PACIFIC OCEAN (March 28, 2025) Members of the U.S. Coast Guard conduct small boat operations with the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) and U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Terrell Horne (WPC 1131) while underway in the Pacific Ocean, March 28, 2025. U.S. Navy assets are employed under U.S. Northern Command’s maritime homeland defense authorities with a U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment embarked to enable maritime interdiction missions to prevent the flow of illegal drugs and other illegal activity. U.S. Northern Command is working together with the Department of Homeland Security to augment U.S. Customs and Border Protection along the Southern border with additional military forces. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Joey Sitter)
Real Clear Defense has published an article discussing the growing need for coordination between Homeland Defense and Homeland Security organizations. It was written by Austin Doctor, Ph.D., director of strategic initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE), the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Excellence for counterterrorism research.
“…structural changes bring closer together two mission communities that have, historically, been less conversant. The homeland defense mission, in which the military focuses on protecting against external threats and ensuring U.S. sovereignty, now encompasses threats that originate abroad but move across regional networks and extend into American communities. Conversely, the homeland security mission – in which law enforcement oversees border management and domestic threat prevention – now faces a diverse range of violent criminal actors with transnational linkages who enjoy a level of technological access that was not so long ago a unique privilege of state adversaries.
“The formal line between the two missions still demarcates material differences in authorities, equities, and areas of operational specialization. But the adversary gets a vote. And consequential adversaries are operating across that line and along the seams of our mission structures.”
The Coast Guard is mentioned in two paragraphs,
“Third, ongoing investment in securing the U.S. maritime domain is another, less discussed point of mission convergence. The Navy and Department of War are actively engaged in the protection of ports, military bases, and other coastal assets. A component of DHS, the Coast Guard is an armed service branch that carries organic authority to board, seize, and arrest, which makes it a natural hinge between the two missions. Other DHS components, including Homeland Security Investigations, Border Patrol, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) also lead maritime interdiction activities – often with support from military units. Together, many of these units are working in similar or adjacent waters.
“The growing intersection of missions is perhaps most visible in the interdiction of small boats operated by cartel associates into American waters. Earlier this year, the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security partner agencies, supported by the U.S. Navy, interdicted five suspected maritime smuggling vessels and apprehended 62 aliens during coordinated operations south of San Clemente Island. Maritime smugglers using pangas – small fiberglass vessels common among fishermen in Mexico – has become a persistent and adaptive tactic among Sinaloa Cartel associates along the California coast. Their tactics have evolved to evade detection and deliver goods further up the California coast. This has involved expanding their range into international waters off the U.S. coastline.
Since the disestablishment of Naval Districts and the centralization of Navy surface assets in only five homeports there really is no Navy presence in or near twelve of the 18 Commercial Strategic Seaports. Depending how they are counted the US has over 300 ports, this puts a grave responsibility on the Coast Guard, one the service is not fully capable of fulfilling without access to support from units of the other armed forces.
A solution might be to rejuvenate the Maritime Defense Zone organizations, reorganizing them to be responsive to both terrorist attacks and unconventional attacks during the open phase of hostilities.
