Peace and Prosperity 

But Vigilance and Preparedness Come First

Sea Power: Mr. Congressman, would you please outline your role serving on the Coast Guard Congressional Caucus? What are its goals and principal activities?

VITTER: Our role is very simple. The Caucus exists to support and enhance the goals, missions, and performance of the Coast Guard. The greatest impact we can have is by educating our fellow members of Congress. The Coast Guard always has a big challenge getting its message across to the American people—and even to some congressional members—who don’t really understand its civilian and maritime duties, unique funding challenges, or how it fits in with the nation’s other armed forces. There is a great deal of useful education that can be done with the public, and also with Capitol Hill, to deal with some of those difficulties.

How successful is the Caucus in achieving its goals?

VITTER: Having joined the Caucus as a new member only a few months ago I have just seen a smattering of its activity, but I think that it is successful. Certainly its leaders—most of whom have Coast Guard backgrounds and experience—are very good at communicating, in a very personal way, the roles and missions of the Coast Guard.

This communication function is especially critical as the Coast Guard seeks funding support for its Deepwater recapitalization requirements, correct?

VITTER: Absolutely. The role of the Caucus is more important now than ever before, primarily because of the Deepwater program. It is the largest acquisition-funding project that the Coast Guard has undertaken at any time, so the challenge of educating and preparing members here is paramount.

I understand that you have met with Admiral Loy [Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M. Loy] to discuss the Deepwater program?

VITTER: Yes, I met with him personally and with other members of his staff at his headquarters about six months ago. It was a good visit. I received a very good briefing on Deepwater before we met. I also had a good visit and briefing at Eighth District headquarters in New Orleans with Admiral Pluta [Rear Adm. Paul J. Pluta, commander, Eighth Coast Guard District] that gave me a very good hands-on feel for Coast Guard activities in my district in Louisiana.

Given the importance of the maritime industry, and of inland waterways, to Louisiana’s economy, you must have witnessed the benefits of the Coast Guard’s mission directly in recent years. What would you want to tell the American people about their Coast Guard?

VITTER: The Coast Guard is enormously important in a number of different areas. In addition to its role in national defense, it is engaged in domestic issues like support of the maritime industry and safety on the seas. I know from my ties to the New Orleans area that the Coast Guard’s services are absolutely critical in terms of their support to maritime commerce, the Port of New Orleans, and surrounding areas. During my time with Admiral Pluta I learned more about all of the major activities that they are involved in, particularly in the New Orleans area.

One great local example in Louisiana goes directly to maritime safety—a new program entails improved mapping and the installation of equipment on ships for safer navigation between the mouth of the Mississippi River and points north of New Orleans. You may remember the Bright Star incident several years ago—the large vessel that ran into the banks of the river in downtown New Orleans near River Mall, a major tourist shopping mall. We were very fortunate that no one was killed.

That was a major incident, and so the Coast Guard now is in the center of developing and implementing a program to improve navigation by using signals and mapping to avoid a similar incident in the future.

That’s just one example. I talk to close friends in the maritime industry all the time, and they are always very complimentary about what the Coast Guard does. They are some of the strongest advocates for increased funding, particularly for the Coast Guard’s maritime-related missions. That’s really good for me to hear.

You could have a situation where a regulatory entity like the Coast Guard would be in a very adversarial relationship with industry, but you don’t have that. I think that is very healthy. The Coast Guard does its job in a very professional and competent way, but it also demonstrates a cooperative spirit as it works to improve safety and performance in the maritime industry as a full partner—and not just as a regulator in an adversarial position.

The Coast Guard’s "get-well" budget for fiscal year 2000 under the Department of Transportation [DOT] was not adequately funded. As a result, the service has been forced to cut back on all nonemergency operations during recent months. What is the outlook for congressional approval of a supplemental appropriation to fund the Coast Guard adequately during the remaining months of this fiscal year to avoid additional mission reductions?

VITTER: Funding is always a major challenge with regard to Coast Guard issues. I am relatively hopeful we will at least be able to get the president’s budget request fully funded. "Plus-ups" beyond that are going to be difficult. Funding is a challenge no matter what department you are talking about.

There is a lot of pressure to hold the line on spending for debt relief. We just passed a "lock box" on Social Security and Medicare. Fiscal discipline and many hurdles, in general, make any supplemental somewhat of an uphill battle, but I am hopeful—knock on wood—that we will at least hold the line on the president’s request.

Will the Caucus communicate the severity of the challenge that the Coast Guard faces as the fourth quarter approaches?

VITTER: Absolutely. One of the biggest roles the Caucus can play is to communicate—one-on-one with members—about what the Coast Guard’s current situation means. It is one thing to hear big numbers and a lot of statistics, but it is another thing to learn in very concrete terms about what the impact of underfunding means from day to day to the Coast Guard’s very crucial missions—whether it’s in the area of maritime industry, or drug interdiction, or national defense.

