The discussion featured ADM Kurt W. Tidd, USN, Commander, U.S. Southern Command and The Hon. Earl Anthony Wayne, Career Ambassador (Ret.)
former Ambassador of the United States to Mexico (2011-2015) and Public Policy Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The conversation was moderated by ADM Thad W. Allen, USCG (Ret.) former Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard (2006-2010).
It is an hour and 20 minutes. I will mention a couple of things that caught my attention.
The transnational criminal organizations are evolving. Adm. Tidd indicated that illegal gold mining, which is wrecking the environment in several Latin American countries is yielding an estimated $3.5B in profits compared to $2B (wholesale) from the sale of cocaine, and once taken outside the country is no longer “illegal.”
Heroin, primarily from Mexico, and synthetic opioids primarily from China but entering the US from Mexico are becoming more of a problem than Cocaine.
The US has finally acknowledged that we are part of the problem, that $19B to $29B profit in drug sales in the US, buys a lot of influence and arms.
SOUTHCOM is attempting to build capacity in Latin American militaries and sees developing these four principles within those services as essential.
Respect for human rights.
Need for professional NCOs
Talent from all parts of society including women
Jointness not only among the military but also law enforcement and diplomatic
Adm. Tidd both complemented the Coast Guard and noted the absence of the Navy when he said, “My Navy all has white hulls and orange stripes.”
Question at 58:15 about how we might interdict the established target of 40%. Adm. Tidd talked around the question, suggested we could get help from our allies but he also said there were not enough ships in the USN and USCG to interdict our way out of the problem, which may be true, but if we really do have good information of 80% of the traffic as has been reported repeatedly, then there are enough ships to achieve a 40% interdiction rate. It is simply not a priority. Earlier in the presentation, Admiral Tidd acknowledged that in an earlier assignment he had allocated Navy resources and had decided against assigning them to SOUTHCOM.
Passing along an announcement of an event coming up Tuesday, 29 August. Below is the announcement edited slightly.
Livestream will be available here on 29 August at 1900.
As part of
The U.S. Coast Guard Academy 2017- 2018 Leadership Lecture Series
The U.S. Naval Institute presents
Effective Border Security:
Addressing the Causes and Root Problems South of Mexico
Featuring
ADM Kurt W. Tidd, USN Commander, U.S. Southern Command
and
The Hon. Earl Anthony Wayne, Career Ambassador (Ret.) former Ambassador of the United States to Mexico (2011-2015) and
Public Policy Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
in a conversation moderated by ADM Thad W. Allen, USCG (Ret.) former Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard (2006-2010)
29 August 2017, 1900-2000 Eastern
U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Leamy Hall
Space is limited, please contact conferences@usni.org if you have questions or are interested in attending in person.
This event is made possible with support from The William M. Wood Foundation.
The administration’s FY 2018 budget request was not available, but the Commandant was there to discuss future priorities, requirements, and programs. The Department Secretary, General Kelly, is expected to address the Subcommittee on May 24 at 3PM Eastern.
I will just mention a few of the items I thought significant.
Admiral Zukunft noted that Huntington Ingalls has begun cutting steel for NSC #9. Questioned about NSC#10, he said, if it were funded, the Coast Guard would of course use it, but that the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) is the Coast Guard’s #1 priority. His response, that another NSC would have an effect on long-range operating cost, seemed to suggest anticipated significantly lower operating costs for the OPC. Significantly, there has been no mention of reducing the OPC program by one ship to offset the addition of NSC #9. (There is already a strong push to build more NSCs, a bill to authorized a multi-year buy of three more.)
He contended that the Coast Guard has taken a harder hit, due to budget restrictions, than other armed services and would need 5% annual growth and at least $2B annually for Acquisitions, Construction, and Improvements (AC&I). Later he stated that this annual AC&I appropriation would included about $300M annually for shore facilities. He pointed to a need to restore 1100 Reserve Billets and add 5,000 active duty military billets while retaining current levels of Civilian staff.
Apparently the FY2918 budget will begin a program to replace 35 Inland tenders at an estimated cost of approximately $25M each ($875M total). (Even if, in the unlikely event, this program were funded in only five years, that would only average $175M/year, so it is not a big program, but one that should have begun at least a decade ago.)
