[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
=======================================================================
(116-58)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 10, 2020
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available online at: https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-
transportation?path=/browsecommittee/chamber/house/committee/
transportation
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-634 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon, Chair
SAM GRAVES, Missouri ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
DON YOUNG, Alaska District of Columbia
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
BOB GIBBS, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois JOHN GARAMENDI, California
ROB WOODALL, Georgia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
JOHN KATKO, New York Georgia
BRIAN BABIN, Texas ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana DINA TITUS, Nevada
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
MIKE BOST, Illinois JARED HUFFMAN, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DOUG LaMALFA, California FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas DONALD M. PAYNE, Jr., New Jersey
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan MARK DeSAULNIER, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California,
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania Vice Chair
JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
Puerto Rico ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey
ROSS SPANO, Florida GREG STANTON, Arizona
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
GREG PENCE, Indiana COLIN Z. ALLRED, Texas
SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas
ABBY FINKENAUER, Iowa
JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
HARLEY ROUDA, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
------ 7
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York,
Chair
BOB GIBBS, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
DON YOUNG, Alaska STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas JOHN GARAMENDI, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire, Vice
SAM GRAVES, Missouri (Ex Officio) Chair
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ v
STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
Hon. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Coast Guard
and Maritime Transportation:
Opening statement............................................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Bob Gibbs, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Ohio, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and
Maritime Transportation:
Opening statement............................................ 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Sam Graves, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Missouri, and Ranking Member, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, prepared statement............................. 53
WITNESSES
Panel 1
Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy Commandant for Operations,
U.S. Coast Guard:
Oral statement............................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Panel 2
Hon. David Balton, Senior Fellow, Polar Institute, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars:
Oral statement............................................... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 27
Stephen E. Flynn, Ph.D., Founding Director, Global Resilience
Institute, Northeastern University:
Oral statement............................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Amy E. Searight, Ph.D., Senior Adviser and Director, Southeast
Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies:
Oral statement............................................... 38
Prepared statement........................................... 40
APPENDIX
Questions to Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy Commandant for
Operations, U.S. Coast Guard, from:
Hon. Sean Patrick Maloney.................................... 55
Hon. Bob Gibbs............................................... 55
Hon. Rick Larsen............................................. 56
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
March 5, 2020
SUMMARY OF SUBJECT MATTER
TO: LMembers, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation
FROM: LStaff, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation
RE: LSubcommittee Hearing on ``The International Role
of the United States Coast Guard''
_______________________________________________________________________
PURPOSE
The Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
will hold a hearing entitled ``The International Role of the
United States Coast Guard'' on Tuesday, March 10, 2020, at
10:00 a.m., in 2167 Rayburn House Office Building to examine
the worldwide presence of the Coast Guard. The Subcommittee
will hear testimony from the U.S. Coast Guard (Coast Guard or
Service) and experts on international relations.
BACKGROUND
On August 4, 1790, President George Washington signed the
Tariff Act authorizing the Revenue Cutter Service and the
construction of ten vessels, referred to as ``cutters.'' Those
cutters were intended to enforce the federal tariff and trade
laws and to prevent smuggling.\1\ In 1915, the Revenue Cutter
Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service and was
renamed the Coast Guard, making it the only maritime service
dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the Nation's
maritime laws. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered
the transfer of the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard and
officially assigned it the responsibility of maritime
navigation. In 1946, the Commerce Department transferred the
Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, which oversaw
merchant marine licensing and merchant vessel safety, to the
Coast Guard. In 1967, the Coast Guard was transferred to the
Department of Transportation (DOT) where it resided until 2003
when it was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS).
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\1\ United States Coast Guard. ``The Coast Guard: America's Oldest
Maritime Defenders.''
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Under Section 102 of Title 14, United States Code, the
Coast Guard has primary responsibility to enforce or assist in
the enforcement of all applicable federal laws on, under, and
over the high seas and waters subject to the jurisdiction of
the United States; to ensure safety of life and property at
sea; to carry out domestic and international icebreaking
activities; and, as one of the five armed forces of the United
States, to maintain defense readiness to operate as a
specialized service in the Navy upon the declaration of war or
when the President directs.
The law enforcement and peacetime duties of the Coast Guard
include the inspection of commercial vessels, the direction and
maintenance of aids to navigation, the maintenance of an
extensive network of search-and-rescue stations, international
ice patrol, collecting data for the National Weather Service,
the protection of marine life and the ocean environment, and
the interdiction of illegal drugs and migrants.
As one of the Nation's five armed forces, the Coast Guard
has assisted in the defense of our nation during times of war
and has played a crucial international role in every major
American military conflict. During the War of 1812, the Revenue
Cutter Service executed the first capture of a British vessel.
In World War I, while the Service protected domestic shipping
and safeguarded the waterfront, six Coast Guard cutters
escorted hundreds of naval vessels between Gibraltar and the
British Isles as well as patrolled the Mediterranean Sea.
During the Vietnam War, the Service sent 26 cutters and some
8,000 servicemembers that inspected vessels for contraband,
destroyed enemy craft, set up and operated a long-range
navigation system, and installed and maintained buoys.
THE INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF THE COAST GUARD
Today's Coast Guard actively supports military commitments
on all seven continents. While previous foreign missions were
typically related to specific wars or military engagements, the
Coast Guard's international presence is primarily focused on
non-military capacity building and strategic partnerships.
Since the Service is involved in numerous missions that do not
have a direct defense link, the Coast Guard is uniquely
situated to advance American interests internationally. More
than 2,000 servicemembers are deployed annually around the
globe to support Department of Defense Combatant Commanders, to
promote peace, fortify alliances, uphold customary maritime
norms and the rule of law, and challenge threats far from U.S.
soil. In addition, the Coast Guard has 11 cutters, two maritime
patrol aircraft, five helicopters, two specialized boarding
teams, and a Port Security Team supporting international
defense operations daily.\2\
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\2\ Admiral Karl L. Schultz. ``Testimony of Admiral Karl L.
Schultz, Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard on ``The Coast Guard's Fiscal
Year 2020 Budget Request'' Before the House Homeland Security Committee
Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security.'' House Committee
on Homeland Security. April 9, 2019.
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ARCTIC
The Arctic provides a prime example of the importance of an
international Coast Guard presence, its operational
limitations, as well as underscores the indelible role the
Coast Guard fills in facilitating international cooperation and
partnerships among Arctic states.
With the ongoing melting of sea ice and the opening of new
sea passages in the Artic, the Coast Guard recognized the
strategic importance of the region by implementing Operation
Arctic Shield in 2012. The goal of Arctic Shield is to perform
Coast Guard missions and activities, broaden partnerships, and
enhance and improve preparedness, prevention, and response
capabilities. The Coast Guard's capabilities, though, pale in
comparison to those of Russia. Specifically, Russia has 46
icebreaking vessels with 12 more under construction in
comparison to the Coast Guard's two operating icebreakers (one
heavy and one medium) in the polar regions.\3\ While the Coast
Guard has awarded the construction contract for the first three
new Polar Security Cutters, at present it is forced to stretch
its other assets and capabilities to secure a wide mission set
at each pole with limited resources until delivery of the first
ice breaker in 2024.\4\
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\3\ Ronald O'Rourke. ``Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (Polar
Icebreaker) Program: Background and Issues for Congress.''
Congressional Research Service. Updated March 1, 2019.
\4\ Id.
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Due to constraints on Coast Guard resources, international
cooperation is integral to ensuring the United States retains a
presence in the Artic. Established in 1996, the Arctic Council
is made up of eight Arctic nations (Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States as well
as 13 non-Arctic Nations with observer status.\5\ In 2009, the
Arctic Council called upon the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) to formulate and adopt the International
Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, referred to as the
Polar Code.\6\ The Polar Code went into effect on January 1,
2017, and enacts mandatory requirements intended to improve
vessel safety and prevent pollution from vessels transiting in
the Arctic, including standards for ship construction,
navigation, crew training, and ship operation.\7\ As a key
participant in the IMO, the Coast Guard will continue to help
shape Arctic policy through implementation of the Polar Code.
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\5\ Arctic Council. ``The Arctic Council: A backgrounder.''
\6\ International Maritime Organization. ``Polar Code.''
\7\ Id.
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ANTARCTICA
While United States presence in the Artic is important, the
Coast Guard is also vital in maintaining United States presence
in the Antarctic as well. This year marked the 23rd journey
that the Coast Guard's heavy icebreaker, POLAR STAR, made to
Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze.\8\ Operation
Deep Freeze is an annual joint military service mission to
resupply the United States' Antarctic research stations. In
accordance with the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Coast Guard,
in coordination with the Department of State, National Science
Foundation, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, also conduct inspections of foreign research
stations, installations, and equipment. The inspections serve
to verify compliance with the Antarctic Treaty and its
Environmental Protocol, including provisions prohibiting
military measures and mining, as well as provisions promoting
safe station operation and sound environmental practices.
Inspections emphasize that all of Antarctica is accessible to
interested countries despite territorial claims and reinforce
the importance of compliance with the Antarctic Treaty's arms
control provisions.\9\ The Coast Guard's presence in Antarctica
also reinforces compliance with and enforcement of marine
resource conservation and protection measures established under
the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources (CCAMLR).\10\
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\8\ United States Coast Guard. ``United States' only heavy
icebreaker completes Antarctic Treaty inspections and resupply
mission.'' United States Coast Guard. News Release.
\9\ Id.
\10\ Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources. ``CAMLR Convention.''.
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ASIA
Originally established in 2002 in support of Operation
Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. Coast Guard Patrol Forces Southwest
Asia (PATFORSWA) remains the Coast Guard's largest unit outside
of the United States.\11\ PATFORSWA is currently supporting
Operation Enduring Freedom by providing a continued maritime
humanitarian presence on the seas, assisting the Navy's Fifth
Fleet with combat-ready assets, utilizing unique access to
foreign territorial seas and ports, formulating strong and
independent relationships throughout the Arabian Gulf,
conducting vessel boardings, and developing maritime country
engagements on shore. PATFORSWA is comprised of six 110-foot
cutters, shore side support personnel, Advanced Interdiction
Teams, Maritime Engagement Teams, and other deployable
specialized forces operating throughout the U.S. Central
Command Area of Operation.
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\11\ United States Coast Guard Atlantic Area. ``Patrol Forces
Southwest Asia.''
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In 2016, the United States initiated the Southeast Asia
Maritime Security Initiative (MSI) which includes Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore,
Brunei, and Taiwan. The MSI aims to improve the ability of
these countries to address a range of maritime challenges
including China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
Specifically, the Coast Guard assists those nations by
providing training for each host nation's coast guard,
organizational development, human resource capacity building,
technical skills, and educational and training partnerships. In
the Philippines, the Coast Guard transferred the high-endurance
cutter (HEC) BOUTWELL to the Philippine Navy in order to
maintain a greater maritime presence and patrols throughout its
Exclusive Economic Zone. More recently in May of 2019, the
Coast Guard conducted a joint search-and-rescue exercise with
the Philippine Coast Guard and then made a port call to Manila
which was the first visit of its kind in seven years.\12\ Of
interest, the Coast Guard intends to decommission the last two
High Endurance Cutters (HECs)in Fiscal Year 2021\13\ providing
two additional hulls that could be transferred to partner
states to improve the readiness and capabilities of their
respective coast guards.
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\12\ Prashanth Parameswaren. August 27, 2019. ``What's Behind the
Rising U.S.-Southeast Asia Coast Guard Cooperation?'' The Diplomat.
\13\ Department of Homeland Security. ``U.S. Coast Guard Budget
Overview Fiscal Year 2021 Congressional Justification.''
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Through the Southeast Asia Maritime Law Enforcement
Initiative, the Coast Guard has partnered with Indonesia's
Maritime Security Agency to help train coast guards from the
region.\14\ In June of 2019, the Coast Guard supported a
Technical Experts Workshop which featured participants from
Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.\15\ The
purpose of the event was to share expertise in dealing with
nontraditional transnational and regional maritime threats. At
that particular event, the focus was on drugs and illegal,
unreported, and unregulated (IUU) high seas fishing, but the
annual workshop seeks to explore different issues aimed at
strengthening the capacity of partner countries.\16\
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\14\ Ni Komang Erviani. June 30, 2019. ``Southwest Asian countries
complete maritime law enforcement exercise.'' The Jakarta Post.
\15\ Id.
\16\ Id.
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AFRICA
The African Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP)
program enables African partner nations to build maritime
security capacity and improve management of their maritime
environment through real world combined maritime law
enforcement operations.\17\ Typically, a Coast Guard law
enforcement boarding team will accompany the host nations while
conducting at-sea vessel boardings. These boardings consist of
identifying a target of interest, employing small boats with
teams aboard, directing the suspect vessel to stop, and
embarking on the vessel to investigate. AMLEP directly supports
U.S. Africa Command's (AFRICOM) efforts to counter human,
weapon, and drug trafficking, maritime pollution, piracy/
kidnapping, and IUU fishing.
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\17\ United States Africa Command. ``Africa Maritime Law
Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP) Program.''
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SOUTH AMERICA
Illegal drug trafficking continues to threaten the safety,
security, and public health of U.S. citizens and destabilize
foreign governments. The ability to intercept these drugs
before they enter the U.S. enables agencies responsible for
interdiction, like the Coast Guard, to leverage assets and
seize drugs in bulk before they are broken into smaller
packages inside the United States. In his May 1, 2019 testimony
to the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Southern
Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander Admiral Craig Faller stated that
last year Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South) was
only able to disrupt about 6% of known drug movements.\18\ He
also stated that ``doing more would require additional ships
and maritime patrol aircraft and greater participation by
interagency and international partners . . . '' \19\
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\18\ Admiral Craig S. Faller. ``Posture Statement of Admiral Craig
S. Faller Commander, United States Southern Command Before the 116th
Congress. House Armed Services Committee.'' United States Southern
Command. May 1, 2019.
\19\ Id.
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Operation Martillo (Hammer) is the current JIATF-South
counter-drug operation seeking to optimize those international
partnerships. Operation Martillo brings together 14 countries
to disrupt drug smuggling in the Transit Zone, including
Belize, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France,
Guatemala, Honduras, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain,
the United Kingdom and the United States.\20\ Chile has also
assisted Operation Martillo. Since its launch on January 15,
2012, Operation Martillo has supported the seizure of 693
metric tons of cocaine, $25 million in bulk cash, detainment of
581 vessels and aircraft, and the arrest of 1,863
detainees.\21\
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\20\ U.S. Southern Command. ``Campaign Martillo.''
\21\ Id.
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The Coast Guard will not be successful in their drug
interdiction efforts without a robust ability to discover,
analyze, and disseminate intelligence. This includes access to
U.S. Maritime Domain Awareness data as well as strong
relationships with partner nations.
EUROPE
As stated earlier, the Coast Guard strengthens
international partnerships through the transfer of
decommissioned and excess maritime assets. In October of 2019,
the Service provided two former 110-foot Island-class patrol
boats to Ukraine through the Excess Defense Articles Program of
the Coast Guard's Office of International Acquisition.\22\ The
transfer also allows for the outfitting and training of Ukraine
navy crews at U.S. Coast Guard facilities. Those vessels were
the seventh and eighth 110-foot patrol boats transferred to a
foreign nation. Other patrol boats have been transferred to
Pakistan, Georgia, and Costa Rica. While originally initiated
shortly after the Russian annexation of Crimea, the delivery of
the vessels came at a time of increased tensions between the
two countries. In addition to the two HECs mentioned earlier,
the Coast Guard intends to decommission two additional Island
Class Patrol Boats and eight Marine Protector Class Coastal
Patrol Boats providing additional opportunities for partner
state capacity building.