Isn’t a long-term remedy what is really needed to ensure that the Coast Guard receives all the funding needed to carry out its missions—so that it does not have to rely on annual supplemental appropriations to get it through the year?

VITTER: You’re right. The fact that we are constantly talking about supplemental funding underscores the fundamental problem. We need to address that.

I don’t have any easy answers, but there are a number of challenges. One is the history and multimission nature of the Coast Guard and where it fits into the broader scheme of things. It is not as clearly understood by the public, or by many members of Congress, compared to the other armed forces.

The second challenge relates to the fact that the Coast Guard falls under the Transportation Department in peacetime, so it is somewhat divorced from the military in some people’s minds.

I think that trying to transfer at least some accounts under DOD [Department of Defense] could help improve the situation. There are many programs—personnel, benefits, and related programs—where the Coast Guard’s needs are essentially identical to those of DOD. It’s just a different political reality now.

I’m not sure if it’s practical, but we should at least talk about moving those programs wholesale to the Department of Defense. Some missions, like law enforcement, are unique to the Coast Guard, and it performs other domestic functions. It would make sense to move their personnel and benefit programs into DOD, however—namely, those programs that either are or should be identical to those of DOD’s armed services. I think that would be a big improvement.

Another mechanism to achieve that end would be better harmonization of the Coast Guard’s budget between OMB [Office of Management and Budget], DOD, and DOT. Could Congress smooth out that process as an alternative approach to fixing the overall budget problem?

VITTER: That’s a great idea. We can certainly encourage it, talk about it, promote it, and try to demand it. Of course, that is largely an administration call, and it largely rests on the administration to foster that sort of cooperation. It is clearly the direction we need to move in—just like building on jointness in the services in general is the direction that we need to move in.

One of the things that most excites me about the Deepwater program is that it is designed to integrate Coast Guard and Navy resources better and, hopefully, that’s one important example of a trend we can develop overall that also will help on the funding side. If you have that jointness, and if you have that mission and asset coordination, I think it is going to encourage the funding coordination that you are talking about.

The very term "Deepwater" sends a signal, because there has been a paradigm shift in the Coast Guard’s national-defense role entailing law-enforcement missions for forward-deployed Navy battle groups, embargo support, the interdiction of illegal migrants, and counterdrug operations—all missions that take the Coast Guard well out from the U.S. coastline. What factors account for this growing emphasis on "deepwater" missions for the Coast Guard?

VITTER: It is a natural and necessary response to a change in threats. If you look at where the Coast Guard needs to be focused, more and more of the threats and challenges our nation is facing are moving to the deepwater areas of the ocean. For instance, in terms of national security we live in a world that is very dangerous in a lot of ways. But the danger that we think about isn’t someone coming ashore on our coast immediately. The dangers are hotspots around the world where we have interests to protect, so the dangers are further removed than what is entailed by simply patrolling our coasts.

Drugs! Clearly drug interdiction is a major responsibility of the Coast Guard, but to do that effectively, you can’t just stay on our shore and wait for smugglers to get here—you have to have the intelligence and the assets to be able to project way off our shore to be effective in stopping some of the drug-smuggling before it gets near our coasts.

Much of the nation’s maritime industry is focused close to shore, but more and more you also have deepwater activity associated with it. For instance, in our domestic oil and gas industry—which is so important in Louisiana—there is a huge deepwater exploration and production effort underway to project the industry further from our coast.

Alien-interdiction operations are similar to drug interdiction. We can’t just stop on our coast and wait for them to come here. We need to do the intelligence and have the assets projected to deepwater to stop some of the illegal migration—it’s more difficult to stop it near our coast.

During our recent visits to Coast Guard units, we were struck by the falloff in the readiness of their HC-130 aircraft and, of course, in the growing age of their cutters—even though their mission requirements continue to grow year after year. How critical is the Coast Guard’s need for recapitalization and modernization?

VITTER: It’s absolutely vital. The Coast Guard has much older assets than many navies of much smaller powers around the world—that have much fewer demands on them. I am very encouraged by the support that the Coast Guard’s modernization and recapitalization project has gotten at OMB and within the administration. Support also is beginning to be generated here on Capitol Hill.

As I said, it’s a major educational process. We need to continue to underscore the vital need for the Deepwater program and other modernization, and we must underscore the joint, coordinated role that the Coast Guard can play with the Navy and how it can bolster the Navy’s assets in time of war.

You discussed earlier the many missions facing Coast Guard personnel. An important part of their overall structure is the Coast Guard Reserve and the Coast Guard Auxiliary. There are 8,000 Reserve billets authorized this year, but only 7,300 are funded. Several years ago, 12,000 billets were authorized, but that level was cut back with no rationale given. So here is a two-part question: First, do you think you can eventually get full funding for all of the 8,000 Reserve billets authorized; and second, is it possible to gradually increase the authorization over the years, back to 12,000 billets, particularly in view of the Reserve’s close work with the active-duty Coast Guard?

