| Special
Report: The Integrated Deepwater System
The Coast Guard's Closest Point of Approach
to Maritime Homeland Security
By THOMAS H. COLLINS
Adm. Thomas H. Collins is Commandant of the United
States Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard passed a historic milestone with
its transfer to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on 1 March 2003.
Its realignment with 21 other agencies into the new federal department
unites the nation's efforts behind the compelling and urgent mission of
protecting the American people from another terrorist attack.
This unity of effort, coupled with the department's
clear lines of authority and command under DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, will
bear rich security dividends for the citizens of our country. There are
many other important implications for the Coast Guard itself. As Secretary
Ridge testified before Congress during his confirmation hearing on 22
January, "The Coast Guard's fundamental responsibilities--preparedness,
protection, response, and recovery--cut across all facets of the department's
mission."
The Coast Guard's transition associated with this
realignment has gone incredibly well. A central feature of that transition
has been, and will remain, our traditional hallmark of operational excellence
as a military, maritime, and multimission service.
Critical to the Coast Guard's readiness to perform
its expanded homeland- security tasks while concurrently carrying out
its other traditional missions is attaining additional capacity and capability
within our force structure.
The Coast Guard's homeland security "build-out"
has benefited from a fast start. The unprecedented growth in our operating
budget during the past two years has started us down the path we must
follow to acquire the resource capacity and new capabilities so desperately
needed to meet the growing demand for our services at home and overseas.
With the strong support of DHS and the Department of Transportation, and
of the U.S. Congress, these funding increases have allowed the Coast Guard
to implement the president's strategy for maritime homeland security,
sustain our traditional missions near their pre-9/11 levels, and maintain
the Coast Guard's always high standards of operational excellence.
The president's fiscal year (FY) 2004 budget request
will enable the Coast Guard to continue our multiyear plan to meet the
challenges that our operational commanders face in the field. It would
provide the Coast Guard with another 10 percent increase ($614 million)
over the president's FY 2003 budget request. The service's FY 2004 budget
includes $65 million to deploy six new Coast Guard Maritime Safety and
Security Teams to respond to terrorist threats or incidents in domestic
ports and waterways. It provides an additional $53 million to buy nine
Coast Guard coastal patrol boats to serve as vessel escorts in U.S. ports.
It also includes funding for an additional 2,000 new personnel billets.
Looking to the future, our "system of systems"
IDS (Integrated Deepwater System) program is central to our ability to
build and maintain operational excellence across our full range of missions,
especially homeland security. It has solid backing from the administration,
with $500 million included in the president's FY 2004 budget request.
The imperative to recapitalize the Coast Guard's aging platforms and systems
has never been more evident if we are to achieve needed levels of future
readiness. I have said on many occasions that our Deepwater recapitalization
program was important before 9/11. In light of today's increased maritime
threats to the nation's security, it is not just important--it is urgent.
Strategic Alignment
Before discussing the relevance of IDS to maritime
homeland security, it is important to understand the challenges presented
by the tasks assigned to us. The current increased focus on maritime homeland
security reflects a Coast Guard legacy extending back to the earliest
days of our republic. Now--as then--the world's oceans provide the primary
trade routes for commercial goods and raw materials entering and leaving
the United States. The protection of trade, commerce, and recreation along
our shores remains vital to our nation's prosperity.
Today, the Coast Guard serves as: (1) the lead federal
agency for maritime homeland security when responses require action by
civil authorities; (2) the Federal Maritime Security Coordinator in the
U.S. ports designated by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002;
(3) a supporting agency to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for
declared disasters or emergencies under the Federal Response Plan; (4)
a supporting agency to the lead federal agency for specific events postulated
by the provisions of the current U.S. Government Interagency Domestic
Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan; and (5) as a supporting or supported
commander for military operations under Title 10 U.S. Code.
Mindful of this complex charter and the need for
strategic alignment, we have moved aggressively during the past year to
protect the U.S. maritime domain and the U.S. Marine Transportation System
against terrorist threats. At the same time, we have moved to ensure that
our properly heightened priority for maritime security is balanced against
the statutory requirements covering such other critical operations as
search and rescue, fisheries enforcement, pollution response, and aids
to navigation. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 mandates that we meet
these requirements--and we will.
