage as a descendant of the old Lifesaving Service is its continuing performance of search-and-resuce missions. At right, a helicopter hoists the victim of an explosion and fire at a grain elevator in Louisiana. On the opposite page, crewman from the Coast Guard station at Fort Pierce, Florida, tow a cabin cruiser disabled by hurricane David in the autumn of 1979.
of such an incident occurring is low. One consequence of that low probability is that there is little or no incentive for the commercial development of the facilities necessary to cope with a major high seas spill. Thus, if the nation determines that protection from such a threat is required or if we are to have the capability to cope with such a spill as a form of insurance, we must look to the federal government to provide it. It would seem logical that the Coast Guard properly has a role there. Also there may be a relationship between that task and the Navy’s requirements for fleet salvage.
Except for pollution response, maintenance and servicing of aids to navigation, and the support provided by aircraft, much of what the Coast Guard will do offshore in the future willl continue to be accomplished by cruising cutters. The cruising cutter concept started early on, having been confirmed by an Act of Congress in 1837 and used, in one fashion or another, ever since. Today, a cruising cutter is one assigned a geographic area of responsibility and charged with executing search and rescue, law enforcement, and other tasks within that area. Such a ship provides a payoff only at the moment of contact when she effects a rescue, stops a smuggler, or speaks to a fisherman. Loiter time between contacts is nonproductive and serves only to keep the ship within reasonable striking range of events in her area. The whole purpose of the supporting surveillance, intelligence, and C3 systems is to permit the ship to move directly and quickly from her loiter location to a point where she can acquire the designated contact with her own sensors. Speed during this initial phase is very important, because the validity of the intelligence data, and therefore the ship’s ability to move directly to the acquisition point is a function of time-late. If we define time- late as the gap between the intelligence or surveillance data entering the system and acquisition of contact by the ship, it is easy to see that speed, and the ability to operate an aircraft as an extension of the ship, dictate the numbers of ships required and the size of the area assigned to each one. The tradeoffs between quality and quantity are amenable to mathematical solution, given the decisions that govern what task is to be done.
Inside of the 12-mile line many of the same factors will affect the Coast Guard’s development. The rate of change may well be slower than that which occurs in the approaches, because more depends upon state and local development. Involving as it does a greater number of interested and independent entities, changes will not occur at the same rate in all states or at all places within the same state. During the transition, federal forces will be needed to provide a threshold level of safety and pollution capabilities, and some federal involvement will have to continue in order to ensure that crisis loading of the maritime transportation mode can be accommodated. Law enforcement, principally in support of customs and immigration authorities, will be as important inside as outside the 12-mile limit.
The sum of these changes seems to extend an opportunity for the Coast Guard to reset its moorings in good holding ground and to reintroduce a stability and a sense of continuity in its purpose. Certainly, the future appears to offer no sudden shocks; and the changes which do occur will have only moderate and gradual external impact. It seems certain that the economic climate will support little or no growth and only minor capital improvement- That’s unfortunate, because the Coast Guard’s own projections show a shortage of some 3,000 ship-days per year by the mid-1980s, and, of course, some ot the ships now in service must be replaced. Those of the “Secretary” class still in service are “historic” and will be approaching their 50th birthday when at last retired. The 13 ships of the “Famous class already contracted for will replace the oldest high- and medium-endurance cutters of the current force and so will not offset the deficit. That’s unfortunate too, from the standpoint of this country s ability to do things at sea. It is a particularly important consideration now, in a time of trying to ge| maximum mileage from the federal budget. Severn years ago the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Ad miral John B. Hayes, summed it up extremely well- He said: “In my judgement each dollar provided to us against our stated requirements is going to pr0' vide you with maximum return on investment. Per'
haps • • • the Coast Guard’s contribution to this na- hon s seapower, as a vital aspect of national security and maritime transportation, will be more fully realized.”
Internally, the impact of the changes should be, by contrast, enormous. There seems in the offing an altered balance between staff and field, shore and . P> but with that balance shifted more by reduc- tlons in the 'longshore functions than by growth at Sea. Change in balance in the ship-shore force structure will impact heavily upon people, and the changes W>H be driven by both mission emphasis and the technology found in the newer ships. Permit me to touch on this aspect of things very briefly.
