Coast Guard Essay Contest Winner
Recent operations attest to the Coast Guard’s can-do ability to fulfill a variety of missions—here, the USCGC Staten Island (WPB-1345) patrols the waters off Haiti alongside the USS Stark (FFG-31) during Operation Able Vigil—but without a body of doctrine about its role as an armed force, the Coast Guard risks being overlooked or discounted in joint operations.
Nineteen-ninety-four was one of the most successful years in Coast Guard history. Joint counterdrug operations, U.N. sanctions enforcement in the Red Sea, and Operation Support Democracy all testify to the Coast Guard’s ability to operate jointly. In the new strategic environment, Coast Guard capabilities have expanded our available options for addressing national security interests and objectives. And Coast Guard assets in the total force have increased in value with the downsizing of the other armed forces and the shift in strategic focus. Yet a clear vision of the Coast Guard’s role in this new environment is elusive.
Most Coast Guardsmen readily acknowledge their service’s statutory obligation to report to the Navy for wartime assignment, but consensus dissolves rapidly when the discussion moves to its involvement in contemporary joint operations. Because the Coast Guard has not established a body of authoritative precepts about its role as an armed force, a set of shared values and assumptions does not exist. Rather, internal discord and ad hoc decision making frequently accompany the Coast Guard’s military endeavors. The end result is that Coast Guard capabilities are suboptimized in the total force, the Coast Guard is overlooked or discounted in joint doctrine and deliberate plans, and its requirements for military weapons and sensors are placed at risk.
The Coast Guard needs doctrine to sustain its effectiveness as an armed force—to tell individuals both within and outside the service what the Coast Guard does and what the appropriate uses of its military capabilities are.
An internal initiative is under way to evaluate the utility of doctrine for the Coast Guard. As conceptually proposed, Coast Guard doctrine would embody “enduring fundamental principles [that] promote unity of purpose, guide professional judgment, and enable our people to best fulfill national objectives.”1 Because a host of internal publications already describe service values and procedures, many people question the need for doctrine, but a review of Coast Guard military issues reveals deficiencies that the proposed concept would address.
Does the Coast Guard Embrace Enduring Fundamental Principles that. . .
. . . Promote Unity of Purpose! The Coast Guard’s civil- military, multimission character confounds a clear comprehension of its purpose and capabilities. On the outside, the Coast Guard looks like a conglomerate of unrelated functions—lifesaving, law enforcement, and regulating—all in the same blue wrapper. Internally, competing programs and specialties foster stove-piping and parochialism. Even the Coast Guard Academy alumni magazine noted. Few people, even in the service, can understand or articulate concisely what the Coast Guard is.”2 With no authoritative guidance to bound it, the debate includes conclusions that range from the Coast Guard is not equipped to fight; to its operating units are untrained; to it should operate submarines!3
More than two years ago, the Commandant’s national security policy statement embraced a unifying purpose for the Coast Guard—i.e., that all Coast Guard missions directly support the national security of the United States. It clarified that the Coast Guard’s national defense, law enforcement, maritime safety, and environmental protection roles are supporting elements of the larger national security objective. The policy statement seemingly was a keystone pronouncement, but it had minimal impact. Within the fleet, there seems to be minimal knowledge of the policy’s existence or contents. Many Coast Guardsmen still mistakenly equate national security solely with national defense—or war fighting—rather than with the Coast Guard as a whole
This is just one example of fissures between stated policy and internal follow-through. If a capstone policy is neither well communicated nor well understood by the service’s own rank and file, it is small wonder that such external players as command planners and congressional staffs can be flummoxed by Coast Guard involvement in military affairs.
. . . Guide Professional Judgment? Force planning and execution of joint operations demand a cohesive vision and a grasp of the roles and capabilities that each of the services delivers. Without authoritative guidance, planners and decision makers at all levels, both within and outside the organization, are free to—and of necessity are required to—make judgments and decisions about the Coast Guard s posture as an armed force based on situational expediency and colloquial perspective.
Whose judgment will prevail? Two years ago, the Coast Guard prepared to deploy a high-endurance cutter to the Red Sea for U.N. sanction enforcement. All of the planning steps and conceptual approvals were in place and the ship was readied for its mission. An eleventh-hour congressional staff challenge to the deployment resulted in its cancellation. A few years earlier, a similar challenge blocked deployment of Coast Guard patrol boats to the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq tanker war. In the cutter fleet, the 378-foot ship class recently completed installation of the Phalanx close-in weapon system; at least one commanding officer already has recommended its removal because he foresees employing it in only the most remote contingencies. Meanwhile, a recent report to the Navy-Coast Guard (NavGard) Board stressed the need for maintaining cutter self-defense capability.
Rather than a series of mutually reinforcing acts to leverage Coast Guard capabilities in joint operations, we seem to have multiple random program expediencies: put Harpoon on, take Harpoon off; stand up deployable patrol boat squadrons, disband them, try standing them up again; lobby to operate coastal patrol boats, then declare no interest in them, then pursue them again; deploy a cutter to the Red Sea, don’t deploy a cutter. What enduring principles are guiding these judgments?