The United States faces a terrorist threat that
is without precedent in terms of its origin, motives, scope, and complexity.
The immense dimensions of the U.S. maritime border--nearly 95,000 miles
of open shoreline, 25,000 miles of navigable waterways, more than 3.4
million square miles of exclusive economic zone, and 361 seaports--compounds
the difficulty of the security challenge before us. Our maritime border
serves as a gateway for approximately 95 percent of all noncontiguous
U.S. trade, which now contributes almost $750 billion annually to the
nation's gross national product, and is expected to further increase in
the future.
The Coast Guard's Maritime Strategy for Homeland
Security was developed during the past year to directly support the National
Strategy for Homeland Security and the National Security Strategy of the
United States. Our strategy for the U.S. maritime domain is built on several
main pillars: preventing terrorist attacks; reducing vulnerabilities to
attack; protecting population centers, critical infrastructure, and the
Marine Transportation System; and minimizing the damage caused by, and
recovering from, any attacks that do occur.
The Coast Guard's strategic approach to maritime
homeland security places a premium on identifying and intercepting threats
well before they reach U.S. shores by: (1) conducting layered, multi-agency,
maritime security operations; (2) strengthening the security of our strategic
economic and military ports; and (3) building on current international
security efforts.
We increase our prospects for acquiring awareness
and knowledge about the maritime domain when we give Coast Guard crews
multiple opportunities to prosecute potential threats in a layered defense
extending across the entire maritime domain of domestic waters (ports
and waterways), border and coastal areas (coastal and maritime approaches),
and foreign regions (the high seas and foreign ports). Our strategy recognizes
that terrorists can strike at or within U.S. ports, coastal regions, and
waterways--or set such attacks in motion during ocean transits well beyond
the nation's territorial sea.
The need for a layered defense, extending hundreds
of miles to sea, to provide the levels of maritime security needed has
stood the test of time. The Coast Guard not only must build a line of
defense in close proximity to our highest-value targets, but also project
our defenses seaward. Our goal is to provide needed security improvements--to
deter, detect, disrupt, and destroy terrorist threats--while preserving
and promoting U.S. prosperity by providing for the efficient flow of seaborne
commerce. We have defined our strategy, are building our competencies
to meet new requirements, and are transitioning in earnest.
Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, ships bound
for the United States, regardless of registry, face a multilayered interagency
security screening process that extends well beyond the enforcement of
traditional safety,
nvironmental, and operational standards. Each incoming
vessels must now provide a 96-hour advance notice of arrival to the Coast
Guard's National Vessel Movement Center. Crew and passenger information,
cargo details, and voyage history all must be reported.
Highly trained and specially equipped Maritime Safety
and Security Teams add an extra layer of security and quick-response capabilities
in key U.S. ports. An expanded Sea Marshal program and random boardings
also improve security and help us to retain the initiative and element
of surprise.
These necessary measures have improved our capability
to "push out our maritime borders," which President Bush has
correctly prescribed as the most effective way to achieve maritime homeland
security. Those measures are by no means sufficient, however. To push
our borders out effectively, we will need new technology for better surveillance,
secure communications, and more efficient command-and-control systems.
We also will need broader coverage of the air and water approaches to
our shores.
In the entire history of the Coast Guard it has
never been more important or urgent to recapitalize our aging fleet of
vessels and aircraft, and to provide them the network-centric capabilities
needed both to communicate effectively and to coordinate their collective
efforts. That is precisely what we intend to do through our Integrated
Deepwater
System.
The Importance of the Integrated Deepwater System
The near-term program initiatives we are taking
to implement the strategic elements of our maritime homeland security
plan are closely linked to the additional capacity and new capabilities
that the Integrated Deepwater System will deliver to the Coast Guard when
the platforms and systems envisioned in this program begin to enter service.
Deepwater will contribute measurably to increased maritime domain awareness,
enhanced security operations, modernized security capabilities and competencies,
and increased readiness for homeland defense, all of which are key elements
of our Maritime Homeland Security Strategy.