Cyber security for ports was discussed. The Commandant sees the Coast Guard role as decimating best practices, rather than imposing regulation. We now have a cyber program of record–still very small, two CG Academy graduates going directly into the program. The fact that two billets is worth mentioning, is probably the best indication of how really small the program is. A much smaller pre-World War II Coast Guard probably had more people working on breaking German and Japanese codes.
Marine Inspection was addressed. The Commandant noted the increased demand for Inspections because 6,000 tugs have been added to inspection program. He noted a need for more stringent oversight of 3rd party inspectors, who in some cases have not been as meticulous as they should have been. He also noted that the US flag merchant fleet, notably the MSC’s Afloat Prepositioning Fleet, will need replacement, which will also raise demand for marine inspectors.
The Commandant also voiced his support for the Jones Act. He noted, we only have three shipyards building Jones Act ships in the US, and their loss would be short-sighted.
There was much discussion about the Arctic and the Icebreaker Fleet. Looks like follow-on funding for icebreaker program (at least after the first) will have to come from CG AC&I rather than the Navy budget. This may be difficult, but it is the way it should be. The chair of committee expressed his reservations about attempting to fund such big-ticket items through the DHS budget. The Commandant stated that the Coast Guard is still considering the acquisition of the commercial Icebreaker Aiviq (but apparently they are doing it very slowly–the chairman of the committee seemed a bit irritated about this).
The committee members seemed to latch onto the idea that the USCG, rather than the Navy, would be responsible for enforcing US sovereignty in the Arctic (which by US definition includes the Aleutians), and seemed to be asking if the Coast Guard was prepared to fight the Russians and/or Chinese in the Arctic. The Commandant suggested instead, that our role was to provide presence in the pre-conflict phase in order assert US sovereignty. He acknowledged that the National Security Cutters are only armed defensively and are not suitable for conventional naval warfare against an enemy combatant.
The Commandant acknowledged that, at some point it may be desirable to arm Polar Icebreakers, meaning they should be built with space, weight, and power reservations for additional weapons.
(I am all for keeping open the option of arming our icebreakers, so that they can defend themselves and do their part, if there is a conflict in a polar region, but there did not seem to be recognition among the Congression Representatives, that an Arctic conflict is most likely to be determined by submarines and aircraft. The icebreakers’ role is likely to be primarily logistical.)
The Commandant apparently does expect that there may be disagreements with regard to the extent of the US authority over certain areas of the Arctic.
In discussing the need for land based Unmanned Air Systems, there was a curious note at minute 40 about go-fast boats going south. Where are they going?
Alien Migrant Interdiction (AMIO). We have gone for seven weeks without a single Cuban Migrant being interdicted. This is because of the end of Wet Foot/Dry Foot Policy. This has allowed reallocation of resources to drug interdiction South of Cuba and human trafficking from the Bahamas
A Congressional Representative, from Texas pointed out there is no CG presence on the Rio Grande River, in spite of it being an international waterway. There was no mention of it, but perhaps he was thinking of the Falcon Lake incident in 2010 when an American was allegedly shot in the head by Mexican drug runners. Maybe something we should reconsider.
“The “La Confiance” PLG (Patrouilleur Léger Guyanais or French Guyana-based Light Patrol Vessel) is now on “Active Duty” and able to conduct operational missions following a ceremony held April 27th…”
It is the first of two small ships of a new class designed specifically for service in the French Atlantic EEZ in the Western Hemisphere. The size is a bit unusual.
They will replace two P400 class patrol craft currently based in French Guyana. The P400s are about the same size as the Webber class “Fast Response Cutters.”
The French do not have an ocean-going coast guard like ours, so their navy does many of the functions performed by the USCG. The new ships make an interesting comparison with the Webber class; I think they even look a bit alike. In many ways the PLG corresponds to what I suggested earlier as cutter X:
…taking the crew and equipment of a Webber class Fast Response Cutter (FRC) and putting them in a larger hull with more endurance and seakeeping, while accepting lower top speed than the FRC.