VITTER: I would hope that over some reasonable amount of time we could fully fund all the authorized billets. I don’t have a good feel for whether we should increase the billet structure by 50 percent in terms of authorization. As a general trend across all the services, the Reserves are more and more important as an integral part of their capacity to deploy and respond to their missions—whether you are talking about the Coast Guard or the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force. They are more important as a part of the everyday and necessary workings of the services. I am hopeful that we will be able to bolster the numbers for the Coast Guard Reserve.

You have played a leading advocacy role in a number of other defense-related matters, including National Missile Defense [NMD]. Would you care to discuss your reasons for this advocacy?

VITTER: I am interested in many national-defense issues, and I think missile defense is as important a challenge as we now have. Most Americans, according to recent surveys, assume that we have some sort of a missile shield. They are shocked to find out that we don’t, and then they are frightened to find out that regimes as dangerous and unstable as North Korea will very soon have the capability to lob missiles, perhaps with nuclear warheads, that can hit U.S. cities.

That is an enormous threat, particularly in this age of rogue nations, terrorist threats, and terrorist blackmail.

I think it is absolutely essential that we meet that threat. I am encouraged on the one hand that we have essentially won the general debate about the need for missile defense. Even the Clinton administration is acknowledging the need. But the devil is in the details. We certainly have not won the larger and crucial battle of developing and moving forward with the right sort of system.

Defining the right sort of system brings up another area where you have been leading the fight—namely, requiring DOD to take a close look at a sea-based missile-defense system as part of the overall NMD structure. What are the selling points for the sea-based system?

VITTER: It is absolutely vital that the sea-based system be an integral part of NMD. That is the reason why I introduced—as my first bill on the floor of Congress about a year ago—the Realistic Threats National Security Act.

With regard to our theater systems, particularly THAAD [Theater High-Altitude Area-Defense system] and the Navy Theater Ballistic Missile Defense [TBMD] system, it says that we actually test those systems against the threats that are really out there—including the North Korean threat—rather than keeping them below that threshold.

We are not talking about theoretical threats—these are concrete, present-day threats, and we should be building systems to test against them. I also think it makes sense to develop the theater systems to their full capacity because they can be a useful part of a more global system. Many people from all ends of the spectrum think that a sea-based system can be one of the most effective types of missile defense because you can have this component sitting off the coast of a country like North Korea—ready to launch missiles very early on during an intercontinental ballistic missile’s boost stage of flight, rather than having to build an expensive umbrella across the whole United States.

That also may be necessary, but it’s much simpler to hit ballistic missiles in their boost phase than in the upper levels of the atmosphere. I think there is a lot of merit to developing the sea-based component of NMD.

Another major factor in its favor is that it is almost certainly the type of missile defense we could develop most quickly and most cheaply. If you want to put in place the actual beginnings of a missile defense system to give the United States some basic level of protection, particularly against rogue nations like North Korea, then a sea-based Aegis system is the way to do it.

How do you respond to the recent GAO [General Accounting Office] report on missile defense that found that the Navy’s Theater Wide BMD program has high schedule and technology risks? Some critics say that the sea-based option would require considerably more time to develop beyond 2015.

VITTER: There are going to be tremendous challenges. We are basically talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet, so there are tremendous challenges. That being said, I think you have to put things in context. Part of the context are those folks who are against the whole idea of national missile defense when it comes right down to it—be it by 2015 or sometime in the 23rd century.

You also have to put their arguments in the context that major technological breakthroughs are possible and are achieved during a system’s development. When President Kennedy simply announced that we would land a man on the moon and get him safely back to earth within the end of a decade, that was also high-risk. But NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] began work on that mission, and they literally started scheduling inventions. There were all sorts of things that they needed to invent, and in some cases they didn’t have the foggiest idea of exactly what those things would look like. They had to schedule breakthroughs and inventions throughout the decade. They did that, and they ultimately met the challenge.

That is the same challenge now. But I think that the decade’s work in the 1960s to reach the moon proves that, if you simply stand at year one and say "We can’t do it," then you are never going to figure it out.

In closing, is there anything else that you care to say to the members of the Navy League and the other readers of Sea Power?

VITTER: I congratulate them on their interest and on their support for our sea services. It’s always a battle, quite frankly, to get the services the level of support that they need—whether we are talking about the Coast Guard or the Navy and Marine Corps, particularly in an era of prosperity and peace like we now enjoy.

You don’t have to read a whole lot of history to understand that the surest way to maintain that prosperity and peace is through strength—through a strong Navy and the other armed forces.

We can’t forget that. We can’t forget the lesson of Munich and the other lessons of the past century. We have to maintain our vigilance and preparedness so that we can continue to sustain prosperity and protect the peace.