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\22\ Lt. Bobby Dixon. ``U.S. 6th Fleet Turns over Former Coast
Guard Cutters to Ukrainian Navy.'' Washington Headquarters Services.
News Release.
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As a member of the International Port Security Program, the
Service seeks to reduce risk to U.S. maritime interests,
including ports and ships, and to facilitate trade
globally.\23\ Through port inspections, the Coast Guard can
ensure that foreign ports and vessels are taking the necessary
steps to minimize maritime threats. With over 150 partnerships,
International Port Security Liaison Officers can share
information, offer recommendations, review improvements, and
otherwise collaborate to advance mutual goals.
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\23\ United States Coast Guard Atlantic Area. ``International Port
Security Frequently Asked Questions.''
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THE FUTURE OF THE COAST GUARD
In order to safely and effectively execute its broad
portfolio of missions, the Coast Guard must carefully balance
and re-balance its resources. While the Coast Guard can and
does play a valuable international role, it is not without a
strain on resources across its domestic missions. There are a
finite number of Coast Guard assets and personnel. In order to
be most effective, the Coast Guard relies on cooperative
relationships with the Department of Defense, partner nations,
and transnational organizations.
In his 2020 State of the Coast Guard address and in
reference to the Service's international operations, Admiral
Schultz stated, ``The aforementioned programs are funded by the
Department of Defense, but many of our contributions are not,
leaving the Coast Guard on an unsustainable path to support our
growing operational requirements . . . The long-term solution
is to recognize the Coast Guard's crucial role in maintaining
our national security.'' \24\
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\24\ Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant. ``2020 State of the United
States Coast Guard ``Why I Serve'' '' February 20, 2020. Charleston,
SC.
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As the Department of Defense and the Department of State
continue to seek the assistance of the Service to advance
American interests abroad, it is important to ensure that those
activities are funded appropriately and the effect on the
remaining Coast Guard missions is considered.
WITNESS LIST
PANEL I
LVice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy Commandant
for Operations, United States Coast Guard
PANEL II
LThe Honorable David Balton, Senior Fellow, Polar
Institute, The Wilson Center
LDr. Stephen E. Flynn, Founding Director, Global
Resilience Institute, Northeastern University
LDr. Amy E. Searight, Senior Adviser and Director,
Southeast Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International
Studies
THE INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2020
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime
Transportation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in
room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sean Patrick
Maloney (Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Maloney. I would ask unanimous consent that the chair
be authorized to declare recess during today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing on the
international role of the United States Coast Guard.
I wear another hat around here as a member of the
Intelligence Committee, and I am keenly aware of the
international moves being made by competitor nations to gain
influence by exploiting opportunities and weak governance under
the guise of building mutually beneficial partnerships.
For example, China's Belt and Road Initiative allows them
to shape international norms and forcefully assert their global
presence through more than $1 trillion of trade and
infrastructure investments. Given the state of our crumbling
domestic infrastructure, it is unlikely that the United States
is going to match that level of spending on international
projects.
So instead, we must make strategic investments that allow
us to maintain and develop relationships with key partner
nations by increasing their capacity, improving their Maritime
Domain Awareness, and enhancing enforcement activities that
uphold the rule of law. So I agree with the Commandant of the
Coast Guard's assertion characterizing the financial entrapment
of vulnerable countries as more than just a conservation and
sustainability issue, but rather a national security challenge
warranting a clear and decisive response from the United
States.
The Coast Guard has a longstanding history of international
involvement, and has played a crucial role in every American
military conflict since its inception in 1790. While its
military service is obvious, the Coast Guard's diverse mission
set also makes it distinctively qualified to advance America's
global interests and exert international influence.
In fact, the Coast Guard's current international presence
is focused on nonmilitary capacity building and strategic
partnerships. For example, the Coast Guard has bilateral
agreements with over 60 partner nations, uniquely leveraging
partnerships across domestic and international arenas on a
variety of maritime missions, including search and rescue,
counterdrug, migration, fisheries, and proliferation security
initiatives, bringing trusted access, capacity building, and
seamlessly operating under title 10 and 14 authorities.
While the Coast Guard's international missions have proven
successful, I am keenly aware of the delicate balance that must
be struck when allocating resources. Every cutter sent abroad
results in one fewer cutter performing drug interdiction or
search-and-rescue missions closer to home. For this reason we
must ensure that the Coast Guard's increasing international
role is met with additional resources.
It is unacceptable that the Department of Defense fails to
fully reimburse the Coast Guard for the direct international
assistance it provides. Further, Congress must consider whether
current funding levels are sufficient to support the Coast
Guard's vast array of missions.
In particular--and I am interested in what our witnesses
have to say on this front--I am--we have to right-size our
resource allocation with respect to emerging responsibilities
of the Coast Guard, growing responsibilities, particularly in
the Arctic, where the race is on for influence and for
position. And I would be particularly interested in our
positioning in that region.
But, of course, it is not just the Arctic. It would include
the South China Sea, it would include nearly every corner of
the globe.
So I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses on the
international role of the Coast Guard, where there should be a
larger presence, and the ways in which Congress can best
support that mission.
[Mr. Maloney's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on ``The International
Role of the United States Coast Guard.'' In my other role, as a member
of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware of the
international moves being made by competitor nations to gain influence
by exploiting opportunities and weak governance under the guise of
building mutually beneficial partnerships.
China's Belt and Road Initiative for example, allows China to shape
international norms and forcefully assert its global presence through
more than $1 trillion of trade and infrastructure investments. Given
the state of our crumbling domestic infrastructure, it is unlikely that
the United States is going to match that level of spending. Instead we
must make strategic investments that allow us to maintain and develop
relationships with key partner nations by increasing their capacity,
improving their maritime domain awareness, and enhancing enforcement
activities that uphold the rule of law. I agree with the Commandant of
the Coast Guard's assertion characterizing the financial entrapment of
vulnerable countries as more than just a conservation and
sustainability issue; but rather a natural security challenge
warranting a clear and decisive response from the United States.
The Coast Guard has a longstanding history of international
involvement and has played a crucial role in every major American
military conflict since its inception in 1790. While its military
service is obvious, the Coast Guard's diverse mission set also makes it
distinctively qualified to advance America's global interests and exert
international influence. In fact, the Coast Guard's current
international presence is focused on non-military capacity building and
strategic partnerships. For example, the Coast Guard has bilateral
agreements with over 60 partner nations, uniquely leveraging
partnerships across domestic and international arenas on a variety of
maritime missions, including search and rescue, counterdrug, migration,
fisheries, and proliferation security initiatives bringing trusted
access, capacity building, and seamlessly operating under Title 10 and
14 authorities.
While the Coast Guard's international missions have proven
successful, I am keenly aware of the delicate balance that must be
struck when allocating resources. Every cutter sent abroad results in
one fewer cutter performing drug interdictions or search and rescue
missions.
For this reason, we must ensure that the Coast Guard's increasing
international role is met with additional resources. It is unacceptable
that the Department of Defense fails to fully reimburse the Coast Guard
for the direct international assistance it provides. Further, Congress
must consider whether current funding levels are sufficient to support
the Coast Guard's vast array of missions.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses on the
international role of the Coast Guard, where there should be a larger
presence, and the ways in which Congress can best support that mission.
Mr. Maloney. I now call on the ranking member, Mr. Gibbs,
for any remarks he may have.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Chairman Maloney. And good morning,
Admiral.
The United States Coast Guard's unique authorities,
international relationships, and service culture make it a
crucial part of our national security system.
Many may not know the wide range of capabilities and
responsibilities that the Coast Guard has while it defends our
homeland from foreign threats. As the only branch of the armed
services with law enforcement authority, it plays a unique role
in the Nation's international engagement in crucial hotspots,
from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. Most notably, the
Coast Guard uses its unique access and capabilities to
strengthen partner nations' capabilities, all in support of our
national interests.
In other words, presence equals influence.
Unfortunately, increasing DoD requests for Coast Guard
resources places more stress on a limited budget and other
critical mission areas.
The fiscal year 2020 operations and support budget
increased 4.4 percent from fiscal year 2019. Legislation passed
by the House that authorizes a further 6.4-percent increase in
O&S funding for fiscal year 2021 continues to languish in the
Senate. Despite these increases in funding, I remain concerned
about how these increased demands will affect the Coast Guard's
funding needs, especially in light of the increased competition
from other nations.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses on how the
Coast Guard's international role supports our national
interests, and how the Service will support this work alongside
its domestic maritime missions.
[Mr. Gibbs' prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bob Gibbs, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and
Maritime Transportation
The United States Coast Guard has unique authorities, international
relationships, and service culture that make it a crucial part of our
national security system.
Many may not know the wide range of capabilities and
responsibilities that the Coast Guard has while it defends our homeland
from foreign threats. As the only branch of the Armed Services with law
enforcement authority, it plays a unique role in the Nation's
international engagement in crucial hotspots, from the Persian Gulf to
the South China Sea. Most notably, the Coast Guard uses its unique
access and capabilities to strengthen partner nations' capabilities,
all in support of our national interests. In other words, ``presence
equals influence.''
Unfortunately, increasing DOD requests for Coast Guard resources
places more stress on a limited budget and other critical mission
areas. The FY 2020 Operations & Support budget increased 4.4 percent
from FY 2019. Legislation passed by the House that authorizes a further
6.4 percent increase in O&S funding for Fiscal Year 2021 continues to
languish in the Senate. Despite these increases in funding, I remain
concerned about how these increased demands will affect the Coast
Guard's funding needs, especially in light of increased competition
from other nations.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses how the Coast Guard's
international role supports our national interests, and how the Service
will support this work alongside its domestic maritime missions.
Mr. Gibbs. And I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. I would now like to
welcome our witness for our first panel.
Today we are joined by Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy
Commandant for Operations for the United States Coast Guard.
I appreciate you being here today, sir, and we look forward
to your testimony.
Without objection, our witness' full statement will be
included in the record.
Since your written testimony has been made part of the
record, the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral
testimony to about 5 minutes.
With that, Admiral Abel, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL DANIEL B. ABEL, DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR
OPERATIONS, U.S. COAST GUARD
Admiral Abel. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to discuss the
Coast Guard's overseas operations, our work alongside our
shipmates, with the Department of State, and the Department of
Defense, and our combatant commanders. And I know you have got
my written statement, sir.
In 1978, as a high schooler, I knew I wanted to serve our
country in uniform. The question was what uniform. Inside my
locker, as a high school senior, was a bumper sticker from the
United States Coast Guard. It said, ``U.S. Coast Guard: Small
Service, Big Job.'' Clearly, that bumper sticker was
compelling, but also could serve as a title for today's
testimony. We are small in numbers. But our impact,
domestically and internationally for our Nation, is huge.
At all times we are members of the Armed Forces. At all
times we are law enforcers. At all times we are marine
regulators. And at all times we are members of the intel
community. And we serve a Nation whose economic interests and
national security are vastly linked to the sea.
At home we patrol miles and miles of coastlines and in the
waterways, save thousands of lives, protect the world's largest
exclusive economic zone. But across the globe we are a highly
demanded instrument of international diplomacy, recognized as
the U.S. maritime service that is most relatable to partner
nations. And these partner nations model their organization
after us and our actions as they seek to address universal
challenges posed by transnational organized crime, maritime
threats, and their sovereign rights.
And we are uniquely suited overseas, permanently or
expeditionary, to protect our sovereign rights by expanding the
borders out, enhancing partner capacity, and disrupting threats
far away from our shore.
As the chairman noted, we have 60 binational and
multinational agreements and roles in international forums,
unlike any other branch of the Armed Forces, or any other
interagency partner. And these trusted partnerships provide
unique access and capabilities across the competition continuum
vital to our national success.
And we are uniquely qualified to operate in ambiguous or
gray areas requiring that flexible blend of law enforcement and
military, title 10 and title 14. We set and enforce the
behavior in the maritime domain, make sure that the rules-based
order of nations is maintained.
Candidly, we offer white hulls for gray times. And, as one
of the five branches of the Armed Forces, we are a force
multiplier for DoD in their worldwide deployment to execute
defense ops, and supporting security defense priorities. We
never replace DoD or duplicate DoD capabilities. We apply our
unique authorities, capabilities, and partnerships to bridge a
gap, expanding the Nation's military toolbox like no other
Armed Force can.
And in great power competition, we offer transparent
engagement and partnerships at the professional and personal
level. A free and open Indo-Pac is challenged by coercive and
antagonistic activities, debt-trapping, the economic and
subsistence impacts of illegal fishing, transnational crime,
and corruption.
As a Nation, we have direct interest in the Western
Pacific, as well. Our U.S. Territories comprise 1.3 million
square miles, or 43 percent of our EEZ. In my 41 years in this
Coast Guard uniform, I have watched our Coast Guard
increasingly bridge the gap from the diplomacy of State
Department to DoD's lethality through international agreements,
partnerships, and presence. The Service is well positioned and
comfortable operating in that competitive space below the level
of armed conflict, providing capabilities and decision space.
Your Coast Guard is, indeed, a small Service with a big
job.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. And on behalf of
the men and women who stand the watch right now, and their
families that wait for a safe return, thank you for your
support.
I stand ready for your questions.
[Admiral Abel's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy Commandant
for Operations, U.S. Coast Guard
Introduction
Good morning Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee. It is my pleasure to be here today to discuss the U.S.
Coast Guard's global operations, our support to the Department of State
(DOS), and the Department of Defense (DoD) Geographic Combatant
Commanders, as well as the role we play in the execution of the
National Security and National Defense Strategy amidst the resumption
of great power competition.
The U.S. Coast Guard is a multi-mission, maritime service
responsible for the safety, security, and stewardship of the high seas
and waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. At all
times a military service and branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, a federal
law enforcement agency, a regulatory body, a first responder, and a
member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, the U.S. Coast Guard
operates on all seven continents and throughout the homeland, serving a
nation whose national security and economic prosperity are inextricably
linked to vast maritime interests.
The U.S. Coast Guard protects and defends more than 100,000 miles
of U.S. coastline and inland waterways, saves thousands of lives per
year, and safeguards the world's largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ),
encompassing 4.5 million square miles of ocean. Indeed, the U.S. Coast
Guard is fully engaged answering the call and balancing a multitude of
dynamic maritime risks facing our nation.
Across the globe, the U.S. Coast Guard is in high demand as an
instrument of international diplomacy, recognized as the U.S. maritime
service with the most relatable mission profile to many nations'
maritime forces. Our partner nations model their actions after the U.S.
Coast Guard, often with our assistance, in their efforts to address the
universal challenges posed by transnational crime, human smuggling,
maritime safety and security, environmental stewardship, illegal,
unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU), and foreign provocations in
their sovereign waters.
Overseas Operations
The U.S. Coast Guard maintains a robust permanent and expeditionary
global footprint in the execution of its statutory missions. Our
operations overseas protect our national interests by expanding
operations beyond our physical borders, enhancing partner nation
capability, and disrupting threats away from our shores. Within the
scope of our resources, we respond to demand signals from the
Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to
conduct missions for which we are uniquely suited in support of
national security and national defense priorities.