Comparing the “La Confiance” PLG to the FRCs:
Displacement: PLG 700 tons; FRC 354 full load
Crew: 24, same for both, PLG can also accomodate 14 people, special forces for example.
Dimensions: PLG 60 m (197 ft) x 9.50 m (31.2 ft) x 3.2 m (10.5 ft); FRC 46.8 m (154 ft) x 8.11 m (26.6 ft) x 2.9 m (9.5 ft)
Many of us have wondered about the apparent duplication of effort by the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO). Apparently the The U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security had the same concern and asked for an audit by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG). This resulted in a report, “AMO and Coast Guard Maritime Missions Are Not Duplicative, But Could Improve with Better Coordination (pdf).”
Guess there is no suspense in what their findings were, but I find the methodology and conclusions less than complete and satisfying.
The recommendations of the audit were:
Recommendation #1: We recommend that the DHS Under Secretary for Management reestablish an oversight mechanism at the DHS level to ensure that AMO and the Coast Guard coordinate operations.
Recommendation #2: We recommend that the Coast Guard Commandant, CBP Commissioner, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director revise the Maritime Operations Coordination Plan to include requirements for coordination and information sharing at all levels, especially the local level.
So the response was equally predictable–form a committee.
I’m sorry, but my BS meter is off the scale. The alarm went off first, when they consistently called the territorial sea, “customs waters” lending a presumption that this is a Customs job.
While their conclusion may ultimately prove correct, they essentially failed to look at the most significant area of overlap–Maritime Patrol Aircraft. The audit concentrated exclusively on drug enforcement and failed to consider Alien Migrant Interdiction Operations (AMIO). And they failed to answer the most basic questions.
While coordination is always assumed to be a “good thing,” the only real reason you should want two agencies performing the same function would indicate less coordination, not more.
There is no doubt AMO does useful work, that is not the point. The question is, what is the most effective and economical way to distribute resources. Should DHS be working toward a different distribution of tasking and resources?
Unanswered questions:
Why does Customs need boats? The Revenue Cutter Service was Customs’ boat service. Why doesn’t the Coast Guard still fulfill that function? The Coast Guard operates boats. Boats are on standby with crews at the ready. When Customs needs a boat, why don’t they ride Coast Guard boats? What is the cost of an operating hour for comparable Coast Guard and Customs boats?
AMO does need aircraft to do several tasks, including interdiction of smuggling by air, but why does Customs need to have a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft for interdiction of surface vessels, when the Coast Guard also has to provide a similar fleet for a whole range of missions? The AMO operates a fleet of 14 P-3s including both Airborne Early Warning models and P-3 Long Range Trackers. They are over 40 years old and undergoing an extensive and expensive life extension program. AMO also operatesBombardier DHC-8, and Beach King Air 350ER equipped with marine search radars. What is the cost of an operating hour for comparable Coast Guard and Customs aircraft?
AMO regularly performs air interdiction. Perhaps they should be the ones doing the low speed air interdiction over DC.
Other missions:
In addition to drug enforcement, the two agencies seem to have overlapping missions in Alien Migrant Interdiction Operations (AMIO) and counter terrorism. Why weren’t these missions looked at as well?
AMO boats are suitable only for very short ranged AMIO missions while Coast Guard vessels a suitable for interception long before the approach the US coast.
It appears that AMO assets are limited to small arms. If the terrorist threat is anything much larger than a small boat, they are unlikely to be effective in countering it without assistance.
What about Jurisdiction?
AMO operates primarily within the customs waters, but it maintains the authority to pursue vessels fleeing the customs waters or hovering outside those waters as a means of avoiding AMO jurisdiction.
The Coast Guard is not similarly limited in the Marine environment. The effects of this on agency effectiveness was not considered.
Maybe AMO’s jurisdiction should be extended to cover the entire EEZ, but that is not the case now and AMO’s boats don’t seem suited for operations much beyond 12 miles. They are generally very fast, but probably short legged with minimal protection for the crew from the elements.
The characteristics of their boats don’t seem to square with the very long range character of their aircraft like the P-3s.
