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by
JAMES M. LOY
Adm. James M.
Loy is commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
At the dawn of
the 21st century, America's citizens and interests--and its allies and
friends throughout the world--are at increasing risk from a variety of
transnational threats that honor no frontier: extreme nationalism,
terrorism, international organized crime, illegal alien migration, drug
trafficking, conventional weapons smuggling, proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, environmental damage, complex flows of trade, and
state aggression. "To move against the threats of this new global
era," the President's October 1998 National Security Strategy for a
New Century explains, "we are pursuing a forward-looking national
security strategy attuned to the realities of our new era. ... Its three
core objectives are:
- To enhance
U.S. security.
- To bolster
America's economic prosperity.
- To promote
democracy abroad."
America's
national security is thus no longer focused solely on military threats
to the nation. Indeed, the dividing line between domestic and foreign
policy is increasingly blurred by globalization--the process of
accelerating economic, technological, cultural, and political
integration. "More and more we as a nation are affected by events
beyond our borders," the National Security Strategy recognizes. As
U.S. national security interests embrace a rich tapestry of cultural,
social, environmental, economic, political, diplomatic, and military
dimensions, we must examine critically the tools necessary to carry out
this strategy effectively. Further, the National Security Strategy makes
clear that a "close coordination across all levels of
government--federal, state and local"--will be fundamental to
success.
In this regard,
the Coast Guard is an increasingly important and, indeed, unique asset
in America's multifaceted security strategies at home and abroad. The
Coast Guard is a military, multimission, maritime service within the
Department of Transportation and one of the five U.S. Armed Services.
Its fundamental roles are to protect the public, the environment, and
U.S. economic and security interests in America's inland waterways,
ports and harbors; along some 47,000 miles of U.S. marine coastlines; in
the U.S. territorial seas and our nearly 3.4 million square miles of
exclusive economic zones; on international waters and in other maritime
regions of importance to the United States. Interagency cooperation has
been crucial in meeting the nation's needs in these critical regions,
with the Coast Guard in many instances a lead coordinator of activities
involving the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and
Transportation; the Customs Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Drug Enforcement Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, National
Marine Fisheries Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service;
and numerous local, state, and international agencies and
non-governmental organizations.
Five
Maritime-Security Roles
Since its
founding as the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790, the Coast Guard has
unfailingly provided services and benefits to America's security because
of its distinctive blend of humanitarian, civilian law enforcement,
diplomatic, and military capabilities. The Coast Guard has broad
responsibilities for safeguarding maritime security--the Coast Guard's
unique contribution to America's national security. Today these
capabilities ensure homeland defense, protect critical infrastructures,
safeguard U.S. maritime sovereignty, and defend American citizens and
interests worldwide. The Coast Guard's five
maritime-security roles and their importance to America, today and in
the future, are as follows:
National
Defense. Notions of homeland defense and maritime sovereignty shape
the Coast Guard's law enforcement roles, missions, and tasks to defend
U.S. maritime borders and offshore zones as well as participating in
global military and defense operations. Coast Guard units play critical
roles in peacetime forward presence, humanitarian support, peacekeeping
and enforcement, crisis-response, and combat operations across the
spectrum of U.S. global engagement in support of the National Military
Strategy's concepts of Shape, Respond, and Prepare. The Coast Guard's
involvement in shaping the international environment is important and
growing. Coast Guard peacetime engagement in a posture of active and
acceptable presence reaches out to all elements of other countries'
maritime interests and agencies, and in some situations is much less
threatening and more politically acceptable than a purely naval or
military presence. The Coast Guard's people and assets support
in-country mobile training teams and international training at Coast
Guard facilities in the United States, and have helped to establish
maritime codes of law in several countries emerging from authoritarian
rule. Coast Guard support to international initiatives, including bi-
and multi-lateral search-and-rescue and environmental exercises, helps
to underscore America's commitments to regional stability and peace.
The Coast
Guard's extensive peacetime responsibilities in coastal and port
maritime functions and a variety of country-to-country operations
provide broad-spectrum capabilities to respond to threats and crises. In
defending against transnational threats, the Coast Guard provides the
maritime element in homeland defense against drugs, other contraband,
illegal migrants, and weapons proliferation. A robust
command-and-control network rings the nation to direct responses across
the mission spectrum. Coast Guard operational capabilities for these
needs figure importantly in smaller-scale contingencies, providing
humanitarian assistance in natural disasters, boarding teams for
maritime-interdiction operations in support of United Nations sanctions,
and port security in overseas theaters. Finally, Coast Guard tasks in
Maritime Theater Warfare are embracing more facets of naval warfare
operations in littoral regions, including port security and safety,
harbor and environmental defense, maritime interception and coastal sea
control, and force protection.