Cooperation
The U.S. Coast Guard's network of over 60 multi and bi-lateral
agreements and participation in international fora are unlike those of
any other military force or government agency. This network provides
access to partners in key regions on issues ranging from fisheries
enforcement, to counter narcotics, to joint contingency plans for
pollution in the Arctic, to anti-terror missions. These partnerships
are vital to the Nation's success in the broader context of
geostrategic competition and will only become more relevant in the
decades to come.
i) As a result of the U.S. Coast Guard's law enforcement,
regulatory, and humanitarian missions, the Coast Guard maintains
professional service-to-service relationships and cooperates on
maritime economic and national security challenges such as high-seas
driftnet fishing with China, dangerous maritime migration with Cuba,
and safe navigation of the Bering Sea and Arctic with our counterpart
agencies in Russia, while serving as a role model for behavior in the
maritime domain.
ii) As the model example of international cooperation within the
marine transportation system (MTS), the U.S. Coast Guard's
International Port Security Program, with a permanent overseas presence
in the Netherlands, Japan, and Singapore, conducts port security
assessments and capacity building under the International Maritime
Organization's (IMO) International Ship and Port Facility Security Code
(ISPS Code) in over 150 coastal states. This program reduces risk to
U.S. maritime interests, including U.S. ports and ships, and
facilitates secure maritime trade across the globe.
Competition Below the Level of Armed Conflict
In addition to building and reinforcing partnerships, the U.S.
Coast Guard provides specialized operational capabilities in support of
national security objectives. The U.S. Coast Guard is uniquely
qualified to operate in ambiguous environments requiring a flexible
blend of diplomatic, military, economic, and law enforcement tools. By
setting and enforcing standards of behavior in the maritime domain, the
U.S. Coast Guard upholds a rules-based order in the face of
geostrategic competition and leads like-minded nations to counter
malign actors below the level of armed conflict. Examples include
shaping international norms as a U.S. representative at bodies such as
the Arctic Council or the International Maritime Organization (IMO),
supporting Combatant Commanders through Theater Security Cooperation
(TSC) missions, and United Nation's member states through sanctions
enforcement in the South China Sea. The U.S. Coast Guard offers white
hulls for gray geopolitical times.
Armed Conflict
The U.S. Coast Guard has served in a combat role during every major
armed conflict involving the United States since 1790. The Service
remains committed to interoperability with our DoD partners and is
ready to fulfill its complementary role in the event of armed conflict
or contingency operations as an active member of the Joint Force.
Whether we are supporting military mobility through our management of
the marine transportation system or operating jointly with other
services, the U.S. Coast Guard remains Semper Paratus (Always Ready)
when the Nation calls.
Support to DoD Geographic Combatant Commanders
As one of the five Armed Forces, and the only service with both
Title 10 and Title 14 authorities, the U.S. Coast Guard serves as a
force multiplier for the Joint Force and deploys world-wide to execute
our statutory defense operation missions in support of national
security and defense priorities. Our enduring role is not, and never
has been, to replace or duplicate DoD assets or capabilities, but
rather to apply our unique authorities and capabilities to bridge gaps
and create opportunities, enabling the Service to augment DoD's ``tool
kit'' in ways no other Armed Force can. While the DoD is rightly
focused on hard power lethality, the U.S. Coast Guard provides the full
spectrum of smart power multi-mission flexibility, including trusted
access, with both kinetic and non-kinetic options to advance U.S.
interests, preserve U.S. security and prosperity, and address wide-
ranging threats and challenges.
Around the world, on any given day, more than 2,000 U.S. Coast
Guard members are deployed in direct support of Geographic Combatant
Commander priorities. In the Middle East, the U.S. Coast Guard has over
240 personnel assigned in Manama, Bahrain, including six patrol boats,
a maritime engagement team, and an advanced interdiction team which
support U.S. Central Command's maritime security, theater security
cooperation (TSC), and counter-piracy initiatives. Likewise, the U.S.
Coast Guard regularly supports U.S. Africa Command's African Maritime
Law Enforcement Partnership program with cutter deployments and
deployable specialized forces to stem maritime security threats that
destabilize the region and our partners. The Coast Guard supports TSC
in Africa through the provision of a maritime advisor to the Liberian
Coast Guard. Coast Guard security cooperation with littoral-focused
navies fill a crucial skills and capability gap that our partners need
in order to better control their maritime zones, counter illegal
trafficking, and to counter power projection by global adversaries that
is often justified by the lack of safe shipping lanes for commercial
use.
In the Indo-Pacific theater, U.S. Coast Guard capabilities and
authorities are leveraged to advance important strategic National
Security objectives. National Security Cutter deployments in support of
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) enforce United Nations sanctions
enforcement while building partner nations' security capabilities. The
U.S. Coast Guard also supports INDOPACOM through cutter deployments and
professional engagements in Oceania, and by deploying the nation's only
heavy icebreaker in support of both Joint Task Force-Support Forces
Antarctica and in ensuring Antarctica Treaty compliance.
Closer to home, the U.S. Coast Guard is a key federal agency and
force provider performing counter-maritime illicit trafficking
operations as well as Detection and Monitoring in the Western
Hemisphere Transit Zone; providing more than 4,000 hours of Maritime
Patrol Aircraft and over 2,000 major cutter days to U.S. Southern
Command (USSOUTHCOM) annually. Coast Guard law enforcement teams are
also deployed aboard DoD, and Allied, assets to bring specialized law
enforcement authorities that other military services lack. Spanning a
maritime operating area roughly the size of the continental United
States, the Coast Guard deploys aircraft, cutters, intelligence teams,
and specialized law enforcement personnel to defend maritime approaches
to the Homeland.
Interdicting illicit cargoes at sea creates space and opportunity
for our Central American partners to thwart the rampant violence and
corruption that illegal drugs induce in fragile democracies, and
bolster the rule of law within their own countries. With the Service's
unique authorities and capabilities, the U.S. Coast Guard continues to
yield large-scale successes in its counter-drug mission in USSOUTHCOM's
area of responsibility. Over the past four years, the U.S. Coast Guard
removed more than 1.8 million pounds of pure cocaine from the transit
zone, resulting in 24 billion dollars in drug proceeds denied to
Transnational Criminal Organizations. Exercising expeditionary maritime
law enforcement capabilities, Port Security Unit detachments provide
USSOUTHCOM 24 hour/7 day a week anti-terrorism and force protection
presence in the Naval Defensive Sea Area of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The U.S. Coast Guard supports the Defense Security Cooperation
Agency via mobile training teams, developing partner nation capacity
all over the world, including Georgia, Honduras, Jordan, and Tunisia.
The service also supports Foreign Military Sales and Foreign Military
Financing; fundamental tools of U.S. foreign policy that advance
national security priorities. The Coast Guard fills several critical
Senior Defense Official positions in U.S. embassies in the Western
Hemisphere, and Coast Guard attache billets in other embassies
globally.
While not internationally based, the U.S. Coast Guard also provides
domestic operational support to DoD, specifically with our 15 years of
aircraft and air intercept crew support for low/slow air threats to the
National Capital Region as part of Operation NOBLE EAGLE, as well as
deployable Rotary Wing Air Intercept capabilities in support of U.S.
Northern Command. The U.S. Coast Guard also provides Maritime Force
Protection Units (MFPUs) to defense bases in Bangor, WA, and Kings Bay,
GA, where Coast Guard units protect strategic DoD assets on both the
Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
At U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Coast Guard personnel serve in critical
technical and intelligence capacities to defeat our adversaries in
cyberspace. The U.S. Coast Guard recognizes the cyberspace operating
environment as key terrain that can impact and drive mission and
economic success in all domains. Partnering with other like-minded
nations, the U.S. Coast Guard is building information sharing
relationships between major ports to provide resiliency for the free
flow of commerce during cyberattacks that may attempt to corrupt or
slow U.S. supply lines. The Service is building our cyber workforce to
assist in protecting America's maritime commerce and economy. Our first
Cyber Protection Team is building capacity while integrating with the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to deploy and protect
critical infrastructure and U.S. economic stability.
Global Power Competition in Arctic and Indo-Pacific
Arctic
The United States is an Arctic nation with extensive sovereign
rights and responsibilities, and our national security interests in the
Arctic are significant, in part due to the reemergence of global power
competition in the region. Actions and intentions of Arctic and non-
Arctic states shape the security environment and geopolitical stability
of the region. In particular, our two near-peer competitors, Russia and
China, are demonstrably intent on exploiting the maritime domain to
advance their interests.
From a military perspective, Russia's long Arctic coastline, in a
future stripped of sea ice, will be open to support naval fleets
readily deployable between the Atlantic and Pacific. The Russian
government is currently rebuilding and expanding military bases that
had previously fallen into disuse. These renewed capabilities include
air bases, ports, weapons systems, troop deployments, domain awareness
tools, and search-and-rescue response. Additionally, Russia has the
world's largest number of icebreakers. With over 50 icebreakers that
include four operational, nuclear-powered heavy icebreakers, and plans
to build an additional seven nuclear powered icebreakers, Russia
maintains the capabilities, capacities, experienced crews, and
infrastructure necessary to operate and surge into the Arctic year-
round.
Likewise, with the release of their Arctic Policy paper in January
2018, the People's Republic of China (PRC) declared itself a nation
intrinsically tied to the Arctic, and signaled its intent to play a
security and governance role in the region. In 2019, the PRC launched
its first domestically-built icebreaker and has begun designing an even
more powerful and potentially nuclear-powered polar icebreaker expected
to have twice the icebreaking capability of its newest vessel. With
three icebreakers, the PRC will have greater Arctic access and capacity
than the United States. PRC activities, and the manner in which they
seek support for their Arctic ambitions may potentially disrupt the
longstanding cooperation and stability in the region. Around the globe,
the PRC uses coercion, influence-operations, debt-trap diplomacy, and
implied military threats to persuade other states to acquiesce to its
global agenda. The PRC incorporated the Arctic as a component of its
One Belt, One Road initiative, recently dubbed the Polar Silk Road and
continues to emphasize its self-proclaimed status as a ``near Arctic
state''. The PRC's ambitions and outreach are fraught with risk, often
times diminishing the sovereignty of states and fracturing the rules-
based governance in the region.
The ability for the United States to lead in the Arctic, both
strategically and operationally, hinges on having the capabilities and
capacity (presence) to protect our sovereign rights, and homeland
security interests. The foundation of the U.S. Coast Guard's
operational presence and influence is U.S. icebreakers, whose purpose
is to provide assured, year-round access to the Polar Regions for the
execution of national security missions within existing Coast Guard
authorities.
The U.S. Coast Guard's icebreaker capacity lies in one heavy-class
polar icebreaker, USCGC POLAR STAR--commissioned in 1976, and one
medium-class icebreaker, USCGC HEALY--commissioned in 2000. However,
due to the strong support of the Administration and Congress, in April
of 2019, the joint U.S. Coast Guard and Navy Integrated Program Office
(IPO) awarded VT Halter Marine Inc., of Pascagoula, Mississippi, a
fixed price incentive (firm) contract for the detail design and
construction of one Polar Security Cutter (PSC). We are as close as we
have ever been in over 40 years to recapitalizing our icebreaking
fleet, and continued investment to grow the fleet will ensure we meet
our Nation's national security objectives in the Polar Regions.
Indo-Pacific
The U.S. Coast Guard has a specific and irreplaceable national
security role to advance the rules-based maritime governance of the
Indo-Pacific region. The maritime domain is the lifeblood of the Indo-
Pacific, and the U.S. has direct sovereign interests in the region,
including the Territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana
Islands, and American Samoa; this includes the 1.3 million square
miles, or 43 percent, of the U.S. EEZ located in the Western and
Central Pacific. Expanding commitments to meet security and defense
needs of the sovereign states of Palau, the Federated States of
Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands under the Compacts
of Free Association further cement the need for U.S. Coast Guard
engagement in the region.
The concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific is challenged by
China's coercive and antagonistic activities across the region, while
the Pacific Island Countries and Territories specifically face inter-
related threats of debt-trapping, economic and societal impacts of IUU
fishing, and transnational crime and corruption.
As part of a whole of government approach to addressing challenges
in Oceania and the broader Indo-Pacific region, the U.S. Coast Guard
offers transparent, persistent engagement and partnership at both
professional and personal levels that challenge the PRC's approach in
the region. The U.S. Coast Guard is expanding our engagement in the
Indo-Pacific by establishing additional permanent presence through
diplomatic missions (e.g. Australia, Malaysia) to strengthen regional
engagement, working to build the capacity of the Philippines and
Vietnamese Coast Guards, and executing new operational concepts, either
organically, or in conjunction with the DoD, by providing specialized
capabilities and expanding information sharing efforts with our
partners.
Beyond regular multi-mission patrols across the Indo-Pacific by our
National Security Cutters, the U.S. Coast Guard is demonstrating our
enduring commitment to the region by homeporting three of our newest
Fast Response Cutters (FRC) in Guam over the next three years.
Recently, FRCs and a U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender conducted ports
visits to the Pacific Islands and discussed partner nation capacity
building opportunities in an effort to strengthen operational
partnerships. We anticipate these cutters will significantly increase
U.S. Coast Guard operational presence throughout the region, and
protect our EEZ from threats of IUU fishing and transnational crime.
Conclusion
Through international engagement, partnership, and presence, the
U.S. Coast Guard's international role and multi-mission flexibility
serves as an important bridge between diplomacy and DoD's lethality.
The Service is well-positioned and comfortable operating in the gray
zone (the competitive space below the level of armed conflict) which
provides time and decision space along the competition continuum. The
U.S. Coast Guard anticipates an increasingly dynamic future of global
competition, where the Service will be asked to move between
cooperation, competition, and even conflict at a moment's notice.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for
all you do for the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard. I look
forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. We will now proceed to
Members' questions. Each Member will be recognized for 5
minutes, and I will begin by recognizing myself.
Admiral, you talk about the role that intelligence plays in
the Coast Guard missions. I have a friend who is a senior
executive at Goldman Sachs--he made better career choices than
I did--and he likes to say that Goldman Sachs isn't a bank, it
is a technology company. And the insight is that all of their
functions are being translated increasingly into technology
challenges.
I have a view that most of the missions of the Coast Guard
are going to be intelligence missions in the coming years. Can
you say a word about that?
Admiral Abel. Well, first of all, we pride ourselves on
being an intel-driven organization, because, if you don't know
what you are seeking to do, and what the adversary is doing,
you are pretty much out of luck, particularly on the
counterdrug business. When you have got an area of
responsibility twice the size of the continent of the United
States, it has got to be intel-based. So you have to know the
load is moving, where the load is going to.
In a broader role with DoD or other agencies, the fact that
we are members of the intel community means we are those links
that can link military to other agencies, sir.
Mr. Maloney. Can you talk about the role that intelligence
plays in missions, say, in the Arctic, or in the South China
Sea?
Can you also maybe specifically mention the need for secure
communications on Coast Guard vessels?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. So there is a strong draw to the
Arctic. Whether it is 30 percent of the undiscovered natural
gas, 13 percent of the undiscovered oil, $1 trillion worth of
minerals, or just faster transit from Asia to Europe, the Coast
Guard needs to be there.
Every Coast Guard cutter should be a collector. And with
the National Security Cutters--and we appreciate the support of
Congress in fielding those--we have become very accustomed to
having some very exquisite----
Mr. Maloney. Admiral, excuse me, if I could just interrupt
you right there, I know we are going to put those collection
facilities on the Polar----
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir.
Mr. Maloney [continuing]. Security Cutters. And, of course,
on the National Security Cutters.
So what about the HPCs?
Admiral Abel. The what?
Mr. Maloney. What about the high-performance cutters?
Admiral Abel. The Offshore Patrol Cutters?
Mr. Maloney. Yes, excuse me, offshore----
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. Right now we are looking at the
capability that is best suited for that vessel. We are doing an
alternative analysis to see the best way that she can fit the
niche. We still maintain that those vessels should all be
collectors. There are different ways we could do it. We are
working with the Navy, particularly. They are right now
designing what the skiff will be like for FFG(X) to----
Mr. Maloney. What would it cost to put a skiff on every
OPC?
Admiral Abel. Sir?
