Is the Coast Guard facing a crisis?

A report by the Center for American Progress suggests that the US Coast Guard is facing a budgetary crisis, and is in dire need of restructuring and renewal. In a covering article, the Center has this to say.

Our nation today demands more from the U.S. Coast Guard, the nation’s oldest maritime force, than at any time in the service’s history. Coast Guard personnel and assets are conducting counterpiracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, protecting Iraqi petroleum pipelines and shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, and shouldering the load in the government’s response efforts to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, the largest oil spill in the nation’s history. The Coast Guard remains heavily engaged in all of these theatres in addition to its traditional and better-known search and rescue, drug interdiction, and port security missions.




The accelerated pace and scope of these domestic and international missions is the new norm for the Coast Guard. But if the Obama administration and Congress expect the Coast Guard to maintain its current level of operations effectively, they must begin providing the service with the commensurate leadership and resources necessary to transform and modernize the service. Failure to correct the current imbalance between responsibilities and capabilities will further erode the service’s already dwindling ability to carry out its statutory missions, and deny it the ability to protect this nation against 21st century challenges.




... when the administration’s FY 2011 budget proposal was unveiled in February 2010, the Coast Guard’s total funding was cut to $10.1 billion, or nearly 3 percent less than the amount appropriated for the current fiscal year ending September 30, 2010.

If the Coast Guard’s budget is authorized and appropriated as proposed, its total budget next fiscal year will be lower than that of next year’s total purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters by the Department of Defense—next-generation fighter aircrafts that are not needed in Iraq or Afghanistan.




The age and condition of the Coast Guard fleet is already affecting the service’s ability to carry out its missions. Take, for instance, the Coast Guard’s prominent role in the United States’ humanitarian mission in response to the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 12 of this year. ... The Coast Guard was a critical player in the United States’ successful relief effort in Haiti, but the service also experienced serious equipment and logistical challenges as a result of the age and condition of its equipment. Twelve of the 19 cutters that were eventually sent to Haiti required emergency maintenance while two of them had to be recalled from operations for emergency dry-dock repairs. Coast Guard helicopters that were needed to assist surveillance and rescue missions instead had to be assigned to transport spare parts and equipment to Coast Guard assets in the field.




The Coast Guard’s current situation is not new. The service has a long history of adaptability and resiliency in the face of ever-changing operating and bureaucratic environments and fiscal constraints (see box), but meeting all of these challenges without sufficient budget support is simply not possible.

In order to modernize to confront 21st century threats, the Coast Guard must once again adapt to a new bureaucratic environment as well as receive appropriate levels of funding. Should the Obama administration and Congress not help the Coast Guard overcome these obstacles, gaps in the service’s capabilities will only be magnified in the future and the men and women of the Coast Guard and the nation will suffer.

There's more at the link. (Bold print is my emphasis.) The full report may be viewed and downloaded here (file is in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format). I highly recommend reading the report for the wealth of information and analysis it contains.

This is a subject very dear to my heart, for several reasons. One is my knowledge of the historical importance of the Coast Guard to the United States. (For example, not many people know that during World War II, many of the landing craft that put US troops and Marines ashore in Europe and the Pacific were manned by Coast Guard sailors, or that many Coast Guard cutters served alongside US Navy warships in the fight against the U-boat menace to the Atlantic convoy routes.)

Coast Guard Flotilla 10 tied up next to British landing craft, prior to escorting them
across the English Channel to take part in the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.

Another is my volunteer work for the National Sea Rescue Institute in South Africa many years ago. A private organization, the NSRI performed many of the life-saving functions entrusted to the US Coast Guard, and did yeoman service. When 'those in peril on the sea' call for help off US coasts, it's the Coast Guard which is the first responder.

I accept that the senior leadership of the US Coast Guard, both uniformed and civilian, has made some major blunders in the past decade or two. The fiasco over the Deepwater modernization program is merely the most public example. Nevertheless, without an effective, efficient Coast Guard, it's literally true to say that lives will be at stake.

I think it would be far better to invest an extra $5 billion a year in the Coast Guard than to waste it on subsidies to inefficient industries, or handouts to the indigent. I'd be grateful if readers with an interest in this area would please contact their Congressional representatives and Senators, and ask them to investigate this matter for themselves as a matter of urgency.

Peter