Uncertainty of purpose particularly hampers Coast Guard readiness planners and DoD liaisons, who in their day-to-day operations are armed with little in the way of authoritative Coast Guard guidance. For example, when attempting to represent the service in joint doctrine and plans, authoritative Coast Guard doctrine always will carry more weight than “Commander Smith recommends . . .” By extension, muddled or absent guidance affects the quality of joint planning and doctrine. Lacking Coast Guard commitment (demonstrable in part through doctrine), the inclination is to minimize or discount Coast Guard involvement. The cost is one of either redundant or suboptimal capability in the total force.
Deference to senior leadership’s judgment on a case- by-case basis provides no guarantee of consistent outcomes. In 1991, a survey of Defense officials and flag and general officers—including commanders-in-chief (CinCs) and former Commandants—revealed a diverse range of opinion regarding appropriate functions for the Coast Guard as an armed force: no Coast Guard involvement unless war is actually declared, continuance of routine missions in wartime, using Coast Guard to backfill Navy assets engaged forward, and carrying out “the diverse nature of duties the Coast Guard is tasked to perform in military contingencies.”4
Joint Navy-Coast Guard subgroups of the NavGard Board have labored to identify Coast Guard roles that add value to joint operations and to develop those roles conceptually so that they can be brought into reality by the CinCs and service chiefs. This is a giant step forward in marshaling Coast Guard military capabilities in support of national objectives; however, only a small community of mostly senior officers are even aware of the studies and their conclusions.
The Commandant’s personal support of Coast Guard involvement in joint operations is encouraging. An earlier Commandant also promoted Coast Guard military capabilities enthusiastically in the late 1980s, but his initiatives dissipated after his tenure. Today’s Commandant must choose an enduring medium, such as doctrine, to sustain focused long-term thinking about the Coast Guard as an armed force.
. . . Enable Its People to Best Fulfill National Objectives? Coast Guard military capabilities are national assets that should be applied where they best further national objectives. Incorporating these assets into joint operations allows the CinC to lash up lower-threat mission requirements with appropriate service and platform capabilities. It also can help reduce strained operations and personnel tempos and free high-tech “shooters” for redeployment to higher-threat scenarios. This is a force multiplier—boosting total force capability at incremental cost. Recent examples include the Coast Guard’s assumption of U.N. sanction-enforcement responsibilities in the Red Sea and operations in Haiti, where Coast Guard cutters and aircraft proved ideal matches to both mission and threat environment. This added value becomes even more significant as the other armed forces stretch ever thinner to cover global national objectives.
In addition to providing a framework for identifying Coast Guard roles in joint operations, doctrine also offers a medium for educating and building support outside the organization for performance of those responsibilities. The inability to surmount political obstacles—demonstrated by the aborted Red Sea cutter deployment—causes planners to be cautious about relying on Coast Guard forces. A willingness to commit Coast Guard forces to deliberate plans must be paired with the ability to deliver those forces in the event. Doctrine can help to shift debate away from parochial agendas and toward an overarching perspective of how national interests are served by Coast Guard involvement. In this respect, doctrine can foster confidence in the Coast Guard’s political and joint-service relationships.
Joint interoperability demands that operational concepts, as articulated through joint and naval doctrine, be assimilated and integrated into campaign planning, unit operations, and the individual commander’s decision-making processes. Therefore, the Coast Guard already must assimilate doctrine if it is to integrate seamlessly into joint operations. Without its own body of doctrine, however, it is at a distinct disadvantage in communicating and incorporating Coast Guard precepts into the thinking of CinCs, planners, and the other forces present.
Inconsistent or nonexistent internal guidance for the Coast Guard as a joint player, reinforced by its absence from or underrepresentation at DoD assessment forums (e.g., war games) also forfeits opportunities to integrate, validate, and refine Coast Guard force employment and operating concepts. This in turn deprives the Coast Guard of support for resourcing decisions that can flow from assessment exercises. The Navy provides and helps maintain all warfare systems in the Coast Guard inventory; with the Navy absorbing its own budget cuts, the Coast Guard cannot assume continued support for its weapon and sensor systems if it cannot articulate the ways its platforms contribute to the current strategy.
NavGard Board studies heavily emphasize interoperability and, for cutters, self-defense capability. What level of antiair or antisurface warfare defense is adequate? Will the eventual replacement for the cutter Mk-92/Mk-75 gun system be derived from a well-conceived Coast Guard role in joint/naval operations or will it be an expedient chosen because the system is no longer supportable? Does Phalanx meet a realistic requirement? Does any cutter need armament larger than optically sighted machine guns—and if so, to do what, in what threat environment? If Coast Guard military utility is limited to Haitian/Cuban operations, vessel boarding teams, and Harbor Defense Commands, should dormant Coast Guard weapons and sensors continue to be supported?