Why overlapping responsibility might be a good idea–coordination be damned:
There is one reason you might want two agencies responsible for the same law enforcement mission. That would be if you worry about the possibility that one of the agencies might be compromised. For instance if one agency is somehow compromised by a criminal organization. The law enforcement agency might still appear successful. The criminal organization might use the agency to eliminate its competitors, providing intelligence. A second independent agency might uncover this corruption.
Use of Force:
There is an interesting section comparing the two agencies’ use of force policies.
Approval for Employing Use of Force
Coast Guard crews must receive approval from the appropriate official in the chain of command, typically an Admiral, before using force to stop noncompliant vessels. According to the Coast Guard, the approval time can take from 10 minutes to several hours depending on the case. In contrast, AMO policy reflects a more traditional law enforcement approach and allows its agents to make use of force decisions.
According to the Coast Guard, it needs a use of force policy to cover a vast range of mission sets across a legally and jurisdictionally complex operating environment. Although the approval process has some level of risk mitigation, the Coast Guard designed the process to relieve on-scene officers of the need to access U.S. jurisdiction and legal authority to employ force against a noncompliant vessel, and allows those officers to focus on executing the tactics and procedures to safely and effectively employ that force.
We participated in use of force demonstrations for noncompliant vessels with both components and experienced the delay in the Coast Guard’s approval process. Although there are potential safety concerns for Coast Guard boat crews during a pursuit, the Coast Guard stated that it updated its law enforcement manual to “refine and streamline the process in every way possible” to reduce the time lapse from when the Coast Guard vessel is “overt” (known by the suspected vessel to be following) to when the necessary actions (use of force) are completed.
Hopefully if a Coast Guard CO sees a terrorist attack underway, he will have the flexibility to act on the knowledge, even if there is no time to get approval.
Using Statistics that do not correlate:
As noted, the report only looked at drug enforcement and only at a small part of the mission. Quoting from the report,
“There are 206 combined locations where AMO and the Coast Guard conduct operations in customs waters. Of the 206, there are 17 locations (8 percent) where AMO and the Coast Guard have similar capabilities and an overlapping area of responsibility.”
” In FY 2015, at the 17 overlapping locations, all of AMO’s drug seizures occurred on land or in customs waters, where marine units primarily conduct operations.”
“The Coast Guard is a multi-mission agency, including law enforcement that operates in both customs and international waters. In contrast to AMO, Coast Guard personnel assigned to drug and migrant interdiction do not conduct investigative or land operations. In FY 2015, 93 percent of Coast Guard drug seizures occurred in international waters (Transit Zone) (emphasis applied–Chuck). AMO only deploys aircraft in this area; it does not have the vessels to operate in these waters.”
“In the overlapping locations, 84 percent of reported drug seizures were from AMO operations. These seizures occurred, in part, because of the different activities of each agency. For example, while some of AMO operations were intelligence based, the Coast Guard conducts routine patrols looking for illegal activity. Although Coast Guard patrols are not as effective as intelligence-based operations, they show a presence and can deter illegal activity.” (Emphasis applied–Chuck)
First note that this compares Customs’ seizures both on land and on the water with the seizures of the Coast Guard, a multimission agency, on the water alone. This also seems to imply that Customs was not sharing their intelligence with the Coast Guard.
FY 2015 Drug Seizures from the 17 Overlapping Locations Agency Customs Waters (Drugs in Pounds) AMO 28,707 (land and water) (84%) Coast Guard 5,602 (16%) Total 34,309.
I doubt the Coast Guard units they looked at drug interdiction as their primary mission. Certainly the AMO units did.
Why the difference in statistics?:
According to Coast Guard statistics, Coast Guard drug seizures in FY2015 were 319,229.4 lbs of Cocaine and 78,262 lbs of Marijuana. Appendix C indicates that the Coast Guard had seized 199,749 lbs of Cocaine and 57,855 lbs of Marijuana. (Why the large difference in these figures?)
Figures reported for AMO in Appendix C were 243,387 lb of cocaine and 719,180 lb of Marijuana.
Pounds of drugs is not a very informative metric, if various types of drugs are aggravated. It also says nothing about its purity. After being cut there is less drugs in a pound of drugs.
