The U.S. Coast Guard today

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2004 by Thomas H. Collins

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

In addition to the critical strategic relationships that we are forging within the Department of Homeland Security, our battle-tested special relationship with the U.S. Navy warrants emphasis. The two services have always enjoyed close relations, but we are today working together more effectively than at any time since World War II. This partnership is yielding important dividends in the global war on terrorism at home and overseas. In today's post-9/11 world, we must forge even closer bonds.

It is worth recalling that one of the first telephone calls that Admiral Vern Clark, Chief of Naval Operations, made on 9/11 was to my predecessor as Commandant, Admiral James M. Loy. Admiral Clark, recognizing the Coast Guard's leading role in providing enhanced levels of maritime homeland security in the wake of the terrorist attacks, asked how the Navy could assist the Coast Guard in carrying out this responsibility. Consistent with this vision of partnership, thirteen Cyclone-class coastal patrol ships were quickly transferred by the Navy for Coast Guard use in Operation NOBLE EAGLE.

Early in my own tour as commandant, Admiral Clark and I signed a revision to the "National Fleet" policy agreement that guides our mutually supportive policies, programs, and operations. This policy guarantees that the U.S. Coast Guard will be steaming in close formation with the U.S. Navy during its transit through the sea of change. Our National Fleet agreement commits us to shared purpose and common effort focused on tailored operational integration of our multimission platforms, infrastructure, and personnel. Full cooperation and integration of our nonredundant and complementary capabilities will be achieved to ensure the highest level of maritime capabilities and readiness for the nation's investment. Processes are in place to synchronize research and development, planning, fiscal stewardship, procurement, development of doctrine, training, and execution of operations for the National Fleet.

The Coast Guard's contribution to the National Fleet includes its statutory authorities (including law enforcement), multimission cutters, boats, aircraft, and C4ISR systems designed for the full spectrum of Coast Guard missions. All ships, boats, aircraft, and shore command-and-control nodes of the National Fleet will be interoperable to provide force depth for peacetime missions, homeland security, homeland defense, crisis response, and wartime tasks. Coast Guard assets and expertise will continue to flow to the Navy in selected niche naval-defense operations, and U.S. Navy assets and expertise will flow to the Coast Guard, when necessary, in connection with our lead role for maritime homeland security.

Expanded Navy-Coast Guard collaboration extends from acquisition planning to current operations--an area where there is more than enough fight for each of us. This strengthened Navy-Coast Guard partnership occurs at a critical time. When Admiral Clark addressed the International Seapower Symposium last year, he asserted that sea lines of communications are under attack all over the world. During the first half of 2003 alone, he said, there was a record 234 reported attacks against seafarers--the worst six-month period since the International Maritime Bureau started compiling piracy statistics in 1991, and a full 34 percent increase over the same time period in 2002. Successful terrorist attacks against lucrative maritime targets and the U.S. maritime transportation system are especially worrisome because they could wreak economic havoc. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, estimated that a terrorist strike against the American cargo-shipping system could cost the U.S. economy as much as fifty-eight billion dollars.