Mr. Maloney. What would it cost to put a skiff on every----
Admiral Abel. We are looking at the cost right now. I am--I
can get the number back to you, but I would say around $25
million, sir.
Mr. Maloney. And how many are we talking about? Times what
to outfit them all? Are we are talking about 20?
Admiral Abel. The 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters in the fleet.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Maloney. Right. So a total number of $500 million?
Admiral Abel. But, sir, that is the equipment alone. We
need to, obviously----
Mr. Maloney. Oh, I understand.
Admiral Abel [continuing]. Have maintenance and crew----
Mr. Maloney. But I understand that they are being outfitted
for that equipment already, isn't that right?
Admiral Abel. Sir?
Mr. Maloney. Aren't they already being built with the
capacity to add that equipment and add those facilities?
Admiral Abel. Sir, the threshold requirement is space,
weight, and power. Basically, an empty space with T1 drops, to
then install the gear that we determine is best for the space.
So----
Mr. Maloney. And that is the $25 million.
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir.
Mr. Maloney. But that is the incremental cost we would need
to incur to outfit every OPC with a----
Admiral Abel. Current estimate, yes, sir. And we are
looking at----
Mr. Maloney. $500 million over 10 years, 8 years?
Admiral Abel. Over--well, that would be the initial cost.
Mr. Maloney. For the life of the program.
Admiral Abel. Of the program. Yes, sir. Then IT you recap
fairly quickly.
Mr. Maloney. Right. What is that, 8 years? What is the
timeframe on that program, 8 years, 10 years to----
Admiral Abel. For the OPCs?
Mr. Maloney. For all the OPCs, yes.
Admiral Abel. The first one gets delivered in 2024. We have
got the recompete for vessel 5 and beyond. So I can get back
with you on the actual rollout of----
Mr. Maloney. Right. But I guess my point would be that, in
a period where we are going to spend $8 to $10 trillion on
defense, we are talking about a $500 million expense to put a
skiff on every OPC, which would allow the kind of collection
intelligence-driven activities for all Coast Guard missions in
all corners of the globe. Isn't that right?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. And we agree that our white hulls
can get places gray hulls can't, and we can collect on things
that folks are suspect----
Mr. Maloney. You read my mind, and it is a good segue to
talk about the missions in the South China Sea or in Taiwan.
What are we currently doing, and how are we resourcing those
missions?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. Well, this last year, I think you
know, we pretty much committed a 1.0--basically a 365 presence
of our National Security Cutter--two different cutters, they
swapped out about mid-year. And they did a number of things
over there, enforced U.N. security sanctions, they actually ran
the Straits of Taiwan to test the Chinese to see how are you
going to handle a Coast Guard cutter that is in a different
place. We did the intel collection that I can certainly talk
about on a classified level.
But we showed China a different face of the United States
that they had not seen.
Mr. Maloney. What is the last time we did a freedom of
navigation exercise in the Arctic?
Admiral Abel. In the Arctic, sir? I will have to get back
with you on that one. I mean, we send National Security
Cutters----
Mr. Maloney. It has been a while?
Admiral Abel. Well----
Mr. Maloney. It has been a while, hasn't it?
Admiral Abel. Well, we are up there in the National
Security Cutters, but we maintain in our own waters, sir.
Mr. Maloney. What is farthest north? I am out of time, but
what is the farthest north we have a port or a facility, a
Coast Guard facility, in the Arctic? It is south of the Bering
Strait, is it not?
Admiral Abel. Sir, Kodiak is the farthest north we have.
Mr. Maloney. Would it make sense to have a port north of
the Bering Strait?
Admiral Abel. Right now, the size of the ships that go up
there are well supported with a brief stop for supplies in
Dutch Harbor. So right--if we were there, we would use it. Is
it a requirement? No.
Mr. Maloney. I appreciate that.
Mr. Gibbs?
Mr. Gibbs. Yes, thank you.
Admiral, last week the Commandant was quoted as saying
there are about 750 monthly ship calls at our ports on the
Pacific side, and that passenger vessels have at least 14 days
subject to--haven't been out at sea for 14 days are detained
and tested.
As the Coast Guard, are you receiving the notices of
arrival?
And also, are you provided passenger data from the CDC?
Admiral Abel. Sir, so what we are doing on that is, first
of all, we are tracking all global maritime traffic. Any given
day we are tracking 3,000 targets. Looking at just cruise lines
alone, for the next 10 days we are talking 76 vessels, around
270,000 passengers and crew. As they make their 96-hour
notification, we work with Customs and Border Protection at a
vetting center. We vet last five ports of call. The crew
composition, the cargo on the vessel, and then, if there is
anything suspect, we certainly work with CDC.
I would also say there is a mandatory requirement if a sea
captain has anyone sick on their vessel, crew or passenger,
they have got to notify the Coast Guard. If we get one of those
notifications, then we work with CDC for the best option.
Candidly, you have seen a few times where CDC said the best
option is to have the ship anchor offshore and work the case.
And that is what we have been doing.
Mr. Gibbs. So do you think the Coast Guard has enough
resources right now? You feel comfortable, or--the position we
are in right now?
Admiral Abel. Sir, it is a challenge right now with the
cruise industry. I think you know that the Vice President and
our Secretary were with the cruise industry Saturday, down in
south Florida. And they have been told to come back with a plan
that mitigates the risks that we have been seeing in the cruise
industry.
Mr. Gibbs. How about the containerships, the crews from the
containerships, how do we handle them?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. So the proclamation that said that
China had to wait 14 days, there was a cut-out for sea crews.
And what we have done with them is, first all, if anyone is
sick, we need to be notified, we will handle that. If no one is
symptomatic, if that ship comes in, and they just stay with the
vessel, turn the ship around, and get back underway, which is
what the ship wants them to do--they don't make money sitting
at the pier--off they go.
We have not had widespread problems with the cargo
industry. That $5.6 trillion of economic impact is moving with
the containers coming.
Mr. Gibbs. On resilience, both the DoD and the Coast
Guard--you cite defense rules-based world order, central
objective, foreign policy, and--what roles would resilience
play in the current rules-based order?
Admiral Abel. Resiliency, sir, for?
Mr. Gibbs. Well, I guess I will go a little farther. Just--
Coast Guard's engagement with international military, civilian,
and law enforcement partners affects the resilience of our
ports and our maritime transportation system.
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. Well, you know, the maritime
transportation system is an endowment that we got from Mother
Nature. I mean, it is phenomenal. The deepwater ports, the
rivers, that is what fuels the $5.4 trillion of commerce.
What we do is, with the international inspections overseas,
we push the threat over there. And if you don't meet the Coast
Guard standards, you are going to have a condition of entry,
which, at times, could say you need to anchor out until the
Coast Guard visits your vessel. So it pays for those foreign
ports to be Coast Guard approved, meet international standards,
so when the ships show up it is quickly moving and they can
turn around, get their cargo, and make money.
Mr. Gibbs. I will move quickly to the Great Lakes. My
understanding is, on the icebreaking capacity, the U.S. has
shrunk down to six vessels, and the Canadians have stripped
down to two in the last 7 years. Where are we in relation with
our partnership, our agreement with the Canadians on
icebreaking?
And are we able to maintain our commitment? Or are they
maintaining their commitment to us? What is the status?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. So, you know, among those that ring
the Great Lakes, it takes a village to keep the lakes going
through the winter time.
Mr. Gibbs. Yes.
Admiral Abel. We have got a number of vessels, the 140s
that we are putting through service-life extension right now,
we are buying them 14 more years. We also have the buoy tenders
that do sustainment breaking. If you can break it every couple
of days, you don't need the big icebreaker. And, of course, we
have got the Mackinaw.
We have a good cooperative agreement with the Canadians. If
we need help, they come help us, and the opposite.
We also do appreciate the money from this committee, and we
are studying what the future requirements are within the Great
Lakes for icebreaking.
Mr. Gibbs. Do U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers spend more time
in the Canadian ports than the Canadian icebreakers spend in
U.S. ports? What is that relationship?
Admiral Abel. So I will get back with you. I don't have the
statistics on which side of the border they are spending their
time.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. OK, I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. Mr. Lowenthal?
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Vice
Admiral Abel.
My community is very interesting. It is both the home of
the Port of Long Beach--and the Coast Guard plays an immense
role there--and it is also the home of the large Vietnamese
expatriate community in southern California. And so we rely, in
our district, as does the country, on free and open trade in
the Indo-Pacific.
And my constituents also have a very strong interest in
checking China's influence in the south, especially in their
dominance in the South China Sea, and what is going on. And you
have addressed this issue now, that the Coast Guard is also
very involved in these issues, and the importance of
cultivating relationships with our allies and what you have
done.
So, my question is, given China's considerable ability to
project a large presence in this region, and we know that that
is what they are doing, and they have that ability, how can we
best leverage the Coast Guard's resources to ensure that we are
getting our biggest strategic bang for the buck?
What are we going to do? How can we leverage your--and do
it--a better job, knowing the role of China?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. That really is part of our
authorities, our capabilities, and our partnerships, which are
different from DoD. And, as I mentioned, many of these
countries, their navies or their coast guard really look like
ours.
And a simple element of national power could be a team of
five Coast Guard petty officers that show up at a country that
is struggling to help them maintain their outboard motors, say,
``This is how we do it in the Coast Guard, here's some
computerized maintenance records, and why don't we get dinner
after we get done today working on your boat, and then maybe
can we sell you some boats? Can we give you some boats? Can we
maintain some boats?''
That enduring sustainment of military-to-military, coast
guard-to-coast guard, those small military training teams go
far, as well as a Coast Guard cutter that can pull in. We could
do strategic buoys. We could put buoys in a port that maybe is
hindered with its amount of trade because they are lacking
buoys.
Those types of soft power is where you can turn to the
United States Coast Guard. And that is the niche that we fill,
sir.
Mr. Lowenthal. I want to follow up on that, on these
security relationships, and I think that is very positive. But
on the flip side of that, that many of these countries in the
Asia-Pacific region that face pressure from China are governed
by regimes with mixed or even more concerning records on human
rights. We are talking about, you know, I mentioned already the
Vietnamese expatriate community.
Well, there is a real strong concern about our
relationship--or their human rights violations and their
pressure from China, but yet engaging in the same kinds of
human rights violations that China does. So it is very, very
difficult to speak out.
So, my question is, does--in dealing with that, does the
Coast Guard training and educational programs include training
on human rights issues? Because you are out there dealing with
the Vietnamese Coast Guard, forming relationships, while we
have--and while, on one hand, that is very positive, we have--
on the other hand, we have very strong concerns about their
human rights issues. So maybe you could explain that to me
also.
Admiral Abel. Well, first of all, all our crews are
trained, if they see any abuses while they are conducting the
training, there are protocols for them to report back.
Also, we work----
Mr. Lowenthal. Has it ever happened?
Admiral Abel. Pardon, sir? I can get back with you. I mean,
there--they are keyed to say, you know, if you see this, this,
or this, these are the things you need to do.
Also, we work with the Department of State to make sure
that the partners we are working with are partners we should be
working with, to make sure that we are not working with nations
that we can't trust or that abuse their public. It should be
the public goes to those we are working with, not away from
those we are working with. That would be the goal.
And I would say, too, that, internationally, by pushing
back on China and the things that they are trying to make new
norms, they will continue to push unless we push back. So
pushing back on illegal fisheries, poaching in someone else's
waters, those are the things that will stop China from their
spread across the Pacific.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. Mr. Mast?
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Chairman.
Admiral, thank you for being here today. I want to switch
gears a little bit, speak a little bit about the Marine
Environmental Protection mission, and just start--number one,
obviously, the Coast Guard needs more resources across the
board.
Can you discuss a little bit how is budgeting going for the
Marine Environmental Protection mission? Where are there
shortfalls there? Do you need more? Do you need less? Just give
me a little bit of an overview on that to begin with.
Admiral Abel. Well, as far as Marine Environmental
Protection, I mean, we put the onus on the operator to make
sure they have the initial supplies to react to a spill, or--of
national significance, anything like that. But we do need to be
prepared, as a Coast Guard, to respond if we need to.
Could we use more resources? Absolutely, to make sure that
we are ready at a moment's notice.
Also, we make sure, again, that we inspect their plan, make
sure their plan is viable, they have the resources on the short
tether that is needed to then respond in a timely fashion, as
far as their spill response plan, whether a facility or vessel.
Mr. Mast. So I want to switch gears a little bit away from
spill and emergency response in that way, and thinking a little
bit more about the issue of ocean plastics, debris, garbage. Is
it documented in Coast Guard logs on these vessels what they
are seeing? Certainly around the U.S. or internationally, what
they come across in the waters, in terms of debris in the
water? Is that something that is documented within the logs?
Admiral Abel. Sir, I don't know of any requirement that we
place on them. We are not the lead on marine debris, that is
NOAA. And we certainly team with them on a lot of activities.
We do participate in the International Maritime
Organization conventions on what you can throw overboard, what
you can't, what you can pump overboard. So, in a way, we are
there, making sure that what leaves a vessel is carefully
sanctioned, and it is legal or not legal, and folks know what
you need to retain onboard with incinerators or trash
compactors.
Mr. Mast. But to your point, what you--you don't know for a
fact that--or, rather, you don't believe that the Coast Guard
is documenting what they are seeing as they are navigating
around the world, in terms of----
Admiral Abel. I don't believe there is a requirement for a
commanding officer to report such. No, sir.
Mr. Mast. OK. Very good. Thank you. That is the extent of
my questions. I appreciate your time today, sir.
Mr. Maloney. Mr. Lamb?
Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Admiral, for coming to be with us here
today. I wanted to talk a little bit about the drug threat and
the interdiction work that you all are doing. And I know that
you emphasized in your testimony the amount of cocaine seized
in the last couple of years, which is helpful.
But in a lot of our country, especially western
Pennsylvania, where I represent, opioids, heroin, and more so
fentanyl now, are the bigger threat. Are your troops
interdicting heroin and fentanyl and opioid products at sea, as
well?
Admiral Abel. So right now we are not seeing a large
maritime vector, but I would say the same organizations and
funds could fund the cartels that are running that.
So in a way, yes, we are affecting it--is the fact that
these large transnational criminal organizations, if they are
making money on cocaine. We have seen some mixed loads. We did
see some fentanyl that went from--it was Dominican Republic, it
was going to Puerto Rico. We did interdict that. But again, the
load may be mostly cocaine, and maybe some other stuff
sprinkled in there.
Mr. Lamb. But you have seen some mixed amounts? That was
kind of what I was----
Admiral Abel. Not on par with what we have seen on cocaine
coming from the maritime vector.
Mr. Lamb. OK. And is it roughly equivalent on the west
coast, Pacific as in the Caribbean, or are you seeing more in
one area than the other?
Admiral Abel. You are saying the fentanyl opioid?
Mr. Lamb. No, just overall, your interdiction----
Admiral Abel. Oh, cocaine.
Mr. Lamb [continuing]. Work, yes.
Admiral Abel. Eighty percent of our work is in the Pacific,
the Eastern Pacific.
Mr. Lamb. OK.
Admiral Abel. And huge AOR. And the way we get after that,
candidly, is--it is three sides of a triangle. One, you have
got to have intel. You have got to know the loads on the water.
That gets you in the right zip code. You have to have a
Maritime Patrol Aircraft. That gets you the street address. And
you need a Coast Guard cutter with a helicopter that can shoot,
and a small boat that can shoot, because they are not going to
stop for you. If you can get those three ingredients, the
effectiveness of that Coast Guard force package is much higher.
Mr. Lamb. And the maritime aircraft, you are saying
separate from the helicopter?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir. That would be a long-range search
aircraft.
Mr. Lamb. Yes.