During the development and implementation of that
strategy, the Integrated Deepwater System's critical linkage to maritime
homeland security and future readiness came into sharp focus as we refined
and aligned our strategy, resources, and programs to reflect today's realities.
Many of the traditional activities of the Coast
Guard--emergency preparedness and response, for example, as well as maritime
law enforcement--already are aligned with the maritime homeland security
mission, while strategic planning documents underscore the relevance and
priority of fleet-wide modernization. The National Strategy for Homeland
Security states specifically that the president "is committed to
building a strong and effective Coast Guard and will continue to support
the recapitalization of the Coast Guard's aging fleet, as well as target
improvements in the areas of maritime domain awareness, command-and-control
systems, and shore-side facilities."
Over the next 20 years, Deepwater will transform
the Coast Guard's operational capabilities in nearly all mission sets.
The new vessels, aerial platforms, and systems provided by the Deepwater
program will improve performance significantly across the Department of
Homeland Security as the Coast Guard's operations become more closely
integrated with those of the Department's other agencies. Deepwater will
give the American people a vastly more capable, reliable, productive,
and cost-effective Coast Guard.
The Deepwater recapitalization plan, developed over
the past six years, was premised on the reality that nearly all of our
major platforms--110-foot patrol boats, large cutters, fixed-wing aircraft,
and helicopters--will reach the end of their service lives during the
current decade. Some of our older cutters saw service in World War II!
Simply stated, the growing requirement for Coast
Guard services is exceeding the availability of assets possessing the
operational capabilities required. The Maritime Transportation Security
Act of 2002, for example, increases our focus in ports across the country,
grants new authorities, and extends (from three to 12 miles) our jurisdiction
over foreign-flag ships. Most of the responsibility for meeting the increased
operational requirements assigned under the Act falls to the Coast Guard
itself.
Our operational tempo--characterized by expanded
maritime-security operations, which are projected to consume approximately
44 percent of our operating budget this year--has been described as a
"new normalcy" for the Coast Guard's operating forces. In recent
months, our area and district commanders have balanced their many competing
high-priority requirements to ensure that appropriate emphasis also is
placed on our traditional missions. This is, however, an increasingly
challenging balancing act--for a number of reasons.
The operational readiness of nearly all of our major
legacy platforms continues on a downward trend. All classes of cutters,
for example, are experiencing a steady decline in readiness that has taken
them well below our target levels. Our goal is to be underway, free of
major machinery or equipment casualties, 72 percent of the time. At the
end of 2001, our 378-foot high-endurance cutters were free of major casualties
in the "C3" and "C4" readiness categories (the two
lowest categories of material readiness included in the Department of
Defense's four-tiered system) only 27 percent of the time. Nearly half
(22) of our 49 110-foot patrol boats have experienced significant degradation
in hull integrity.
In the skies, our HC-130H long-range search aircraft
benefited from an infusion of program funding in recent years, but only
the HH-65 helicopter meets our target of 71 percent availability. Many
of our aircraft also continue to operate with obsolete sensors or systems
possessing limited capabilities.
Current connectivity deficiencies--another reflection
on the limitations imposed by aging legacy systems and our previous platform-centric
acquisition practices--are especially worrisome, given today's compelling
need to be able to communicate data and information quickly to many interagency
players on an international playing field.
The need to support and maintain a platform-centric and antiquated force
also presents extraordinary logistical challenges. I am constantly impressed
by the way our young men and women are able--mostly through their hard
work and ingenuity--to keep our aircraft flying and our cutters at sea.
Deepwater's Integrated Logistics System will give the Coast Guard a continuous
and total logistics support capability that will span the range of our
operational requirements at both the system-wide and platform levels.
The Coast Guard's spiral of declining readiness
is the compound result of many factors: deferred modernization, aging
assets, increased maintenance, higher total-ownership costs, and past
funding migration to support current operations. Fortunately, the past
two years' funding increases to the Coast Guard's operating budget, and
the president's proposed budget for fiscal year 2004, will allow us to
apply critically needed resources to address our most pressing near-term
readiness concerns.