When it is time to retire the high-endurance and medium-endurance cutters, will their replacements be conceived strictly in terms of domestic missions, driven by budget constraints and the Coast Guard’s inability to demonstrate their role in the national force structure? The Coast Guard’s recent flirtation with the acquisition of T-AGOS vessels virtually ignored national defense considerations: they are slow, unarmed, and minimally manned for peacetime missions. If there is no realistic expectation of ever deliberately putting cutters in harm’s way, should the future cutter fleet more closely resemble the high-endurance cutter Hamilton (WHEC-715) or the T-AGOS ship Vindicator? Which will best support future national objectives?
The service has shown an admirable can-do ability to surge resources to meet emergent challenges, but the can-do approach does not optimize planning or Coast Guard resource commitment. The Commandant recently wrote to the Chief of Naval Operations, “As always, our cutter fleet, aircraft, and personnel stand ready to carry out their assignments... . the Coast Guard stands ready to pull [its] weight.”5 Is today’s Coast Guard engaged in a process to enable its people to “pull their weight” now and fulfill national objectives in the future? What vision and body of principles are provided to guide their judgment in day-today decision making and enable them collectively to support the long-term goals of the Coast Guard as an armed force?
Why Not Doctrine?
Objection 1: Doctrine is threatening. It implies dogma and restrictions on creativity and initiative.
IBM's Thomas Watson, Jr., noted that "any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions."6 For the Coast Guard, doctrine can provide a starting point and an operative framework within which to fix assumptions and develop solutions to its future military challenges. To be used to greatest advantage in joint operations, the Coast Guard must ensure that it is appropriately represented in joint doctrine. Because doctrine incorporates the accumulated knowledge of collective experience and lessons learned, it is evolutionary and adaptable.
Objection 2: Because it is chronically resource-limited, the Coast Guard dislikes committing to future unknowns.
The Coast Guard nearly always will commit resources to future unknowns such as search and rescue, oil spills, and humanitarian relief, and doctrine in and of itself commits the Coast Guard to nothing other than shared understandings of concepts and capabilities. Without Coast Guard doctrine, the service is at a disadvantage in communicating and meshing with other services or outside agencies.
Objection 3: Domestic politics will dictate or override any Coast Guard commitment to joint operations.
This may be possible, but lacking a realistic and coherent vision, there exists little guidance for the day-today incremental decision making that over time could position the Coast Guard better to perform its role in joint operations. This includes internal alignment of its varied specialties with the stated goal, building support outside the service for performance of its joint responsibilities, and refining its operating concepts through practice. It is specious to condemn future congressional encounters to today’s outcomes; today’s appeal to personalities and circumstances can be supplanted in the future by arguments grounded in doctrine and experience.
Objection 4: Doctrine is just another paper burden, another chance for the staff to second-guess the operators.
There are fragments of doctrine-like guidance scattered throughout existing directives that, if consolidated, would better organize and reduce the directives library. Authoritative, but not directive, doctrine does not substitute for judgment. For the careerist, doctrine should offer few surprises, but for the neophyte it should expedite the absorption of service values, precepts, and expectations.
Conclusion
Through doctrine, the Coast Guard can empower itself through a surety of purpose and direction, better educate those who would support or make use of Coast Guard capabilities, and constructively bound the debate over the service’s involvement in joint military operations. Doctrine is a means to better integrate Coast Guard capabilities into the total force and to make better and more consistent decisions about the Coast Guard’s military roles and the resourcing necessary to support them. Ultimately, it arms all personnel—from liaison officers to program managers to department heads to external players with a common philosophical groundwork and knowledge, so they can apply their own initiative and judgment with assurance to use the Coast Guard to best advantage in supporting the interests and objectives of the United States.
1 Working Draft: Report of Field Commanders' Concept of Doctrine, March 1995.
2 Herbert A. Black, III, "Time for a Choice: Semper Paratus or Semper Extremis?” The Bulletin, February/March 1989, p. 8.
3 William L. Ross, "Semper Paratus? The Coast Guard is not equipped to fight," Naval War College Review, Winter 1990, p. 117; Christopher A. Abel, "Use It or Lose It," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1989, p. 39; Gerhardt B. Thamm, "Shallow Water Antisubmarine Warfare," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1991, pp. 93-95.
4 Capt. Bruce Stubbs, USCG, The U.S. Coast Guard's National Security Role in the Twenty-First Century, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, June 1992, p. 180.
5 Adm. R. E. Kramek, USCG, letter from Commandant of the Coast Guard to the Chief of Naval Operations, 27 January 1495.
6 Thomas Watson Jr., quoted in Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence; Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies (New York: Warner Books, 1982), p. 280.
Commander Waterman, a graduate of the Coast Guard Academy and the Naval War College Command and Staff College, is executive officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Support Center at Kodiak, Alaska.