Admiral Abel. Our brothers and sisters from Customs and
Border Protection do a phenomenal job. The Department of
Defense always has an aircraft down there, as well. And
sometimes it is a contract aircraft the Department of State
pays for. So there is a number of aircraft, but we could use
more.
Mr. Lamb. OK. And just shifting gears for a second, do you
see a growing presence for the Coast Guard in Southeast Asia
doing some of this kind of direct enforcement against China
that you talked about, as far as personnel? Do you have any way
of forecasting that in the next 5 or 10 years? Do you see a big
growth in kind of permanently stationing Coast Guard members
out there?
Admiral Abel. Right now we don't have any plans to
permanently station folks there. The beauty of the maritime
force is, we can adapt year to year with where the business is.
A good example of what we did was we saw an urgent need. We
sent one of our buoy tenders with a Fast Response Cutter, not
two particularly large vessels, and they went island to island
and did some nation building. We called it a strategic action
group, which the Navy would snicker at.
But for those islands, it was huge, the fact that the Coast
Guard came in. They did some nation building, they did some law
enforcement training, talked about search and rescue, marine
environmental response, and they said, ``We will be back in a
little bit,'' and that constant, you know, episodic visits that
you can get from the Coast Guard goes far with these nations.
Mr. Lamb. That is good. So when you talk about, like,
trying to crack down on illegal fishing by China, are you
talking more about training the local nations to do that
themselves, as opposed to, like, a Coast Guard cutter going out
there, enforcing it? Or are you talking about both?
Admiral Abel. The ideal is that the Nation enforces their
own sovereignty over their own waters. But these nations, there
is a reason the Chinese are going after them. They are the most
vulnerable. They have weak legal authorities. Their forces are
not well positioned.
But there also are ways--we teamed North Pacific Guard with
the Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese, the South Koreans, the
Canadians, and the United States. We all work together once a
year, and it is a strange collection of people, but we all say
we have got to stop this illegal fishing. And when you get a
Chinese-owned, Panamanian-flagged transshipment vessel that the
fish is already cut and palletized and frozen, and you can't
trace it anywhere, there is a reason one in four fish bought in
the United States could be illegal, because we just don't know.
Mr. Lamb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. Mr. Gallagher?
Excuse me, Mrs. Miller?
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Maloney and Ranking Member
Gibbs.
And thank you for being here today to discuss the important
work that the brave men and women continue to do in the Coast
Guard every single day. You have been invaluable to my district
in West Virginia, performing the dangerous search-and-rescue
missions and saving lives.
While the Coast Guard is both visible and present in my
district, the important role that you all play in international
waters is just as essential. I believe that it is essential
that the Coast Guard has the resources to effectively and
efficiently continue to perform their military and law
enforcement duties here at home, as well as abroad.
Along with my colleague from southwestern Pennsylvania, I
have a couple questions that have to do with drugs. Last year I
asked the Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Schultz, about the
role that the Coast Guard plays in seizing those illegal drugs
in the Gulf of Mexico. Has anything changed in the last year
when it comes to stopping the flow of the dangerous illegal
drugs that are coming into our communities from the foreign
countries?
Admiral Abel. Well, ma'am, we are constantly adapting,
because the enemy gets a vote. And we find these drug
organizations to be highly adaptive, and wherever we put a
Coast Guard package, they quickly move.
Now flows are going outside the Galapagos. I mean, we are
talking 500, 600 miles offshore in small vessels with a crew of
three, open fishing boats. That is why it makes it a challenge
to find it.
The Caribbean, 20 percent of the flow, not as much, but a
lot of that flow is faster. You can get from Central--you know,
South America up to Jamaica, Dominican Republic, much faster
than these long routes. But the bulk of the flow we are seeing
in the Eastern Pacific goes up to Mexico. And the goal is, if
we can catch it in bulk, we catch more than every Federal
agency combined. And we would much rather catch it in tons than
police departments trying to find a kilo here or a kilo there
on the streets, much more efficient, much more impactful
against those drug organizations when we catch it in bulk.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you. Has the Coast Guard seen any
changes in the types of drugs that you are intercepting?
Admiral Abel. Well, I mentioned earlier that we are
seeing--sometimes it is a combination load that might have
something else mixed in it, but the bulk that we are looking at
right now and capturing is cocaine.
Mrs. Miller. What more can Congress do to ensure that more
drugs are stopped from making their way into our country?
Admiral Abel. Well, I mentioned the fact that--that
triangle of things we need. So we need good, robust
intelligence, and a lot of that relies on our interagency
partners and, candidly, partner nations. Many times it is a
partner nation that gives us a critical movement alert, which
means drugs are moving, we think it is going there.
So more intel, Maritime Patrol Aircraft--there is just not
enough aircraft to be out there spotting what intel has
indicated. And then finally, the last part of it is offshore
presence. Seventy percent of our major cutters are the Medium
Endurance Cutters that are my age. They were born in the
sixties. We have got to recap that.
So the goal would be, if we can recapitalize that fleet,
and also the helicopters that serve on the back of them, they
are due for replacement, as well. All three of those could grow
with additional funding.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you. Now I will switch gears. Last week
the Commandant was quoted as saying that there are about 750
monthly ship calls at U.S. ports in the Pacific, and that
passenger vessels that had been at sea for less than 14 days
are being detained at sea until the test period has passed.
Is the Coast Guard receiving the data it needs to do its
job through the notices of arrival, and from the passenger data
being provided to the Centers for Disease Control?
Admiral Abel. So we proactively track, anyway. So even
before we get an advance notice of arrival, which is 96 hours
out, we have got 3,000 vessels right now that we are tracking,
where we think they are going. We are already geotracking--if
it is coming from a country that may become hotter, let's say
South Korea, we already know which vessel just came from South
Korea. So that is the first line of defense, is keep that
threat as far away as possible.
Then the 96-hour advance notification. We vet the crew, the
cargo, the ship's last five ports of call, and then we decide
if there is any risk, and any ship has to report any sickness
on the vessel to us, regardless of if they have been to China
or not been to China or a hot country.
Then we work with CDC, and we have robust captain-of-the-
port authorities, like you mentioned, to have them stay
offshore if we need to.
On the cargo side, we have not seen substantial risk. Those
ships come in, we restrict the crew to whatever it takes on the
pier to turn the ship around, put the lines over, get the cargo
loaded, get back to sea. And they are happy with that, because
that is how they make money.
So we have not seen a huge threat vector, disease-wise,
from cargo.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you. I yield back my time.
Mr. Maloney. The gentlewoman, Ms. Plaskett.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.
The information you provide is really invaluable to us, as we
work on the needs of the Coast Guard.
One of the things you had talked about, and I noticed my
colleagues have all brought them up, is the interdiction of
drugs--and particularly in the Caribbean would be my concern.
Can you talk about the collaborative efforts, or any that you
have had with foreign governments, particularly those island
nations within the Caribbean in combating this?
Admiral Abel. Yes, Congresswoman, thanks for the question.
So, through the bilateral and multinational agreements we
have with almost all of those islands, as our patrols come
across a vessel, if they claim, ``I am a Jamaican vessel,''
that is not a hindrance to us, because we have an agreement
with Jamaica and we say, ``Would you mind if we board your boat
and look for safety and security violations?'' Jamaica is fine
with that. If we stumble across drugs, then, obviously, it is a
whole different story.
So, number one, we don't let the nationality of the vessel,
even if it is fabricated, to slow us down, because we have
those relationships.
The other thing we can do, too, is build the capacity of
those partner nations. Meet them where they are. It could be
just forming their own coast guard is where they need to be. It
could be a few small vessels is what they need, outboard
maintenance, maybe some rule-of-law training with Department of
Justice to find how you work a case package, maybe building
their own maritime academies so they can teach their own. The
goal is let them patrol their waters and quell this as a team
project in the Caribbean.
Ms. Plaskett. So the mutual assistance programs that you
have are probably really working well at this time?
Admiral Abel. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.
Ms. Plaskett. And would you say, of the other Federal
agencies that are operating within the Caribbean, what is your
role, and where do you see yourself?
Would you think you are leading the charge, in terms of how
this is done, or are you working collaboratively?
Are there other agencies you think that may be better
suited to take the charge in this?
Admiral Abel. There are a number of different task forces
that do pull people together in various parts of the
Caribbean----
Ms. Plaskett. Like I know HIDTA is one.
Admiral Abel. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Plaskett. Quite a bit----
Admiral Abel. Yes, and there are a couple that are
international, as well.
I will say that we--the status we have, it is almost like
the secret sauce we have is people like working with the U.S.
Coast Guard, so we can pull together DEA, or Department of the
Treasury, or Department of Justice folks, FBI, with their peers
and partner nations, and make those connections.
Ms. Plaskett. You are doing an amazing job with what
resources you have. And we know that the Coast Guard is a
resource-strapped agency. That does come into the cost--the
work that you are doing internationally comes at a cost,
domestically.
And seeing that tradeoff, is it important for Congress to
consider whether this is an aspect that warrants additional
resources? Because so much of your work is handling
internationally, in terms of your domestic front.
Admiral Abel. Well, particularly the work that we do for
DoD, it is interesting, the President's national security
Presidential directive, or Memo No. 1, was rebuild the
military. And the fact that we do not get our funding through
DoD--DoD has seen about a 12-percent increase recently. We have
held 2.5 to 3 percent in operating funds. Inflation is about
1.9 percent. In essence, flat for operating funds.
So we certainly could use some relief. We certainly like
the new assets we are getting at the capital acquisition
account. But certainly operating funds would help the Coast
Guard.
And also, any given day, 2,000 Coasties, 11 ships, 5
helicopters, a port security unit are all working for DoD,
about $340 million is what we get for that work. We give $1
billion worth of work to DoD. The last time that was adjusted
was 2002.
Ms. Plaskett. So when you talk about the operating
expenses, would that also include your equipment? Is that in
there, as well?
Admiral Abel. Yes and no, ma'am. If it is maintenance of
the equipment, you know, you got to buy spare parts.
Ms. Plaskett. Right.
Admiral Abel. That would be operating funds. If it is
buying new cutters, that is the acquisition side. And candidly,
as we limp old cutters along, that sucks operating money for
spare parts that we should be putting into the new
acquisitions.
Ms. Plaskett. And so, in the acquisition--you talked about
the basic flat line of the operational expenses. What about
your acquisition expenses? Have those increased proportional to
the Department of Defense, or are they still lagging behind?
Admiral Abel. I can get you more data. I don't have a
comparison of DoD acquisition to Coast Guard acquisition. I
will say that we get peaks and valleys. Certainly, we
appreciate the generosity of the Congress as far as National
Security Cutters, Offshore Patrol Cutters. In fact, we stepped
up----
Ms. Plaskett. No, don't appreciate, because I need you to
have more, particularly in my area. We would rather you have
more cutters. I mean, you--they are doing a great job with the
fast boats that they have, but that is absolutely insufficient
for the speed at which some of these drug boats and, you know,
human trafficking going on in the Caribbean.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentlewoman.
Mr. Gallagher?
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, I want to follow up on a line of questioning from
the ranking member, and turn our attention to an
underappreciated international role of the Coast Guard that
people sometimes forget is international, which is the Great
Lakes. Across the lakes you are in Canada. It is a foreign
country. They say things differently there.
And just as there is a national security rationale for new
icebreakers in the Arctic, there is a national security
rationale for the Great Lakes, as well. Nearly all of the iron
ore used in the American steel industry comes from Minnesota
and Michigan and ships on the Great Lakes. And the lack of
adequate icebreaking causes iron ore shipments to be stuck in
port, instead of getting to steel mills, driving up pricing,
and making American steel less viable in a free market.
In the 2018-2019 winter season alone, inadequate
icebreaking cost the region the equivalent of 860 shiploads of
iron ore. And so I know we touched on this a little bit, but
just to foot-stomp it, when you are making vessel acquisition
requests of Congress, how does the Coast Guard factor the
importance of Great Lakes icebreaking and connect it to
national security?
Admiral Abel. So we have set up a separate acquisition
office that is looking at the unique icebreaking capabilities
of the Great Lakes, which are different than what the North
Pole and the South Pole require, sir. So we are looking at what
is there.
As I mentioned, it is a collection of assets that break on
the lakes. The buoy tenders, the 140s, our Canadian partners,
as well as the Mackinaw that is there. So all of those work
together.
We are taking a look at the trends of the industry. I fully
agree with you, that trade is vital to the economic interests
of our Nation. The economic interest of our Nation is the
security of our Nation.
Mr. Gallagher. And then I was pleased to see the fiscal
year 2021 request includes a Polar Security Cutter, which I
agree is important. Does the Coast Guard intend to request a
new Great Lakes icebreaker, just so I understand this, after
Congress has adequately funded the new polar icebreaker?
Admiral Abel. Sir, I don't think we can say one or the
other.
Mr. Gallagher. Yes.
Admiral Abel. Right now we are looking at the requirements
for what the Great Lakes require. I think, once we get
requirements scoped, then we will look at where we drop it in,
based on the age of the Mackinaw and what the requirements are.
But we certainly appreciate the fact that the polar
security breaker, number 1, is paid for. Number 2 is in the
2021 budget.
Mr. Gallagher. And then I wanted to follow up, switching
topics, on a question that Mr. Mast asked. And I didn't fully
understand the response.
Doesn't the Coast Guard have responsibility for the
implementation of MARPOL, annex V specifically, and the
legislation we have to implement it, the act to prevent
pollution from ships, with respect to plastic pollution from
ships?
Admiral Abel. Absolutely, sir. And when our marine
inspectors go aboard and we do boardings, we find out how do
you handle your overboard discharge, whether it is solids,
whether it is liquid, all of that is inspected.
The question was, if we see something plastic in the water,
do we report it. The answer is no, sir.
But certainly we make sure, internationally, vessels are
living to the international standards for the benefit of the
whole globe.
Mr. Gallagher. And then, to switch topics yet again, on the
HASC side, when we talk to the Navy, we are having this very
interesting debate about the role that unmanned ships are going
to play in the future fleet.
Now, I know there are different equities--Navy, Coast
Guard--but, theoretically, unmanned surface vessels open up
similar opportunities for the Coast Guard, as they do for the
Navy. Can you talk a little bit about how the Coast Guard is
thinking about unmanned technology?
Admiral Abel. So we have pushed the envelope a little bit.
I know we have done some unmanned aerial systems up in the
Arctic doing search and rescue, using thermals, because it is
easier to find a body, you know, in the cold Arctic. We have--
every National Security Cutter has unmanned system on the back
of that. We have awarded the national contract--every one of
those will get a UAS that is running whenever they are
underway, a huge game-changer for on-scene presence, persistent
presence in the drug fight.
But we are finding those systems are used across the
missions of the Coast Guard.
Mr. Gallagher. But what about--so you are talking about
unmanned aerial sensors, right?
Admiral Abel. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gallagher. Any unmanned----
Admiral Abel. We are looking at some of those. Candidly, I
don't think we would be the lead on that.
Mr. Gallagher. Yes.
Admiral Abel. You mentioned the Navy. We are really
interested in what their research and development comes up
with. We have an R&D center up in Groton, Connecticut, that
works with their peers in DoD to find out who has got the best
of the best, so that we can then work off of that to apply it
to the Coast Guard.
Mr. Gallagher. I have 15 seconds. Are you able to retain
the cyber talent you need in the Coast Guard?
Admiral Abel. No, sir. And we are looking to actually grow
the cyber talent in the Coast Guard.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you for a succinct response.
I yield the remaining 4 seconds.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Brown?
Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Abel, thank you for your service. Thank you for
being here today.
