The USCGC Sycamore (WLB 209) crew participates in a navigation exercise with a HDMS Knud Rasmussen (P570), a Royal Danish Navy Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel and the FNS Fulmar (P740), a French Navy patrol vessel, off the coast of Southern Greenland, June 13, 2023. Deployed forces demonstrated U.S. Coast Guard capabilities to build partner capacity and expertise in search and rescue, navigation, and damage control. These efforts solidify key strategic relationships while achieving mutual Danish, Greenlandic, and U.S. goals in the North American Atlantic Arctic and Northwest Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Blue)

The US Naval Institute has an interesting article written by an old fiend. I think he identifies a real problem but I can’t agree with his solution. Briefly his position is that,

“Of the Coast Guard’s 11 statutory missions, only five align under the Department of Homeland Security. Three (Marine Safety, Environmental Protection, and Aids to Navigation) should be reassigned to other government departments and agencies.”

If you are a regular reader, you know I think we are not really ready for the “Defense Readiness” or “Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security” missions but I don’t think that is because we have other missions. Historically I don’t believe those missions were taken seriously by DHS. DHS is focused on Migrant interdiction and to a lesser extent Drug interdiction. This means ICE and Customs and border protection are their primary instruments. (Yes, the Coast Guard got an infusion of cash in the 2025 reconciliation (the “Big Beautiful Bill”)  but ICE and CBP got much larger funding and also got another huge funding increase in the 2026 reconciliation.) In years when funding is tight DHS tends to favor those agencies over the Coast Guard knowing that the Coast Guard, unlike the others, has strong bipartisan support and will get everything the administration asks for along with some additions. Since there is a tendency to make as few increases as possible in the budget, increasing the Coast Guard budget might result in cuts elsewhere in the DHS budget.

When congress tells the Commandant “just tell us what you need” it seems those reports never make it to Congress. The last Fleet Mix study, which I am sure said we needed more large cutters, was never declassified.

For whatever reason, the Navy seems to be hesitant to tell the Coast Guard what our role will be in a major war and how they would like to see Coast Guard units equipped. Essentially nothing has changed in this regard since I retired in 1991 except the removal of ASW equipment and Harpoon missiles. Certainly I see no evidence the Coast Guard is training or being equipped for a wartime role.

The Coast Guard should be an independent agency. We really don’t need to have to explain ourselves to a new raft of political appointees in the Department every four years, so they can tell the administration and Congress what we need, when their number one priority is migrant interdiction at the land border.

Coast Guard leadership can justify our needs and explain the benefits of Coast Guard operations.

Looking at the proposal.

Mission breakdown

Considering the proposal, of the three missions proposed to be handed off, Aids to Navigation is by far the most important. Buoy tender sailors go on to sail in other classes of ships and buoy tenders don’t just tend buoys. Many of our big ship crew members learned their trade on buoy tenders. Tenders are multi-mission assets that do Icebreaking, SAR, and LE. They support Webber class in doing fisheries in the Western Pacific and drug interdiction in the Eastern Pacific. They do domestic icebreaking in the Great Lakes, the North East and Alaska. The Coast Guard is a good agency to handle this because most of the people involved are sailors first and that is an essential skill for aids to navigation.

Is there some other agency better prepared to do Marine Inspection? Do marine inspectors do other work for the Captain of the Port? Do we benefit from information exchange between SAR and Marine Inspection?

MEP, other than the Strike Teams, seems to be very much a part time job, reflected in the small 2.3 percent credited to that missions. Boats patrolling a harbor may spot pollution and the group responses. Something like the Deep Water Horizon was a big job, but not a full time job. Assets were diverted and reservist were called up. Reserves frequently play a major role in major pollution cases. Is there another agency with reserves they can call on?

Will divesting itself of three missions help the Coast Guard do the remaining missions better? Not if they lose the people and funding that go with the missions. In fact we would probably lose some degree of the flexibility that the service is famous for.

Does the Navy suffer because they have ships doing law enforcement as suggested? I really do have a lot of sympathy for those away from home for many months, but actually being at sea is the best training and Navy ships are generally underway less than Coast Guard ships. A short cruise with a LE Detachment on board some time between a yard period and deployment is a good time to do training and qualifications. I can understand the feeling that a DDG is overqualified, but LCSs, particularly the Freedom class based in Mayport, certainly are not.

It should be obvious it is time to start adding an ASW capability to large patrol cutters. Just about all our cutters need a hard kill system against unmanned air and surface systems.

We also need to start developing a new class of more warlike cutters that would be considered a corvette or light frigate.