Our FY 2003 budget includes the largest funding
increase in the Coast Guard's history--more than $913 million in new operating
expenses, more than $101 million in capital assets, and, when combined
with the FY 2002 supplemental, the funding needed to pay for 2,000 new
billets. The FY 2004 budget proposed by the president will allow us to
recapitalize legacy assets and pay for Rescue 21 (the nation's primary
maritime distress system for coastal waters), build-out our homeland-security
capabilities, and sustain our traditional mission levels.
The president's FY 2004 request for $500 million
for Deepwater recapitalization will provide funding for: (a) our first
National Security Cutter; (b) the conversion of five 110-foot Island-class
patrol boats to 123-foot patrol craft: (c) the acquisition of seven short-range
"Prosecutor" small boats; (d) continued development of the Deepwater
integrated C4ISR and logistics systems; and (e) a range of enhancement
projects for legacy surface and air platforms.
An Integrated System of Systems
Last June's contract award to Integrated Coast Guard
Systems, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman,
opened an exciting chapter in the Coast Guard's recapitalization and transformation
program. Deepwater places the Coast Guard on a clearly defined course
for future operational excellence and an improved ability to safeguard
the nation's maritime security.
Just as we have aligned our strategy, resources,
and programs to support today's national-security requirements, so too
is the Deepwater program aligned to provide our future forces with the
modern platforms and improved capabilities they will need to perform the
Coast Guard's traditional mission-task sequence of surveil, detect, classify,
identify, and prosecute.
The Deepwater program entails far more than the
progressive modernization and eventual replacement of our aging inventory
of cutters, patrol boats, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters. Most importantly,
it provides an integrated system-of-systems approach to upgrade existing
legacy assets through a low-risk transition to full capability with new
platforms--including unmanned aerial vehicles and highly improved systems
for C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence,
surveillance, reconnaissance) and integrated logistics.
In February, for example, Bell Helicopter, a subsidiary
of Textron Inc., was awarded a contract for its tiltrotor vertical-launch
unmanned aerial vehicle (VUAV)--the Eagle Eye--to commence concept and
preliminary design work for the first phase of the UAV portion of the
Deepwater program. The contract calls for Bell to design, develop, and
build three prototype Eagle Eyes for testing by 2005.
Also in February, the 110-foot USCGC Matagorda became
the first of our 49 Island-class patrol boats to enter the Bollinger shipyard
in Lockport, La., to undergo conversion to a 123-foot vessel with upgraded
operational capabilities. The modifications planned include the fitting
of a stern ramp to enhance small-boat launch-and-recovery operations.
The Short-Range Prosecutor, our new seven-meter boat, will add to the
patrol craft's capabilities. A new deckhouse, new berthing compartments,
a new galley, an improved air-conditioning system, and other enhancements
will improve habitability and quality of life for the crew when they are
underway.
The Coast Guard's inventory of HH-60J and HH-65
helicopters also will be modernized with new avionics or other system
improvements over the next five years. New maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters,
and VUAVs will significantly improve our surface-surveillance capacity
and capabilities. Deepwater's total-aviation solution of manned and unmanned
platforms, at completion, will deliver 80 percent more flight hours than
today's legacy systems. Although originally conceived with "deepwater"
missions in mind, their suitability for a wide range of homeland-security
operations is clear.
Deepwater also will improve the Coast Guard's operational
capacity through upgrades to multiple command facilities ashore and to
a majority of our major legacy cutters.
Deepwater's three new classes of cutters will be
designed for improved sea keeping and higher sustained transit speeds,
greater endurance and range, and the launch and recovery, in higher sea
states, of improved small boats, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
We have arrangements in place to leverage the Navy's work in developing
its new Littoral Combat Ship and family of ships as part of the updated
National Fleet agreement I signed last July with the chief of naval operations,
Adm. Vern Clark.
Our new cutters and aerial platforms will permit
greater integration and full interoperability among our own assets and
those of the U.S. Navy. Our allies and friends overseas also are interested
in the possibility of adopting Deepwater assets to meet their own recapitalization
requirements.