The Coast Guard, you execute a lot of missions, a lot of
diverse missions, from drug interdiction, search and rescue,
ICE operations, law enforcement. And you are also a very
valuable partner to the DoD, particularly the Department of the
Navy.
In response to Representative Plaskett's question, you
mentioned that you provide roughly $1 billion of defense
readiness mission--$1 billion? Yes, $1 billion, and are
reimbursed $340 million. That is of great concern to me, and I
think it is of great concern to members of this committee. We
invest a great deal in defense. I sit on the House Armed
Services Committee, and the annual increase in defense is
probably multiples more than your total budget.
I want to just give you an opportunity perhaps to flesh out
a little bit more your response to Representative Plaskett. Can
you talk about what resources the Coast Guard is dedicating
towards its defense readiness mission, and at the expense of
what nondefense readiness missions, or the other missions that
you are asked to execute?
Admiral Abel. Well, first of all, sir, it is a tradeoff. We
have got work we do on behalf of the Department of Defense. We
have work we do on behalf of the Department of Homeland
Security, and the Coast Guard on our own.
Every single year we work with the Department of Defense.
They do a request for resources, just like any other branch of
the armed services. They come to us and say, ``We would like X,
Y, and Z. Can you provide it?''
We balance that with our domestic missions to see what we
can afford to do as a resource constraint. We do the best to
optimize that mix right there.
The one thing we try to do with DoD is we try to make sure
that whatever they are asking for is unique within the Coast
Guard, not just another large hull. It should be a large hull
that, because it is white, it provides this, the capability we
bring is this, the legal authorities are different, to make
sure that, if we do commit a resource to a combatant commander,
it is unique to the Coast Guard, and we are the ones that can
fill that niche.
Mr. Brown. Now, with the publication of, about 2 or 3 years
ago, under the current administration of the most recent
National Defense Strategy, as we sort of, you know, turn our
attention to refocus again on great power competition, Russia
and China, have you--how has that impacted the trend line, in
terms of the requests for you to execute defense readiness
missions?
Admiral Abel. Well, if you look at the spectrum of, you
know, competition to conflict, we are much more over towards
the competition side. And that is a good role for the Coast
Guard--like I mentioned, small vessels, frequent visits. These
countries are going to make choices of who the partner of
choice is. We would like that to be the United States.
So if we can play that role for DoD--we have the large
ships, we can plug and play. We are interoperable with the Navy
and the Marines. There is no question we could do that if time
of war comes. But our role really is more towards the--it is
the cooperation and the compete side, instead of the conflict
side.
Mr. Brown. Let me ask it this way. Again, today you
testified $1 billion of services, $340 million reimbursement,
you know, roughly $760 million delta. What was the delta 4
years ago?
Admiral Abel. Sir, I can get that number back for you. Like
I said, the last time, the $340 million that we get reimbursed,
was adjusted, it was 2002.
Mr. Brown. Yes, and that is my concern. I believe the delta
is actually growing. You are becoming a billpayer for a very
important mission, defense readiness, but it is my
understanding from previous hearings before this committee
that--and perhaps you have this data, and you can either
correct me or confirm--that the Coast Guard has got about a $2
billion backlog. Is that about accurate?
Admiral Abel. That would be on shore facilities alone, sir.
Mr. Brown. Yes----
Admiral Abel. That is without even talking helicopters and
airplanes and ships. Every Coast Guard mission starts from the
shore, and it is crumbling. And that includes housing for our
families, that includes the command centers, the piers they
come into. We need to recap the shoreside.
And I would also say C5I. Everything is connected with a
spinal cord, which is IT. We have got to invest in that, as
well.
Mr. Brown. And perhaps it is an oversimplification, but,
you know, rough numbers, back of the envelope, if you were
fully reimbursed in about 2--less than 3 years, you could meet
all of your facilities' backlog requirements.
So that is of just concern to me, I think members of the
committee, and I really hope that we can address that in the
combination work that we are doing on this committee and the
House Armed Services Committee.
And I will yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. And that concludes the
Members' questions.
We have a second panel today, so I am going to thank Vice
Admiral Abel, and ask that we move to our second panel.
Thank you, sir, for being here. We appreciate your service,
and all you do.
[Pause.]
Mr. Maloney. I would like to welcome our next panel.
Thank you all for being here. We are joined by Ambassador
David Balton, senior fellow for the Polar Institute at the
Wilson Center; Dr. Stephen E. Flynn, founding director of the
Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University; and Dr.
Amy E. Searight, senior adviser and director of the Southeast
Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
I appreciate you all being here today. We look forward to
your testimony.
Without objection, our witnesses' full statements will be
included in the record.
And, as with the previous panel, since your written
testimony has been made part of that record, we ask that you
limit your oral testimony to approximately 5 minutes.
With that, Mr. Balton, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DAVID BALTON, SENIOR FELLOW, POLAR INSTITUTE,
WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS; STEPHEN E.
FLYNN, Ph.D., FOUNDING DIRECTOR, GLOBAL RESILIENCE INSTITUTE,
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY; AND AMY E. SEARIGHT, Ph.D., SENIOR
ADVISER AND DIRECTOR, SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAM, CENTER FOR
STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. Balton. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee,
thank you for this opportunity to testify.
I spent 32 years at the Department of State. I worked very
closely with the Coast Guard. Much of what I will tell you this
morning is based on those experiences.
We face considerable challenges relating to the oceans,
challenges the United States cannot solve on its own. We need
to engage other nations, international institutions, other
actors. We also need to make the best use of the assets at our
disposal. The Coast Guard is one such asset.
I know, from personal experience, that the Coast Guard can
and does engage successfully at the international level on a
wide range of ocean issues. We should put this capability to
even better use, particularly with nations with whom we have
difficult relationships. For example, the United States and
Russia both border the Bering Sea, home to valuable stocks of
fish. Both nations harvest those fish. At the moment, the
United States and Russia have difficulty working together in
many settings.
This is not a new phenomenon. For many years, when I led
the U.S. side in annual fisheries meetings with Russia, the
bilateral relationship problems eroded trust and made our work
difficult.
The Coast Guard, through its ability to work with its
counterparts in the Russian Federal Border Service, often
provided the best available means of maintaining needed
cooperation in challenging times. The Coast Guard has developed
a professional and dependable working relationship with Russia,
a relationship that has survived intact, for the most part,
even now.
Thanks to that, we have seen very few incidents in the past
two decades in which Russian trawlers have crossed the maritime
boundary line to fish illegally in U.S. waters. Indeed, with
support of the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies
in the United States, we were able to sign a bilateral
agreement with Russia in 2015 to combat illegal fishing.
The Coast Guard also works successfully with China. Yes,
with China. As long ago as 1993 the Coast Guard entered into a
formal arrangement with China on joint fisheries enforcement
operations, based on a memorandum of understanding. That MOU
allowed Chinese fisheries enforcement officials to ride aboard
U.S. Coast Guard cutters operating in the North Pacific Ocean.
If a cutter came upon a Chinese fishing vessel on the high seas
fishing illegally--for example, using a large-scale drift net--
the Chinese official could take law enforcement action against
the Chinese vessel using the platform of the U.S. cutter.
Due in part to initiatives such as this, large-scale drift
net fishing in the North Pacific Ocean has subsided, and the
need for that MOU has, accordingly, diminished. I understand
that the Coast Guard and their Chinese counterparts are now
considering a more comprehensive agreement to promote joint
efforts.
In the Arctic, the Coast Guard has played a large role, and
could play an even larger one. The Coast Guard leads efforts to
implement the 2011 Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement, the 2013
Arctic Marine Oil Pollution Agreement. Both of these treaties
commit the Arctic states to work together in responding to
problems that are rising in greater number because of
increasing human activity in the Arctic Ocean.
As came up earlier, the Coast Guard also leads our
participation in the International Maritime Organization, was
instrumental in developing the 2017 Polar Code, a set of rules
designed to strengthen safety and environmental security in the
Arctic.
In 2018 the IMO also approved a proposal developed by the
Coast Guard with Russia to manage increasing vessel traffic in
the Bering Strait.
These are examples that show how the Coast Guard can
advance our Nation's interests in a safe and secure Arctic
Ocean.
That said, all signs point to the need to expand this
capacity, as the Arctic Ocean grows more accessible, and the
need to protect U.S. interests there also increases.
The Caribbean region presents a final illustration of the
Coast Guard's capacity to carry out multiple missions in
difficult diplomatic environments. The Coast Guard has
responsibility for dealing with migrants who are trying to
enter the United States illegally by sea. Over many years I saw
the Coast Guard perform admirably in rescuing people attempting
perilous ocean journeys in vessels of dubious integrity. The
mission required Coast Guard officers to understand and
implement the nuances of changing U.S. immigration and refugee
policies.
The Coast Guard can also help us address growing concerns
about oil pollution in the Caribbean, including from Cuba.
Given the proximity of the United States and Cuba, a major oil
spill in the waters of either country could have serious
consequences for the other. In the past decade the Coast Guard
has helped to improve communication and oil spill preparedness
and response for their Caribbean neighbors, including Cuba.
Once again, we will need more of this in the future.
I urge the subcommittee to support efforts of the Coast
Guard in the international sphere. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify. I would be pleased to answer any
questions.
[Mr. Balton's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David Balton, Senior Fellow, Polar
Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank
you for this opportunity to testify in today's hearing focusing on the
international role of the U.S. Coast Guard. My name is David Balton and
I am currently a Senior Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars.
As you may know, Congress created the Wilson Center fifty years ago
as the official memorial to President Wilson. We serve as the nation's
key non-partisan policy forum, fostering independent research and open
dialogue to help guide the policy community.
Before I joined the Wilson Center in 2018, I worked for 32 years at
the U.S. Department of State, the last fifteen years serving as Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries. In that capacity, I
participated in numerous efforts to advance our nation's interests
relating to the oceans and the Polar Regions. During that time, I had
very considerable interaction with colleagues in the U.S. Coast Guard.
My testimony today draws largely on my experiences in that regard.
Strengthening Ocean Diplomacy
While the world's ocean has received increasing attention in many
quarters, the challenges we face on ocean issues are growing more
acute. We have a responsibility to address these challenges, as the
United States remains a critical player on ocean issues worldwide. We
have the largest navy, extraordinary commercial and scientific capacity
related to the ocean, and a highly developed regulatory system for
managing the part of the ocean under our jurisdiction.
The United States certainly cannot solve the problems of the ocean
on our own. We need to engage other nations, international
institutions, and other actors and stakeholders (scientists, the
private sector, civil society, etc.). We also need to make best use of
the assets at our disposal.
I know from long personal experience that the U.S. Coast Guard
serves as a valuable tool in engaging with other governments on a wide
range of ocean issues, a tool that we should put to even better use,
particularly with nations such as Russia, China, Cuba and others with
whom we are experiencing significant friction in our bilateral
relationships. I used to tell my Coast Guard colleagues that they
should add to their 11 statutorily mandated missions a 12th mission:
diplomacy.
To illustrate this, here are some examples showing the Coast
Guard's ability--and potential--to work constructively at the
international level.
North Pacific and Bering Sea
The North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea represent two of the
most productive fishing grounds in the world. Many of the fish stocks
harvested in those waters have ranges and distributions that cross
jurisdictional lines. That is, the range of a given stock often
includes areas under the fisheries jurisdiction of more than one
country, or areas under national jurisdiction and the high seas, or
both.
Managing fisheries for such shared stocks presents numerous
problems and requires a high degree of international cooperation, an
often elusive commodity. Even when nations agree on measures to manage
those fisheries, fishing vessels do not always observe the agreed
rules. The resulting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (``IUU'')
fishing poses a significant threat to fisheries management regimes, to
the livelihoods of those who fish in accordance with the rules, and to
marine ecosystems.
We can reduce those threats by promoting international cooperation
in fisheries law enforcement, including by strengthening the Coast
Guard's role in this field. In the North Pacific and the Bering Sea, I
have seen the value of Coast Guard engagement with other governments in
cooperative efforts to do this.
Few if any other nations have the capacity to undertake effective
fisheries enforcement on par with ours. Developing countries, including
the Pacific Island States that depend heavily on revenue from fisheries
taking place within their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), certainly
need our assistance in fisheries management and enforcement. The Coast
Guard provides some of that assistance, including through training and
data sharing, and could do more in this regard. Increasing such
assistance would also benefit the United States, both directly, by
increasing the likelihood that shared fisheries in which the U.S.
fishing industry participates remain sustainable, and indirectly, by
enhancing U.S. relations with the Pacific Island nations in question.
An extraordinary percentage of U.S. fisheries exist in our EEZ off
Alaska, much of it in the Bering Sea, a body of water that the Russian
Federation also borders. Some of the most valuable fish stocks in that
area, including the Eastern Bering Sea Pollock stock, have ranges that
cross the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary line. Successful management of
such stocks requires collaboration with Russia, including in the field
of fisheries law enforcement.
At the moment, the United States and Russia find themselves at odds
over any number of difficulties in their bilateral relationship,
resulting from such contentious issues as Ukraine, Syria, and election
interference. This is not a new phenomenon, however. I have seen
significant friction in the U.S.-Russian relationship over several
decades. For many years, when I led the U.S. side in annual fisheries
meetings with Russia, such friction eroded trust across the table and
otherwise made our work difficult.
The Coast Guard, through its ability to work with its counterparts
in the Russian Federal Border Service, often provided the best
available means of maintaining needed cooperation in challenging times.
Over the years, Coast Guard District 17 has developed a professional
and dependable working relationship with Russia, a relationship that
for the most part has survived intact despite the problems alluded to
above.
For example, a spate of fisheries violations about 20 years ago in
the vicinity of the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary line in the Bering
Sea threatened to undo our ability to work cooperatively with Russia on
managing shared stocks. Large factory trawlers repeatedly crossed from
the Russian EEZ into the U.S. EEZ to fish illegally. Tensions mounted,
as did the prospect of a potentially dangerous confrontation at sea.
Thanks largely to the Coast Guard and its ability to engage
professionally with its Russian counterparts, the United States and
Russia dealt constructively with each other to minimize such
incursions. I am pleased to report that, since the time of the
incidents in the 1990s until my retirement from the State Department at
the end of 2017, those incidents subsided almost entirely and never
again threatened U.S.-Russian cooperation in fisheries management.
Indeed, the United States and Russia signed a bilateral agreement to
combat IUU fishing in 2015.
We also have the Coast Guard to thank for its ability to work with
China, another nation with whom the United States has had a difficult
relationship at times. As long ago as 1993, the Coast Guard entered
into a formal working arrangement with China on joint fisheries
enforcement operations, based on a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Among other things, that MOU allowed Chinese fisheries enforcement
officials to ride aboard U.S. Coast Guard cutters operating in the
North Pacific Ocean. If the cutter came upon a Chinese fishing vessel
on the high seas fishing illegally, for example with a largescale
driftnet (a significant problem at the time), the Chinese official
could take law enforcement action against the fishing vessel from the
platform of the U.S. cutter.
Due in part to initiatives such as this, largescale driftnet
fishing in the North Pacific Ocean has also subsided. The need for that
specific MOU accordingly diminished, such that the two sides agreed to
allow it to lapse at the end of 2019. I understand that the Coast Guard
and their Chinese counterparts are now discussing a more comprehensive
agreement to promote joint efforts in combatting IUU fishing, which
sounds like a good idea to me.
Arctic
The Arctic region has received increasing attention in recent
years, due largely (though not exclusively) to the warming climate. As
the Arctic Ocean becomes more accessible, the United States and other
nations have scrambled to keep pace with developments and to manage the
growth in human activity there.
