Coast Guard "seizes the moment", The

Sea Power, Jun 2001 by Stubbs, Bruce, Nelson, David

Bruce Stubbs, who retired from the Coast Guard as that service's director of operations capability, is a technical director at the Anteon Corporation. David Nelson is a maritime analyst with Anteon's Center for Security Strategies and Operations.

"Eleven years after the Cold War, we're in a time of transition and testing. We must use this time well; we must seize this moment."

President George W. Bush delivered that rallying cry about the need for his top-down strategic defense review while visiting the Norfolk Naval Air Station on 13 February 2001. Anticipating such a challenge, the fifth and smallest of the U.S. armed services-- the Coast Guard-is already hard at work to give its aviation forces unprecedented capabilities for national-security missions. Since 1998, in fact, the Coast Guard has aggressively pursued a project-involving the use of armed helicopters for some law-enforcement missions-that could have far-reaching consequences for America's overall maritime security.

Ominously, U.S. sovereignty and security at sea are now under attack-- but not in the traditional military sense. Instead, the nation has in recent years faced an array of daunting challenges quite unlike anything previously experienced-e.g., maritime terrorism and major increases in arms trafficking, drug smuggling, and illegal migration. These challenges respect no boundaries, have a predominantly law-enforcement dimension, and have broadened the definition of "national security" in both the number and complexity of issues facing the Coast Guard and other federal lawenforcement agencies.

A Continuum of Force

To deal with these threats at sea, which are both transnational and asymmetric, the Coast Guard needs more than its fleet of cutters of various sizes, particularly to counter high-speed, agile, stealth-like surface ships.

For the first time in its long history of maritime security operations, the Coast Guard is turning to its aviation forces as the means to stop-and to board, if necessary-noncooperating surface ships. This summer will see the successful completion of the armed helicopter project when the Coast Guard formally commissions its first-ever aviation squadron-Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron 10 (HITRON-10) in Jacksonville, Florida.

Equipped with eight helicopters, HITRON-10 will give operational commanders a formidable operational tool with the capability to deliver both nonlethal force and, if required, disabling fire to compel a surface ship to stop for U.S. law-enforcement purposes. No longer will a threat ship be able to out-- run and evade a cutter or to ignore the verbal commands from a helicopter to cut its engines. With HITRON-10 helicopters "flying cover," disregarding a lawful command to stop will activate a "continuum-of-force" response from the helicopters until the surface ship stops.

This capability-combined with other new nonlethal capabilities, doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures-will transform the way in which the Coast Guard protects U.S. maritime security and sovereignty for years to come. The new capability is expected to be particularly effective against the "go-- fast" boats of drug smugglers who consistently outrun and evade Coast Guard cutters.

The "Go-Fast" Threat

During testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1998, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M. Loy stated, "It is important for this committee to know that, in my estimation, the most significant problem we have is the lack of surface end game capability in the transit zone and the arrival zone. We are getting brutalized at the moment by go-fast vessels." The Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that go-fast activity has increased tenfold since 1995 and that more than 400 go-fast smuggling missions are attempted each year. According to officials, go-fasts now account for approximately 70 percent of the overall maritime drug flow to America and for 85 percent of the cocaine moved through the key transit zones of the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific.

The typical go-fast is 30 to 40 feet long and is capable of carrying up to two tons of drugs to ranges up to 1,300 miles at speeds of 40 to 50 knots-- twice the speed of a typical Coast Guard cutter. Because they often are designed with low-observable features and multiple high-performance outboard engines-and employ sophisticated radar and stealthy tactics, such as operating under camouflage or with night-vision goggles under cover of darkness-they have become the conveyance of choice for drug smugglers.

Another reason for the shift in smuggling tactics is that the traffickers quickly realized that Coast Guard high- and medium-endurance cutters lack not only the speed but also the sensors needed to detect and intercept the go-fasts. Lt. Cdr. Jason Church, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot involved in many drug-interdiction operations in the Caribbean Sea, said in an interview with CNN, "They [the gofast crews] pretty much mocked us and just kept going. Sometimes they wouldn't even look at us."