The laws which the Coast Guard will be enforcing uPon the seas are already complex in themselves and will be made more so by court rulings on rights, rules of evidence, and other procedural matters. En- 0rcement in the future will continue to deal with gutters ranging from safety, through the economic, .° the criminal. In many cases, enforcement will involve not just foreign citizens but also foreign-flag . ‘PS, and the process will always be clouded by international policy considerations. Consider the uban refugee boat lift as an extreme example. The L«ast Guardsmen at the point of contact must be jnore than "boots” assigned to such duties by the uck of the draw. They must be competent law enticement officers appropriately trained and disci- Pnned. I am not talking about “spit and polish” 'scipline, but about the self-discipline which imposes the high moral and ethical standards that those who enforce the law must have.
In the years to come, the size of ships will be governed less by mission requirements than by the Philosophy governing their support. In the good old oays, the size of a crew was determined by the manpower required to work on the ship: stand the watches, operate the machinery, execute necessary evolutions, and man her weapons. In addition, the ship’s company was responsible for selected vital tasks, such as ensuring that weapons were at the proper state of readiness and that the boats were prepared for immediate use. That manpower and those skills were available and drawn from the pool of resources assigned for the express purpose of working the ship. Since many of the basic evolutions were people-intensive, all of the resources available were not routinely required either to work the ship or to perform the vital tasks. Training programs and the assignment of humdrum jobs kept people gainfully occupied. After all, the nature of the beast was such that, in the doldrums of peace or patrol, idle hands had to be kept busy, lest they find the Devil’s work. Such routine work, of course, contributed to the overall state of preservation and maintenance. Like many things, the trend went too far. Today, I think that many people in most ships would tell us that their purpose in being there is not to work the ship but to work on her. The emphasis shifted from being sailors to being technicians, and this caused changes in maintenance costs. Such a practice suggests we have given insufficient weight to the negative effect this has upon job satisfaction, upon nautical experience, and upon retention. Our salvation appears to have come from technology. We are at last receiving gear and systems which are beyond the capability of the ship’s company to maintain, and we are returning to the older practice of crewing ships to operate rather than maintain them. Over and above the obvious impact upon the budget and the shore establishment, there are some interesting ramifications to that shift. We can look forward to smaller ship’s companies and ones which, with the monkey of maintenance off their backs, will be better trained to work the ship. The hull volume heretofore devoted to people can be reduced, and the general mix of shipboard and service-wide talent can be changed.
The training structure supporting the ships must be redrawn from its present arrangement. The lower manning levels and the change in shipboard billet structure will invalidate the traditional apprenticeship model of training, and in fact the Coast Guard is already facing the same issues with the "Polar”- class icebreakers. In the future, people must report to ships ready to perform effectively right from the beginning. The numbers of people available to the ship will simply preclude carriage of 10% to 20% ineffectives in a training status. Nor will the experienced hands be able to devote the time needed to adequately teach new people. The pipeline which provides people must grow longer, to include not just formal school but also hands-on experience in simulators which duplicate ashore the functions of ships systems. One impact of the new maintenance
philosophy, the reliance upon off-ship support, can be measured in dollars. Although cost will be the most apparent, it may, in the long term, be the least significant. A less well understood consideration is the effect that change could have upon the Coast Guard's middle-grade people. These are marked by an aggressive, can-do attitude tuned to getting the job done with the resources at hand. Unless they are led with great care through the rationale for the shifted emphasis and provided help in acquiring the new techniques they will need to play their part under the revised ground rules, their effectiveness could well be lost.
The farther one steps through this line of thought, the more apparent it becomes that there are very difficult times ahead for the personnel managers of the Coast Guard. We seem to be creating a world in which there is little room for the new recruit or the inexperienced—and few places outside of the classroom for those individuals to mature. The Coast Guard may have to go back around the loop one more time and deliberately provide a limited number of ships for new people to grow up in. All of these
things can be dealt with if they are foreseen and provided for, but if the impacts are to be minimized, that time is now.
1 have deliberately avoided speculation about numbers of bodies and numbers and types of platforms which are somewhere in the Coast Guard’s future. I am convinced that the trend for the future is toward operations and away from the halls of bureaucracy. There will be Coast Guard ships operating in blue water, not in the numbers that some would like to see, but certainly the trend away from the oceans will be stemmed. Inshore, the "hip boot’ sailors will remain very much in evidence, filling in the places where other authorities do not run and enforcing the law. As for the numbers, when things finally get down to cases, that issue does not lie in the hands of the Coast Guard, its leaders, or its members. Argument for and against a particular ship type, or the telling logic of a particular concept will not, regardless of how well we within the service articulate it, buy us the future. The decisions affecting what needs doing rest with the people of these United States and depend upon whether or not they are prepared to pay the price of admiralty- I think that they will pay that price. They are pragmatic people and will recognize that there is no second choice.