The Coast Guard has played a remarkable role in this connection
over the past decade. Highlights include:
The Coast Guard participated actively in the development
of the 2011 Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement, a treaty negotiated
under the auspices of the Arctic Council. This Agreement commits the
eight Arctic States to work together to address potential search-and-
rescue incidents throughout the Arctic, incidents that have become much
more likely as more people are venturing to that area. The Coast Guard
also leads our efforts to implement this Agreement through joint
training and exercises with the other Arctic States.
The Coast Guard played an even more significant role in
shaping the 2013 Arctic Marine Oil Pollution Agreement, another treaty
negotiated under Arctic Council auspices. In some ways similar to the
Search and Rescue Agreement, this pact commits the eight Arctic States
to work together in the event of an oil pollution incident anywhere in
the Arctic Ocean, another phenomenon that has grown more likely in
recent years. Once again, the Coast Guard has a leading role in the
implementation of this Agreement.
The Coast Guard leads U.S. participation in the
International Maritime Organization (IMO), and played a central role in
developing a set of amendments to existing IMO regulations, known
collectively as the Polar Code, designed to strengthen the safety and
environmental security of vessels operating in the Arctic and Antarctic
regions. The Polar Code entered into force in 2017.
In 2018, the Coast Guard and its Russian counterparts
developed and submitted to the IMO joint proposals for managing
increasing traffic through the Bering Strait, proposals that the IMO as
a whole have now accepted. In my view, this represents a highly useful
first step in ensuring that vessel traffic in this area remains safe
and secure. A large-scale shipping accident there could have disastrous
consequences for people aboard the vessel(s) in question and for the
productivity of the marine environment on which many people depend.
The Coast Guard served as the first chair of, and remains
our government's point agency for, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum,
established in 2015. The forum provides a means for Arctic nations to
collaborate on such issues as search and rescue, emergency response,
and icebreaking. Last year, the forum successfully executed two large-
scale live exercises to enhance preparedness and circumpolar
cooperation in the event of an incident requiring a mass rescue
operation.
These examples illustrate the extraordinary capacity of the Coast
Guard to advance our nation's interests in a safe and secure Arctic
Ocean. That said, all signs point to the need to expand this capacity
in the future, as the Arctic Ocean continues to grow more accessible
and the need to protect U.S. interests there grows accordingly.
The opening of the Arctic Ocean has highlighted the need for our
nation to have greater icebreaking capacity. I am heartened that we are
building another large icebreaker and encourage efforts to create yet
more U.S. icebreaking capacity in the future. I do not see these
efforts solely as a means of ``keeping up'' with Russia and other
nations that have more icebreaking capacity than we do. Rather, we
simply will need more icebreaking capacity to advance our own interests
and to fulfill our own needs in both Polar Regions, particularly in the
Arctic.
Caribbean
Although I had more limited experiences working with the Coast
Guard on issues concerning other ocean regions, I nevertheless came
away from those experiences with a deep appreciation of the capacity of
the Coast Guard to carry out its multiple missions against the backdrop
of difficult and sensitive diplomatic environments. Two examples from
the Caribbean region demonstrate this point.
First, the Coast Guard serves on the front line in interdicting
migrants who are trying to reach the United States by sea, typically
without documentation. Over the decades, I saw the Coast Guard perform
admirably in handling the human drama of rescuing thousands of people
from the Caribbean region attempting perilous ocean journeys in vessels
of dubious integrity. To do so successfully also required Coast Guard
officials to understand and implement the nuances of changing U.S.
immigration and refugee policies.
Second, the Coast Guard found ways, even prior to the
reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, to work with Cuban
authorities to address mutual concerns about oil pollution. Given the
proximity of the United States and Cuba, a major oil spill in waters
under the jurisdiction of either country could have serious
consequences for the other. Working through a regional IMO arrangement
for the Caribbean Sea, the Coast Guard played a significant and largely
unheralded role in improving communication and oil spill preparedness
and response capacities with our Caribbean neighbors, particularly
Cuba.
IUU Fishing
Finally, I believe we can make greater use of Coast Guard expertise
and capabilities as the United States works with other nations to fight
IUU fishing in all parts of the ocean. I note that the Coast Guard
Commandant, Admiral Schultz, outlined some steps to do just that in his
recent State of the Coast Guard address:
Fish is an essential protein source for over 40 percent of the
global population, and fish stocks around the world are
critical to many nations' sovereignty and economic security . .
. The United States Coast Guard can be a global leader
combatting IUU fisheries by increasing partner-nation capacity,
international cooperation, and targeted operations.
And, to enhance maritime domain awareness across the Pacific
Ocean we are fostering a partnership with Global Fishing Watch,
which uses cutting-edge machine learning and artificial
intelligence to visualize, track, and share data about fishing
activity in near real-time. If successful, this initiative may
be scaled to our fisheries enforcement efforts worldwide.
Today, the United States holds sixteen counter-IUU fishing
bilateral agreements in the Pacific and West Africa. And we are
pursuing additional agreements to help us push back against the
destructive fishing practices that are leaving vast expanses of
the ocean and seabed in ruins . . . .
We call upon like-minded nations across the globe to join us,
in publicly denouncing countries and corporations that engage
in IUU fishing, and enhance enforcement activities that thwart
this threat.
I urge the Subcommittee to support these efforts.
Conclusion
Thank you once again for this opportunity to testify. I would be
pleased to answer any questions.
Mr. Maloney. Thank you, Ambassador Balton.
Dr. Flynn?
Mr. Flynn. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Maloney and
Ranking Member Gibbs. It is an honor to be here today.
This turns out to be my 30th time that I have appeared as
an expert witness before a House or Senate hearing since the
attacks of September 11, 2001, and at virtually all those
hearings I have testified about how we manage transnational
threats that have animated the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security. And certainly the transnational threats
remain clear and present, as the current global outbreak of
COVID-19 is highlighting.
At the outset I just want to say that I think the Coast
Guard is the Nation's most underleveraged and most
underinvested national security, foreign policy, economic
policy, and homeland security asset.
We talk sometimes about tradeoffs between the Coast Guard's
domestic capabilities and resources versus its foreign policy
or its international role. The real questions about tradeoff
should be between what other instruments we use to advance
national security goals, homeland security goals, economic
security goals, and foreign policy goals. We highlighted
already the discussion about the amount of benefit the
Department of Defense gets from leveraging the Coast Guard, or
the intelligence community can get from the Coast Guard, and
yet the investments are nowhere equal.
And so it is so, I think, critical for the debate about
investment in the Coast Guard be put in the larger context of
those key policy goals of America. And we are underleveraging
and underinvesting in the Coast Guard.
My testimony provides a bit of a sort of tour de force
about why the Coast Guard's role is so critical in advancing
the homeland security and national security and foreign policy
goals, all at the same time. I particularly wanted just to
drive home a couple of points that I tried to make.
It is very clear that, when we are dealing with
transnational risk, they don't pay much attention to borders.
And so our organization of national security as water's edge
out, and domestic security as border in doesn't work so well
when you are trying to deal with things particularly like
coronavirus, but also organized crime, other nefarious things
that are working in a transnational realm.
And so this ability that the Coast Guard has to be able to
operate in the international, in the space in between, in the
maritime realm, and, ultimately, in the domestic, is important.
But it is the relationships that the Coast Guard has built at
the State, local, Federal level with Territories, with the
means to be able to interact with their foreign counterparts
overseas. It is the relationships with the private sector in
the global maritime industry that its authorities and its
capabilities provide. There is no other national asset that we
have that can essentially move across jurisdictions, move
across functions.
As Admiral Abel laid out at the outset, it is an Armed
Force, it is a law enforcement agency, it is a humanitarian
agency, and it is a regulatory agency. Find something else in
the U.S. Government that is all of that. And in the effort of
undertaking those missions, women and men of the Coast Guard
know they can't get any of it done without working well with
others. And so it is one of the unique national assets we have
that plays well with others, that actually collaborates and
cooperates.
So when we look at what we ask it to do, and the resources
we provide it, that delta is just, frankly, reckless and
negligent on the part, I think, of the American people. They
are not getting the benefit they could. And Congress I urge,
and the administration I urge, to make the investment that the
Service could provide.
I want to also sort of provide particular emphasis on the
Caribbean in the Arctic region. As we know, China is making a
significant investment in the Caribbean. And the U.S.
investment has gone down significantly, and that is especially
true of the Defense Department's presence in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean is--of course, still remains a challenging
area from transnational crime. But when you look at what has
happened with Venezuela, and the migrants that have flown out
of Venezuela, and ability to absorb that, let's also imagine
what is likely to happen when the cruise industry essentially
goes dark and COVID-19 shows up in the Caribbean islands, a
region where 40 percent of the island's GDP is tied tourism.
What kind of disruption that will be.
And it turns out the singular agency that actually has
operational presence across the Caribbean is the United States
Coast Guard.
And it also deals with this crazy thing that we have in the
Caribbean, which is, of course, that Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands, as Territories, are viewed as a domestic
entity, and often are not included in our Caribbean-based
efforts and strategy. But again, the Coast Guard straddles
those two worlds, so it is able to, essentially, manage and
have a Caribbean-wide approach.
And in terms of the Arctic, while the Department of Defense
has now woken up a bit, and realizes that is a strategic area
to play, they really can't play up there. And the Coast Guard
has the presence, has the authorities, has the relationships
with most of the Arctic nations. We should be investing in the
Coast Guard.
I make a final pitch here about managing the transnational
risk of terrorism in the global trade and transportation system
has to be done in a global way. And again, the Coast Guard has
unique authorities, unique reach, but especially its
relationships and ability to work with the global maritime
industry is so critical to getting us ahead of those
challenges. And we have still, again, underinvested in that
effort. Thank you.
[Mr. Flynn's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stephen E. Flynn, Ph.D., Founding Director,
Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern University
Chairman Maloney, Ranking Member Gibbs, and distinguished members
of the House Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee.
Thank you for inviting me to provide testimony on the international
role of the U.S. Coast Guard. This marks the 30th time I have appeared
as an expert witness before a House or Senate hearing since the attacks
of September 11, 2001. Virtually all the hearings that I have testified
before have dealt with the challenge of managing the transnational
threats that animated the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. Those transnational threats remain clear and present as the
current global outbreak of COVID-19 is highlighting.
Terrorists, organized criminal syndicates, pandemics, invasive
species, and extreme weather events pay little heed to national
borders. Yet, our national security establishment is set up to manage
these threats beyond our borders while domestic agencies are charged
with managing them at and within our borders. Inevitably, this division
of labor creates suboptimal responses to transnational threats and
challenges. This is playing out in real-time with the challenge of
aligning protocols for managing the quarantining of passengers infected
by the COVID-19 in the international cruise industry that carries 30
million passengers a year.
In my testimony today, I will contend that the authorities and
capabilities that allow the U.S. Coast Guard to perform both domestic
and international roles translate into a unique national asset for
bridging homeland security and national security. The Coast Guard is a
uniformed service of the U.S. Armed Forces, a law enforcement agency, a
humanitarian agency, and a regulatory agency. There is no other entity
within the U.S. government that is like it. It is also woefully
underfunded to carry out its many missions, limiting the Coast Guard's
ability to contribute to the safety and well-being of the American
people. I hope this hearing will help to shine a light on the
shortsightedness of inadequately investing in the Coast Guard and
energize an effort by Congress and the Administration to reverse this
neglect.
As one of nation's six uniformed services that make up the U.S.
Armed Forces, the Coast Guard is closely connected with the Department
of Defense to include being integrated into the leadership of U.S.
Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command, and conducting operations
under U.S. Central Command in the Persian Gulf. Along with the U.S.
Navy and Marine Corps, the Coast Guard is integral to the U.S. maritime
strategy outlined in the 2007 release of A Collaborative Strategy for
21st Century Seapower. Coast Guard Intelligence is one of the 16
members of the U.S. intelligence community.
Coast Guard law enforcement activities involve counter-narcotics,
migrant control, combatting human-trafficking, fisheries enforcement,
and port security on a global scale. The Coast Guard is the world's
premiere maritime search and rescue organization and responder to oil
spills. The agency also oversees the management of U.S. waterways to
include icebreaking and maintaining the aids to navigation system.
Additionally, it is responsible for regulating the U.S. maritime
industry and recreational boating to include the licensing and
documentation of mariners, inspections of vessels, and the teaching of
boating safety courses. The U.S. Coast Guard is a key participant at
the International Maritime Organization where the service plays a
leadership role in developing and maintaining a comprehensive
regulatory framework for worldwide shipping.
The breadth of the Coast Guard's missions highlights what makes it
such a distinctive organization. Its responsibility for such a diverse
set of missions has been as a result of a 230-year evolution since the
nation's first Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton led to its
founding as the Revenue Marine in 1790. As national needs connected to
the maritime realm evolved, Congress consistently looked to the Coast
Guard to address them. While the service is best known for its
operational prowess and ``can-do'' spirit highlighted in its heroic
rescues, drug seizures, and response to major oil spills, an
underappreciated but arguably equally important asset is the Coast
Guard's ability to collaborate with a diverse group of local, state,
regional, state, and international players, both private and public,
and with civil society and non-profit organizations. Coast Guard women
and men understand that prosecuting their missions requires
collaborating with other uniform service members, their international
counterparts, law enforcement agents, local and state public officials,
regulators, and the general public.
This mix of diverse missions, operational nimbleness, and
organizational culture that embraces collaborations translate into the
Coast Guard serving as the ideal agency for wrestling with the
complexity of 21st Century transnational challenges. Importantly, it
not just what the Coast Guard does each day, but how it goes about
doing it that makes the service a unique national asset.
In making the case to Congress and the Administration for increased
levels of funding and support for the Coast Guard's international role,
I will outline three examples of where the service has distinctive
capabilities that can directly contribute to the safety and well-being
of the American people that have not been sufficiently leveraged.
First, is the service's ability to deal with threats before they arrive
at our borders. Second, is the Coast Guard's ability to support U.S.
foreign policy and national security priorities in the Caribbean and
Arctic regions. Third, is its ability to engage the global maritime
industry to manage the ongoing terrorism risk to the global maritime
transportation system.
Managing Transnational Risks Requires Pushing Borders Outward
Border control efforts involve managing risk associated with two
distinct activities. First, there are efforts to police the flow of
goods, people, and conveyances into the 328 authorized land and
maritime ports-of-entry throughout the United States. Second, there are
efforts to police America's vast maritime and land frontiers between
those ports-of-entry. Lately, the 1,933 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border
is commanding much of the public's attention. But the length of that
border is 1/50th of the size of 95,471 miles of U.S. shoreline where
there are ample opportunities to gain illicit entry into the United
States. Importantly, one-third of 3,987 miles of the International
Boundary line of the U.S.-Canadian border, excluding Alaska, lies on
the waterways of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway.
If you spend time at U.S. borders and ports-of-entry as I have, you
will find ample evidence of illicit activities from the smuggling of
narcotics and migrants, to trade fraud and shipments of counterfeit
goods. However, making the border the locus for dealing with these
risks is a recipe for failure. This is because transnational threats do
not originate at America's national borders. Instead, much like we are
witnessing with COVID-19, they infiltrate global trade and travel
networks. Limiting these risks is accomplished best by the combination
of embedding controls into those networks, and putting in place a
layered-defense strategy that starts as close to the point of origin as
possible, and then engages in detection and interception efforts prior
to arrival at U.S. borders. Ideally this is done in partnership with
other jurisdictions. For instance, port security measures at overseas
ports-of-loading can mitigate the risk of a security breech involving
vessels destined for the United States. For obvious reasons, it is much
more desirable to manage a risk that could endanger the U.S. population
before it arrives in U.S. waters that after it has arrived in a U.S.
port. The COVID-19 situation involving the cruise ship Grand Princess
and the Port of San Francisco and Oakland proves this rule.