Looking at this, I found a cost comparison of what the two agencies spend for their personnel interesting. The total AMO budget for FY2015 was $750M supporting 1,665 members, while the CG budget of $8,380M supported 41,700. Budget/Personnel equals $450,450 per AMO member and $200,959 per CG member. There are probably lots of reasons AMO cost more than twice as much per member, but it might have been worth some examination.
Conclusion:
Bottom line, this report failed to answer the question, “Why do both the Coast Guard and Customs have both boats and maritime patrol aircraft?”
What we got was a distorted comparison of the relative success of the Coast Guard and Customs drug interdiction efforts.
These distortions can have consequences and should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. I can understand the Coast Guard not wanting to offend people in the IG office, but I have no such problem, and neither should the subcommittee that requested the audit.
SouthCom, actually two SouthComs in a row, and the Commandant have noted that while they have excellent intelligence on drug smugglers in the transit zone, they simply do not have adequate numbers of vessels to respond. (Here, here, and here) There were never enough, but after decommissioning the Perry class frigates, the Navy’s contribution appears to have declined significantly. The Coast Guard seems to have upped their game, possibly more than making up for the Navy’s absence, but still–not enough ships.
There may be a way at least partially address this problem.
We now have 16 Webber class WPCs in three homeports in the Seventh District, six in Miami, six in Key West, and four, soon to be six, in Puerto Rico. These may be “Fast Response Cutters,” but clearly they are not all sitting in homeport waiting for SAR cases. These are law enforcement assets and they are meant to patrol. Could we perhaps, maintain as many as four in the Eastern Pacific by rotating cutters from the 7th District to fill this role in the transit zone? Obviously, it is not impossible, since the Navy is sending their similar sized Cyclone class PCs to the Eastern Pacific, but what would it take to make it work well?
Obviously they would need additional fuel and supplies while deployed. There is a good chance between Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica, we could find a port willing to host these little white ships.
Aside from “beans and black oil” they might also need some administrative, maintenance, or medical support.
The Navy might make itself useful here by providing a simple MSC manned support vessel that could be as basic as an Offshore Support Vessel loaded with containerized offices and logistical support to provide support that the port cannot. The Navy has already chartered a number of ships of this type and could charter another.
We could start this small. First study the results of the Navy’s Cyclone class deployment. Then send a single ship from say Miami, a month later we get a second ship from Key West. Let them figure out what they need and how the problems they will inevitably encounter can be solved.
Because they cannot embark a helicopter, they will need a complementary fixed wing support, but this is already being done at least to some extent.
Once we get to a total of 18 Webber class in these three home ports, we could keep four ships assigned to SouthCom by sending two ships each month and rotating them back after two months. Seventh district would still four ships assigned to each home port, which would mean that even if two are down for maintenance they would still have two for SAR and local law enforcement.
We have a statement for the record (pdf) from James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, dated February 9, 2016. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, but there is no good news, and much that is bad.
Smuggling of every type appears to be on the rise including drugs and people. We can expect an increase in illegal immigration as a result of violence, poverty, and disorder in Latin America and particularly Cuba and Central America.
It is a relatively compact document. There are sections on Terrorism (pp 4-6), transnational organized crime (pp 11-12), Arctic (p 13), Environmental Risks and Climate Change (pp 13-14), health (including potential pandemics) (pp 14-15), and Global Displacement, “These 60 million consist of approximately 20 million refugees, 38 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and approximately 2 million stateless persons, also according to UNHCR statistics.” (p.15)
There are also regional assessments including one on Latin America and the Caribbean (pp 28-29).
There is no regional assessment for the US. In terms of direct terrorist threats to the US, while there is a recognition of an aspiration on the part of various groups to attack the US, but the emphasis seems to be on “homegrown violent extremists” (HVEs) and there is nothing about the possibility of a maritime attack on the US. Is that because none exist?
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Park Service (NPS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment (CITMA). The MOU aims to facilitate joint efforts concerning science, stewardship, and management regarding Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).”
Check it out for more detail.
Presumably, the Coast Guard will have some role in enforcing restrictions on operations in these areas. Apparently the CG has had good long term relations with their Cuban counterparts.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 