There will soon be a new Pickering, and the ne^ Tampa, and a new McCulloch to show the Coast Guard ensign wherever on the waters of the world this nation's business takes them. If I am correct in my assessment of the country’s willingness to keep the seas, the Coast Guard’s proud roll call of ships will continue through this century and thereafter far as long as this nation endures.
Epilogue: The time of change is here! Since thts article was written, the Coast Guard has been engulfed by a series of events which seem clearly t0 presage sweeping reassessment of the service’s place in the sun. Because of the incremental way those things came upon us, many people haven't seen 11 pattern in them, and they have therefore tended t° react with more concern than may be warranted- Within the Coast Guard, for example, the impact not of change but of its prospect has been enormous- There is a feeling of insecurity, and "mess deck intelligence" has been in overdrive. There is genera dismay at what is seen as little understanding of and support for the Coast Guard within the Department of Transportation. There is also a sense of contusion stemming from the perceived inconsistency t*e' tween what is happening and the President’s announced goals of strengthening the defend establishment and improving law enforcement.
The first “event” occurred in May 1981 when the Commandant directed reductions in activities to aC'
commodate shortages in operating funds. The principal impact of the reductions was upon fisheries and drug law enforcement, with a sliding scale applied, based on geographic location. One example of the result was that drug interdiction effort on the West Coast diminished by 90%. The dollar shortage came about largely because of the effects of inflation on the price of fuel, and thus it was considered a short-term anomaly correctable in the budget process. The stand-down in operations didn’t end with the new fiscal year, however, because we are still Working off the training and maintenance deficits which accumulated as a result.
During the same period, the NavGard Board completed its first report. The board proposed that the wartime tasks for the Coast Guard be enlarged — and that they should be enlarged in a manner which will clearly take maximum advantage of the service’s peacetime skills and duties. In addition to specific mission areas, the board also concluded that the two Coast Guard area commanders (Atlantic and Pacific) should become the organizational element responsible for the planning and coordination of our coastal defense. On 3 December 1981, the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, U. S. House of Representatives, published an oversight report entitled Semi-Paratus: The United States Coast Guard, 1981. Its general thrust was that the Coast Guard does not have the resources to cope with the variety of responsibilities placed upon it and that while high priority must be given to the Coast Guard’s at-sea missions and to improvements in training and plant maintenance, the service should be relieved of responsibilities “. . .which can be fulfilled with equal or greater competence and efficiency by other federal agencies, by state or local government, or by the private sector.”
During January 1982, money problems again came to the fore. After a series of continuing resolutions, the fiscal year 1982 budget was enacted, and it appeared to provide almost 26% more money than in fiscal year 1981. Appearances were deceiving, however, because it did not. I will not detail all the legerdemain involved, but keep in mind that about half of the budget was already committed to multiyear procurements and another good-sized chunk
Coast Guard cutters capture drug smugglers and their vessels both in real life and in the imaginary world of the cartoonist. In Garry Trudeau’s comic strip “Doonesbury,” the smugglers intended to pick up a cache of drugs from a freighter at night, but they inadvertently made their rendezvous with the Coast Guard instead.
goes for unmanageable expenses, among which is the October 1981 military pay raise. Appearances, however, became a key issue when, on 22 January 1982, the Commandant announced a series of cutbacks, closures, and decommissionings, “To comply with 1982 appropriations levels and consistent with our objectives of efficiency and economy in Coast Guard operations.” As announced, the cuts amounted to a reduction in force levels approaching 10% of the Coast Guard’s total strength, including closure of three air stations, the decommissioning of 11 cutters, and the shutting down of more than 20 search and rescue stations. Judging by the force of public reaction to the announcement, there is room to believe that, at the very least, the public affairs aspect was not well handled. The whole series of problems having an impact on the budget was not made clear, and as a result, the public seemed skeptical—feeling that the widespread cuts were not for the reasons stated. They made their objections known in a storm of protesting letters and actions, and it is interesting to note that the decision to seek a supplemental appropriation was probably the result of their hue and cry. The joint statement by the Secretary of Transportation and the Commandant to the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, made on 26 February in seeking supplemental appropriations, may have fed that skepticism rather than allayed it. (Most of the previously announced cuts have since been deferred, on the assumption that funds will be forthcoming.)
The “Roles and Missions Study,” which 1 noted earlier as a landmark, has fallen behind schedule and may not be available until May. The delay stems from major philosophical differences in the positions espoused by the Coast Guard, by the Department of Transportation, and by the Office of Management and Budget. Many of the differences appear centered on the role of the Coast Guard as an armed force and the economies which might be realized by civilianization. It appears that the Department of Transportation and Office of Management and Budget members have argued that only a small percentage of Coast Guard activities really contribute to national defense, with one figure cited being as low as 16%. Whole missions which in the Coast Guard’s view are clearly in the defense area were seen by others in a different light. For example, Ray Karam, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Budget and Programs, maintained at one point that port security was not wartime-related and that the Coast Guard's role in that area was analogous to that of the Federal Aviation Administration with regard to airports.
