The Coast Guard’s senior operations officer said “we can’t be everywhere all the time” because the service simply lacks enough service members. At the same time, the Coast Guard faces a funding crisis in repairing and replacing its aging fleet of cutters and aircraft.
The first-ever Coast Guard “Operational Posture 2024” report illustrates “where we can take risk, move to operate differently where we can, Vice Adm. Peter Gautier said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Friday.
The Coast Guard is “at a strategic inflection point,” reads the statement.
“[O]ur current shortfalls in personnel and material readiness create an imperative for action to adjust force structure and posture and operate differently to generate necessary operational effects.”
Gautier said as an example of the demand the Coast Guard faces, “we have an aging aircraft fleet. We fly our aircraft two to three times more than any other service does. And that can’t last forever.”
“We are not so good about telling folks where we are really being stretched,” he said.
He added, “we only have funding to do maintenance on half of what we have” on the maintenance inventory list for boats, cutters and aircraft.
To stay on “the sustainability path of repair for today’s readiness and buys for future, he said that part of the Coast Guard budget, now set at $1.4 billion “[we] need that immediately bumped up to $3 billion.”
Gautier, quoting Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan said the service’s budget needs to rise from $14 billion to $20 billion.
“We really do struggle,” noting that the delivery of the off-shore patrol vessel and the new icebreakers underline the point that larger budgets need to be in place for a long time.
“Enduring support is what we’re going to need.”
Earlier in the CSIS discussion, Gautier said the Coast Guard was 2,500 members short in its active-duty enlisted force. “We have been challenged in the last three or four years with recruiting, and retention. Right now, we’re about 10 percent down” from the required end strength.
On recruiting, “we are working very hard to connect with young people who want purpose in their lives.” He said the service offers opportunities in law enforcement, environment, technology and maritime industry.
“We have a powerful blend of authorities” from Title 10 national security missions globally to humanitarian operations that can attract young men and women interested in making a career in the Coast Guard.
USNI News reported in August the shortfall meant the Coast Guard couldn’t crew all its ships and was temporarily closing some smaller stations.
Vice Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday, speaking at the Brookings Institution, added, “We had to lay up three of our major cutters because we don’t have enough enlisted personnel to crew them.” Since the action, the service has shifted funds from other parts of the budget to bolster recruiting and retention.
The service met its recruiting goal for 2024.
As Lunday did when he announced the shortages affecting some operations, Gautier stressed ‘we see search-and-rescue as a no-fail mission.” He added, “it is our primary life-saving mission.”
The statement said, “(w)e will enhance efficiency and effectiveness in [search-and-rescue] by employing emerging technology and advance efforts that reduce the need for SAR, especially for passenger and commercial fishing vessels.” It also means closer cooperation with local and state authorities in these operations.
In the posture statement and discussion, efficiency and the value of technology was used often, including boardings.
Gautier said, “it’s an old-fashioned way” to simply use aircraft and cutters to identify vessels that may have carried out suspicious activities. “We are really shifting from a ‘patrol and interdiction’ to a ‘target and interdiction’” approach.”