The United
States clearly confronts a dilemma as to what form its naval and
maritime forces should take in the future to deal with a variety of
challenges: U.S. support to U.N.-sponsored global-security operations;
the security and defense implications of the U.N. Convention on the Law
of the Sea; the need for naval arms control, disarmament, and
confidence-building regimes; the proliferation of naval forces and
weapons, particularly weapons of mass destruction; and the increasing
significance of nonmilitary threats to U.S. maritime security. Thus, to
prepare now for an uncertain future, the Coast Guard maintains a high
state of readiness to function as a specialized service within the Navy
and has command responsibilities for the U.S. Maritime Defense Zones.
Its strategic vision document, Coast Guard 2020, underscores the need to
embrace both the Revolutions in Military Affairs and Business Affairs,
to support robust investment in modernization, and to transform Coast
Guard strategy, doctrine, and organizations to meet the daunting
challenges of the 21st century. In this regard, the National Fleet
Policy Statement, signed in September 1998 by the Chief of Naval
Operations and the Commandant of the Coast Guard, signaled a new era of
close collaboration in planning, acquisition, training, and operations.
Maritime Law
Enforcement. The Coast Guard is the only federal law enforcement
agency with jurisdiction in both U.S. waters and on the high seas, and
is the only U.S. Armed Service not constrained by the Posse Comitatus
Act. In these arenas, the Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of U.S.
laws and treaties that include customs and border control, protection of
living marine resources, safeguarding the marine environment, fighting
piracy, interdicting illegal immigrants and contraband, counterdrug
operations, and helping to stem weapons proliferation. Its counter-drug
operations are critical to achieving the goals of the National Drug
Control Strategy, which calls for "flexible operations to detect,
disrupt, deter, and seize illegal drugs in transit to the United
States." Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy, has warned of the persistent flow of
illegal drugs that kills 15,000 Americans and costs the public more than
$110 billion each year. From 1992 through 1998, for example, Coast Guard
law-enforcement teams conducted 597 drug-interdiction cases, seizing
more than 393,000 pounds of cocaine and nearly 436,000 pounds of
marijuana, and arresting 1,043 narco-traffickers. In 1999 alone, the
Coast Guard interdicted more than 111,000 pounds of cocaine, keeping
some 4.81 million "hits" with a value of $3.7 billion off
America's streets and out of its schools.
Similarly,
fisheries enforcement boardings have in-creased from 9,440 in 1994 to
14,173 in 1998, a critically important factor in helping to rebuild and
maintain fish stocks threatened by overfishing. The economic value of
these fisheries to America is approximately $24 billion annually, and
the U.S. economic zone holds some 20 percent of the world's commercial
fishery resources. And the Coast Guard interdicted nearly 290,000
illegal immigrants from 43 countries between 1980 and 1998. Although
illegal migration from Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and other
Central American countries continues to pose the greatest demand for
Coast Guard interdiction assets, in 1998 China became the single
greatest source of human trafficking by sea. Intelligence agencies
estimated that as many as 20,000 illegal Chinese immigrants attempted to
reach America by sea. The Coast Guard's at-sea interdiction operations
save more than $15 million each year--the estimated cost of Immigration
and Naturalization Service agents apprehending illegal migrants once
ashore; the costs avoided from the interdiction of Haitian refugees
alone from 1990 through 1998 have been estimated at nearly $140 million.
Maritime
Safety. The Coast Guard is renowned worldwide as "America's
Guardian of the Seas"--a reputation for personal courage and
selflessness that goes back to the earliest days of the Revenue Cutter
Service. The National Security Strategy has this role in mind when it
states that "the safety of our citizens" is a vital national
interest. From 1992 through 1997, Coast Guard search and rescue (SAR)
assets conducted 291,094 SAR operations, saving 31,364 people from
injury or death, assisting another 624,762 people in nonlife-threatening
situations, and preventing some $16.8 billion in property losses. With
more than 85 percent of U.S. population living near the coasts,
oceanborne trade perhaps tripling during the next two decades, a virtual
explosion in cruise ship demand, fishing vessels and offshore platforms
venturing farther offshore, and a dramatic increase in personal
watercraft and recreational boats, the job of ensuring maritime safety
and security will become even more challenging. Prevention, founded on
expert risk assessments to reduce the probability of mishaps, will be
the watchword of the future and advanced technologies will continue to
be embraced to increase the probability of success. When lives and
property are in jeopardy on the sea, in coastal areas, and in inland
waters, the Coast Guard will be "Always There ... Always
Ready."
