Wealth and Poverty Challenge the U.S. Coast Guard

Already dealing with an expanded mission set, the U.S. Coast Guard is facing new challenges as economic conditions generate different types of stresses on existing assets and capabilities. In the United States, the energy boom will require vastly expanded activities on domestic waters. Internationally, staggering poverty has triggered crime sprees that have increased smuggling and limited the potential of governments to crack down on corruption.

Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, USCG, commandant of the Coast Guard, described these challenges during the Thursday luncheon panel at West 2015, being held in San Diego, February 10-12. One of Adm. Zukunft’s biggest problems is that he must respond to these challenges without having a reliable and predictable budget, he said. The Coast Guard’s acquisition budget has declined 40 percent over the past few years.

On the domestic front, Adm. Zukunft enlarged on comments made Wednesday by Rear Adm. Bruce D. Baffer, USCG, assistant commandant for acquisition and chief acquisition officer. The U.S. energy boom has increased the flow of petroleum products on U.S. rivers dramatically—“We went from 2 million to 50 million barrels of oil going down the Mississippi,” he said. The Coast Guard must ensure the safety of that water traffic using river tenders that are 60 years old, but no plan exists to replace them.

Adm. Zukunft said the Coast Guard first will get through the current wave of ship acquisition, and then it will look at recapitalizing the river tender fleet. The vessels are 60 years old, but they have spent their operational lifetimes in fresh water, not the salt water environment that has taken its toll on cutters. The river tenders do not have the hull issues the cutters have, so the Coast Guard is working to extend their lifetimes until a recapitalization program can be formulated.

Central America has become a hotbed of crime that is having a ripple effect in the Western Hemisphere. Poverty-stricken Honduras in particular is more violent than Iraq was at the worst of the insurrection, the admiral offered. As a result, organized crime has taken hold, and the Coast Guard is interdicting more and more cocaine than it used to. The Coast Guard has had to rebalance its forces to fill in some of the gaps in the Western Hemisphere, he related.