In addition to their improved operational capabilities
and ease of maintenance, the modern platforms provided by Deepwater will
be safer for our men and women to operate both at sea and in the air--they
also will reduce today's worrisome potential for shipboard fires, for
single-engine aircraft landings, and for accidents similar to one dangerous
incident in which a boat davit failed from metal fatigue after decades
of exposure to the corrosive effects of seawater.
In the context of maritime homeland security, perhaps
Deepwater's most significant capability enhancement will be in the area
of C4ISR. Deepwater's C4ISR system is structured so that new capabilities
are designed, developed, integrated, and tested in increments.
The Deepwater C4ISR system will play a key in improving
our ability to develop an improved maritime domain awareness capability
focused on meeting the information needs of operational decision makers
and tactical commanders engaged in operations at sea, ashore, and in the
air. This network-centric system is being designed to ensure that we will
possess and maintain seamless interoperability with the forces and agencies
of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security as well as a broad
spectrum of other federal, state, and local agencies--in short, it will
be a true force multiplier in the fullest sense.
In addition to its contributions to maritime domain
awareness, Deepwater's C4ISR system will be a key building block in our
goal of enabling operational commanders to share a common operational
picture so they can employ forces more productively and manage risk wisely.
The requirements for Deepwater's C4ISR architecture
call for it to be fully interoperable with Rescue 21. Full integration
of IDS with Rescue 21 will enhance our force-allocation capabilities within
U.S. coastal areas. The ability to exchange both distress and security-related
data between surface, air, and shore assets will serve as a force multiplier
both in the prosecution of SAR emergencies and in our ability to acquire
maritime domain awareness, greatly improving the effectiveness of harbor-security
operations.
Inherent Flexibility and Utility
Although the Integrated Deepwater System's platforms
will be designed to incorporate the robust operational capabilities needed
to carry out the most challenging open-ocean missions, they also will
offer national decision makers the inherent flexibility and utility common
to all naval forces.
The Integrated Deepwater System will lead to the
Coast Guard's transformational alignment--an ongoing process entailing
major intellectual, cultural, and technological changes. It will create
joint competencies and partnerships from separate individual-service and
agency capabilities. Deepwater is in many ways, therefore, our pathway
to the Coast Guard's future operational excellence and mission balance.
Keeping the Deepwater program on course for successful
execution is one of my highest priorities, because it will provide the
fastest and most efficient way to improve our nation's maritime security
and safety. Deepwater will enable the Coast Guard to maintain a credible
presence in key maritime regions to deter potential threats to U.S. sovereignty.
It will provide the nation with the best maritime security capabilities
possible, and dramatically improve our ability to carry out the numerous
military, law-enforcement, search-and-rescue, and other missions assigned
to the Coast Guard.
Deepwater will ensure that the Coast Guard, and
our nation, will be able to continue to deploy the best and most cost-effective
force of its type in the world--a force that is military, multimission,
maritime, and mobile.
The Coast Guard's predecessors in the Revenue Marine
answered the call more than 200 years ago when the Congress charged them
to "... defend the sea coast and repel any hostility." The Integrated
Deepwater System will give the Coast Guard of today and tomorrow the means
to continue that proud tradition. *
Maritime Domain Awareness: The Deepwater C4ISR
Contribution
* Shared tracks and real-time data streams.
* On-line intelligence.
* Robust and seamless connectivity and continuous coordination.
* Stand-alone capability.
* Supplemented by active and passive sensors.
* Expanded areas of surveillance and
detection.
* Improved communications with all agencies and with merchant shipping.
Deepwater's Increased Operational Capacity
Deepwater's modern force of cutters, patrol boats,
fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles will substantially
improve the Coast Guard's capacity and productivity in key ways:
* The conversions of patrol boats will provide 525
additional operational hours annually for each boat in the 49-vessel Island
class.
* A new "fast-response" cutter will provide more than 1,000
additional operational hours annually for each hull than is possible with
current 110-foot patrol boats.
* The proposed aircraft recapitalization solution will deliver 80 percent
more flight hours annually than be achieved by current legacy platforms.
* The national security cutters, with their embarked multimission helicopters
and VUAVs, will provide more than three times the surveillance capacity
of today's legacy assets.
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