Marine
Environmental Protection. The Coast Guard's prevention, enforcement,
and response functions in marine environmental protection help to reduce
the amount of pollution entering America's and the world's waterways.
Coastal tourism and marine recreation--which in 1997 generated $71
billion to state and local economies, 85 percent of all U.S.
tourism-related revenues--demand clean shorelines and marine
environments. In response to marine environmental security challenges,
and as a world leader in marine environmental protection, the Coast
Guard shapes the safety and pollution-control standards for
international and domestic maritime transportation. This is especially
evident in the areas of Port State Control and the inspection of U.S.
and foreign commercial vessels. The Coast Guard's polar ice-breaking
fleet supports scientific and environmental investigations in both
Arctic and Antarctic regions. The service's ice-breaking efforts
facilitate navigation and prevent flood damage, at an economic value of
more than $93 million.
World and
coastal shipping will continue to grow, while offshore exploitation of
oil and gas resources will continue to expand at ever greater distances
from shore and in deeper waters--both trends increasing the need for
effective enforcement of laws and regulations. The Coast Guard's
prevention of oil spills from all potential sources and activities saves
as much as $5.8 billion each year in oil losses, cleanup costs, and
environmental damage. When prevention and enforcement fail, however, the
Coast Guard maintains a rapid-response capability to contain and recover
from pollution incidents such as the massive 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in
Prince William Sound, Alaska. Three well-trained and well-equipped Coast
Guard National Strike Teams, located on the East, Gulf, and West Coasts,
are at the ready to respond to major oil or other hazardous materials
spills in the inland waterways and coastal regions of the United States.
In some future crisis, moreover, these Strike Teams may be the nation's
"first-responders" to a terrorist attack using chemical,
biological, or nuclear weapons in a crowded port or roadstead.
Maritime
Mobility. Mindful of its mandate to ensure a safe, efficient, and
effective marine-transportation system, the Coast Guard is charged with
regulating and inspecting commercial and private vessels, licensing
merchant mariners, managing waterways, and protecting the security of
America's ports. The U.S. marine-transportation system encompasses some
124,000 Americans employed in domestic shipping-related activities,
including 80,000 seafaring and non-seafaring positions related to
coastwise and inland waterways operations. It also supports a chain of
economic activities that generate another 16 million U.S. jobs and
contributes more than $78 billion to America's economy.
The service's
Aids to Navigation Program and Vessel Traffic Services help to ensure
safe vessel movements, a critical need as global maritime trade is
expected to triple by 2020 and larger numbers of ultra-large,
deep-draft, and minimally crewed ships, many carrying hazardous cargoes,
will ply U.S. waters and exclusive economic zones. Today, 95 percent of
all U.S. overseas trade--in 1998 more than 8,000 foreign-flag vessels
called at U.S. ports--and 13 percent of U.S. domestic/inter-city trade
moves by water. Furthermore, 90 million passengers transit U.S. waters
each year in ferries, cruise/tour ships, and gaming vessels; 26,000
commercial fishing vessels harvest waters under U.S. jurisdiction; and
millions of Americans and foreign tourists use 20 million recreational
craft and frequent thousands of miles of U.S. beaches. In the
not-too-distant future, cruise ships carrying 6,000 or more people will
head for ever more remote areas. Fewer "mega-ports" along U.S.
coasts will serve greater numbers of ships, while smaller "feeder
ports" will contribute to burgeoning vessel densities in offshore
areas--all of which will increase the requirement for effective vessel
identification and tracking. Additionally, U.S. military strategy and
operations will depend upon efficient inland waterways and multimodal
transport nodes, safe ports, and secure sealift for some 95 percent of
material sent to overseas conflicts.
A
Unique Contribution
Thus, maritime
security is the Coast Guard's unique contribution to U.S. national
security in the inland waterways and maritime domains. It embraces all
elements of the cultural, social, environmental, economic, political,
diplomatic, and military dimensions that today shape America's
national-security strategy, policies, and programs of global engagement.
Indeed, maritime security begins at America's inland waterways and river
transport systems that channel commerce to and from the rest of the
world. And it encompasses roles, missions, and tasks that seek to
safeguard U.S. citizens, interests, and friends increasingly at risk
from a broad spectrum of threats and challenges. A military,
multimission, maritime service, the Coast Guard provides singular,
nonredundant, and complementary capabilities to protect America's
maritime security interests. As America's guardian of the seas and the
only U.S. Armed Service with broad law-enforcement authority, the Coast
Guard truly is a unique instrument of U.S. national security. |