As if that were not enough. Congress included in the Defense Department appropriations bill S300 million specifically earmarked for the improvement of the Coast Guard's ability to carry out defense missions. This was a highly unusual step, so there has been much discussion about what, if anything, was really being signalled. Further, two bills have been introduced by individual legislators seeking to transfer the Coast Guard to the Department of Defense. The arguments for change seem to be that the Coast Guard is not faring well where it is. That view was strengthened when, on 16 February, the National Council of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States adopted a resolution supporting movement of the service to DoD, because the Coast Guard is currently unable to fulfill its military readiness missions because of a lack of resources. The resolution also urged the President and Department of Defense “ ... to fund the Coast Guard at a level adequate to carry out its lawful missions.”
The waters grew still more muddied. On 1 December 1981, the Department of Defense authorization act for fiscal year 1982 added a new chapter to title 10, permitting limited use of DoD assets for law enforcement purposes. While the assistance that it makes possible is a good use of national assets and clearly in the public interest, it came at a time when the Coast Guard had stood down from law enforcement, when cutters sat at the piers and aircraft didn’t fly because of shortage of funds. It is, I think, no wonder that our people were confused- They are also a little suspicious, I might add, about what is being signalled.
Fuel for that particular fire was added by an article appearing in several newspapers on 9 March of this year. It was under the byline of Roy Gutman of the Los Angeles Times!Washington Post news service- In the article, Mr. Gutman alleged that a year-long fight was in progress to dismantle the Coast Guard and transform it into a civilian agency. He went on to cite an internal document in which:
"... budget office examiners proposed that the Coast Guard be reduced in size within five years to 15,000 civilians and 3000 military per' sonnel. and that a civilian administrator replace the military commandant. The Coast Guard’s 378- foot cutters would be transferred to the Nava Reserves, teams responsible for buoys and other navigation aids would be transferred to the Arrn> Corps of Engineers, polar icebreakers would shu to the military sealift command and the Coast Guam Academy at New London, Conn., would closed.”
Needless to say, the full text of the article has been seized upon throughout the service as the expla' nation of the machinations of last year.
During essentially the same period, the ReagaIJ Administration raised the subject of “user charges for those who benefit from services furnished by Coast Guard. This would mean that the cost of those services need not be levied as a general tax up°n
nation. The concept is one which, in principle, jPakes sense and has received support both within ”e Congress and from the public. Legitimate conCerns have been voiced about the mechanics of such j? Astern, and also about its effect upon the demands 0r Coast Guard services.
Cne of the biggest problems we face in dealing 'v,th all of these harbingers of change is the difficulty t viewing them as parts of a single process. Little u°rt has been made to tie things together and, in ^sequence, there has been on the part of the Coast uard a tendency to circle the wagons and defend . e status quo. The Department of Transportation js Playing the part of the catalyst for change—quite jje proper role for the department. On a wider scale, ;je administration is taking on the issue of the ^nging roles of the federal government, and Con- §r^ss has indicated that it has its own views about hat the Coast Guard should be.The resultant jus- 'hcation and review, and the need to defend the jews in adversarial debates may be painful, but it s° may well be the only way to ensure that tomorrow’s roles match tomorrow's needs.
As I have tried to point out, the Coast Guard does ^ed some changes and must not fear them. After what the Coast Guard does has evolved over ^ years of this nation’s history. During that time,
In time of war, the Coast Guard becomes part of the Navy, and even in peacetime cutters train at naval facilities, as the Gallatin (WHEC-72I) is doing here at Guantanamo. There are some suggestions afoot that the Coast Guard be officially transferred to the Department of Defense for service in both war and peace.
specific functions have come and gone; the ones that were clearly in the national interest survived. If they continue to make sense, they will continue to be supported in the public forum, and the Coast Guard needs to be an active participant in that evolutionary process. I should mention, however, that the definition of what the Coast Guard should do in the future is an issue separate and distinct from the process of acquiring funds with which to do it. We face, as a nation, some difficult years during which reshaping of the economy may well be a matter of survival. In such a climate, the Coast Guard’s needs may well be considered at least partially deferable, and it may be some time before some future oversight reports can substitute “Semper Paratus’’ for “Semi-Paratus.”