Another central challenge for border control efforts is how to deal
with what is commonly known as the ``balloon effect.'' As the United
States' nearly half-century of combatting illicit drugs from Latin
America has highlighted, if interdiction efforts at the land border are
not balanced with similar efforts in the maritime domain, organized
criminal networks will travel the path of least resistance and shift
their efforts to maritime smuggling. This clearly has implications for
the border control outcomes associated with building a physical barrier
along the U.S.-Mexican border. If that investment is made at the
expense of a commensurate effort to adequately patrol the U.S. maritime
domain, drug and migrant smugglers will go around the wall by
exploiting the diminished capacity to safeguard America's long maritime
borders.
As the nation's lead maritime border agency, the Coast Guard's
international reach helps in advancing border control in important
ways. By working closely with their international counterparts, the
Coast Guard is able to help improve the capacity of other nations to
better secure their own ports and waterways. In addition, these
international collaborations facilitate intelligence sharing which is
key to successful interdiction efforts. At the tactical level, by
patrolling the Caribbean Sea and along the Latin American Pacific
coast, the Coast Guard is in a position to detect and intercept illicit
shipments long before smugglers can take advantage of America's long
and largely unprotected coastal shorelines to land their contraband.
Advancing a Regional Approach to Managing Transnational Risks in the
Caribbean and Arctic will Benefit from Investing in the Coast Guard
Playing a Leadership Role
Managing risks that arrive in America's front yard--the Caribbean--
and in the Arctic involves multilateral coordination and operations in
regions that include the U.S. domestic territories of Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands and the state of Alaska. This poses a special
challenge for the U.S. foreign policy community since the U.S.
Department of State only works with foreign nations and domestic
agencies have limited roles and presence outside U.S. borders. For the
Department of Defense, the Caribbean Area of Responsibility is split
between the U.S. Northern Command and the U.S. Southern Command. The
one U.S. entity that has the authorities and operational presence for
seamlessly operating in both these regions, both domestically and
internationally, is the U.S. Coast Guard. Given the growing array of
risks with primarily a maritime nexus in the Caribbean and the Arctic,
the U.S. government should be looking to invest in expanding and
leveraging the Coast Guard's presence to play a leadership role in
executing U.S. foreign policy and national security goals in these two
regions.
The Role of the Coast Guard in the Caribbean Region
There is a critical need for a collaborative effort to build
Caribbean regional capacity to promote resilience in the face of
mounting security, economic, and ecological risks. Hurricane Dorian in
2019 and Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 highlighted the growing
vulnerability of the Caribbean island nations to extreme weather. The
high dependency on tourism (40 percent GDP regionwide) makes Caribbean
economies particularly vulnerable when disasters strike. In the months
ahead, this is likely to include the disruptions associated with the
COVID-19 outbreak. The outflow of refugees from Venezuela have
highlighted the limited capacity of the region to absorb displaced
populations. The ongoing exploitation of the region by drug
traffickers, organized criminal networks, and for money laundering
exacerbates the risks of violence, corruption, terrorism, and
governmental and societal instability. The stepped-up investment from
China throughout the region reflects its ongoing geo-strategic value.
Benign neglect of the Caribbean region risks increasingly malignant
consequences for the United States.
The Caribbean region is made up of 13 sovereign states and 17
dependent territories. For the United States, managing the
transnational risks across this vast region is a multijurisdictional
challenge highlighted by the fact that the U.S. territories of Puerto
Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are outside the writ of the U.S. State
Department. Yet, it clearly makes sense to include them in regional
initiatives that aim to strengthen U.S. standing in the Caribbean vis-
a-vis China, and improve the region's capacity to be more self-
sufficient in managing their shared risks. One particularly promising
initiative to which the U.S. Coast Guard should be assigned a prominent
leadership role is the recently launched U.S.-Caribbean Resilience
Partnership.
Formally inaugurated on April 12, 2019 at U.S. Southern Command
headquarters in Miami, the U.S.-Caribbean Resilience Partnership
(USCRP) is a collaborative effort involving 18 Caribbean countries to
build regional capacity to better manage disaster response and recovery
and to promote resilience. The inaugural working group meeting of USCRP
took place in Bridgetown, Barbados on Oct 23-24, 2019 with a focus on
four areas of shared interest: (a) improving ``whole of community''
risk awareness, (b) strengthening hazard mitigation and climate
adaptation efforts, (c) bolstering coordination in regional disaster
response, and (d) enhancing planning for post-disaster recovery
including economic recovery.
Current U.S. and international regional engagement, to include
security assistance, economic development, humanitarian assistance and
disaster response, can potentially be tied directly to supporting the
shared goals of the U.S.-Caribbean Resilience Partnership. The result
would be to provide these efforts with greater strategic coherence
while enhancing their security and diplomatic impact. This is because
the emphasis on building greater resilience unites and catalyzes the
engagement of the public and private sectors, NGOs, and key elements of
civil society across the Caribbean region. This initiative also aligns
extremely well with the Coast Guard's missions and would benefit from
leveraging the good relations the service enjoys with the island
nations throughout the region. Congress and the Administration should
provide dedicated funding to the U.S. Coast Guard to partner with the
U.S. State Department in advancing the goals of the U.S. Caribbean
Resilience Partnership.
The Role of the Coast Guard in the Artic Region
While the state of Alaska makes the United States a major Arctic
nation, for too long the region has been treated as a minor national
security priority. In recent years, Russia and China have been
dramatically out-investing the United States in enhancing their
capabilities to operate in the Arctic environment. At stake is the
Arctic's rich natural resources that climate change is making
increasingly accessible. The major transpacific and transatlantic
maritime shipping routes to the west and east coasts of the United
States transit the approaches to the Arctic Ocean making this area
strategic to the U.S. economy. A warming climate is also elevating the
likelihood of seasonal Arctic sea routes for maritime traffic.
In the face of the growing competition with China and Russia, the
U.S. Department of Defense has developed an Arctic Strategy most
recently updated in June 2019 that outlines ``three strategic ways in
support of the desired Arctic end-state:'' (1) Building Arctic
awareness, (2) enhancing Arctic operations, and (3) strengthening the
rules-based order in the Arctic. The U.S. Coast Guard has a
longstanding multi-mission presence in Alaska and the Arctic.
Additionally, the service has played a leadership role in the
international organizations that are responsible for setting the rules
for the Arctic maritime. The Coast Guard has close working
relationships with six of the seven other Arctic nations: Canada,
Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Investing in the Coast
Guard's capacity to expand its role in the Arctic, to include the rapid
construction of new icebreakers, should be the cornerstone of the
nation's strategy for the region.
Managing Transnational Risks within the Maritime Transportation System
Requires Close Collaboration with Global Private Industry that the
Coast Guard is Ideally Positioned to Lead
The United States is a maritime nation whose economy relies on the
smooth operation of a global maritime transportation system that moves
90 percent of the world's cargo by volume. The maritime transportation
system is not only overwhelmingly owned and operated by private
industry, but virtually all the major companies that move cargo and
operate port facilities are non-U.S. companies. Indeed, among all the
critical infrastructure sectors upon which American depend for their
safety, security, and prosperity--energy, telecommunications, finance,
etc.--the maritime transportation system is the only one where foreign-
owned companies play the dominant role.
I believe that the most significant risk to the maritime
transportation system is its continued vulnerability to being exploited
or targeted by terrorists armed with a nuclear device such as a dirty
bomb. This assessment is based on my 30 years of operational and
research experiences in and around the port, transportation, and trade
community. This includes my service as a Coast Guard officer from 1982-
2002, as the Principal Advisor for the Bi-partisan Congressional Port
Security Caucus from 2003-2004, as a member of the National Research
Council's Marine Board from 2003-2010, as an independent consultant to
major ports and the maritime industry, and currently as a professor and
director for the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern
University.
My assessment holds despite the post-9/11 efforts applied to this
risk. As we have witnessed with the COVID-19 outbreaks aboard the
Diamond Princess and Grand Princess and the impact that is having on
the global cruise industry, what on its face is a localized threat, can
quickly translate into far-reaching and cascading consequences for the
trade and transportation system.
The national security and economic stakes associated with the dirty
bomb risk could not be higher. This is because such an attack would
almost certainly lead in its aftermath to the global disruption of the
maritime transportation system and international commerce. A terrorist
attack involving a dirty bomb, originating from an overseas source and
arriving in the U.S. in an intermodal container, would trigger port
closures around the United States. This would set off a series of
cascading disruptions throughout the global supply system that would
lead to billions of dollars of daily losses and cause gridlock across
the intermodal transportation system within 10 days to 2 weeks. Since
the U.S. government currently has no comprehensive plan for managing
the global recovery of this system in the aftermath of a major security
breech, it would almost certainly require several weeks to restore the
flow of commerce. This is because it would take time for public
officials to reassure a traumatized American public in order for U.S.
ports to be reopened. It would also take time to clear cargo backlogs
in transportation hubs and distribution centers around the world, as
well as to reposition transportation conveyances so that they can
service their normal scheduled routes. The economic impact of such an
incident would likely spawn a worldwide recession.
This risk can be effectively managed, but the key is advancing the
appropriate security safeguards and resilience planning on a global
scale. The U.S. Coast Guard has the requisite domestic and
international authorities and relationships with the international
maritime industry, maritime nations, and key international
organizations such as the International Maritime Organization, to make
this happen. Congress and the Administration need to give the service
the mandate and resources to provide the needed leadership.
The way forward is for the U.S. government to shift its emphasis
from one that focuses primarily on policing U.S.-bound cargo. Instead
it needs to approach the security of the global supply system as a
necessary requirement for all nations in meeting their shared
international commitments for preventing the proliferation of nuclear
weapons and materials and combatting organized crime. Next, it needs to
enlist the active participation of the private industry that owns and
operates port terminals and transportation conveyances that move supply
chains around the planet. There is a business continuity and enterprise
resilience imperative associated with the dirty bomb threat that should
animate the same kind of close collaboration between the private and
public sectors that we saw in the aftermath of the foiled October 2010
cargo planes bomb plot involving explosives hidden in printer
cartridges shipped from Yemen. Third, the U.S. government needs to
step-up efforts to advance the use of new technologies, tools, and
protocols on a global scale that can provide for the near real-time
visibility and accountability of the contents and location of cargo,
thereby bolstering the security and resilience of trade flows. Such a
system would be neither too costly, nor difficult to deploy. Based on a
study that I have done with my colleagues at the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School, embedding the capacity within the global
supply system to routinely capture non-intrusive images of a
container's contents and incorporating them into the data flow that
underpins the current risk management process would cost about $15 per
container.\1\ This is less than the aviation security fee I paid for my
domestic flight from Boston to Washington to participate in this
hearing.
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\1\ Nitin Bakshi, Noah Gans & Stephen Flynn, ``Estimating the
Operational Impact of Container Inspections at International Ports''
Management Science, 57:1 (Jan 2011): 1-20.
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Specifically, I believe that the global supply system security and
resilience can be significantly advanced by the U.S. Coast Guard
playing an international role in undertaking five actions that I
recommended in a 2017 report on Global Supply System Security and
Resilience underwritten by a research grant from the MacArthur
Foundation: \2\
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\2\ A New International Framework for Bolstering Global Supply
System Security and Resilience (Boston: Northeastern University, Oct
2017) https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:cj82r8265
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Linking the currently disconnected: (a) global counter-
proliferation mandate set by UN Security Council Resolution 1540, and
(b) the global port security requirements embedded in the International
Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code so that nations abide by
uniform global standards and procedures that ensure that containerized
cargo is not wittingly or unwittingly being used to transport
prohibited nuclear materials and contraband.
2. Inviting the world's major port operators to actively partner
with the U.S. government and the governments of other maritime nations,
the International Maritime Organization, supported by the International
Atomic Energy Agency, and the World Customs Organization, in
establishing recommended guidance to be placed within part B of the
ISPS Code, for uniform, performance-based standards for non-intrusive
inspection (NII) equipment to be used in maritime terminals.
3. Creating the means for the world's major port operators to
provide the data collected by non-intrusive inspection equipment to
government officials at both the port of loading and the port of
arrival as requested. This includes securely sharing and storing all
non-intrusive inspection data for an agreed upon time period.
4. Authorizing bonded-third parties to partner with governments to
address and resolve alarms generated by the NII equipment when they
occur.
5. Allowing port operators to levy an estimated $15 to $20 per
container cost of implementing these actions as a part of the
authorized Terminal Security Charge that supports investments to comply
with the ISPS Code.
Conclusion
The transnational risks to the United States associated with the
maritime realm continue to grow. As the current global disruption
highlighted by the COVID-19 outbreak makes clears, the stakes for U.S.
national security and economic security associated with better managing
these risks could not be higher. Yet the investment in the primary
maritime agency most able to lead U.S. government response to these
risks--the U.S. Coast Guard--has not grown in a commensurate fashion.
Indeed, Congress and the Administration have woefully underinvested in
this service to the determinant of the current and future safety of the
American people.
The very name of the Coast Guard may, in part, be contributing to
this neglect--for many it conjures up an image that the service has
almost exclusively a domestic role. But since the 1790s, when its
predecessor organization the Revenue Cutter Service was deployed to the
coast of North Africa to confront the Barbary Pirates, the Coast Guard
has always had an international role. Transnational risks by their very
definition confound efforts that attempt to neatly distinguished
between national security and homeland security. Tackling these risks
also requires an extraordinary degree of collaboration with not just
governments, but the private sector, and civil society as well. The
Coast Guard is unique in its ability to lead such collaborative efforts
and bridge national security and homeland security. Indeed, the service
deserves as much public recognition for the contributions it has made
and is poised to make to U.S. national security, foreign policy, and
facilitating international commerce, as the fame the Coast Guard has
rightly earned from its proud history of operating through surf and
storm to save lives.
Mr. Maloney. Thank you, Dr. Flynn.
Dr. Searight?
Ms. Searight. Chairman Maloney, Ranking Member Gibbs, and
other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify today.
My testimony will focus on the U.S. Coast Guard cooperation
with Southeast Asia littoral nations, which face tremendous
challenges in the maritime domain. And because of this, they
represent a real strategic opportunity for Coast Guard
cooperation.
The strategic importance of Southeast Asia to the United
States is often underappreciated. Southeast Asia lies at the
heart of the Indo-Pacific, with vital sea lanes flowing right
through it, including the South China Sea, where one-third of
global shipping passes; the Malacca Straits, which is one of
the most crowded waterways in the world; as well as the Sulu
Sea, which is a hotbed of transnational crime and terrorism.
Aside from its geostrategic location, the region provides
critical ballast for a rules-based order through its regional
organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or
ASEAN, which has led the creation of a security and economic
architecture that convenes the major powers and provides some
rules of the road for good behavior. ASEAN norm-setting and
ASEAN-led regional dialogues provide somewhat of a bulwark
against China's growing assertiveness in the region.
Because of Southeast Asia's pivotal geostrategic role in
the Indo-Pacific, it has become the fulcrum of emerging U.S.-
China strategic competition, and yet U.S. engagement with
countries in the region does not always match their strategic
significance.
A fully integrated and well-resourced Indo-Pacific strategy
for the United States would place a high priority on maritime
cooperation with the littoral states of Southeast Asia to help
them address the serious challenges they face in the maritime
domain. These challenges include, first and foremost,
protecting their sovereignty and their ability to monitor
maritime activities, access natural resources, and protect the
marine environment within their Territorial waters and EEZs,
all of which are under growing threat from China's increasing
maritime assertiveness.
Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, in
particular, have seen growing Chinese encroachment into their
Territorial waters and around disputed maritime claims, as
China seeks to aggressively assert its expansive claims under
its nine-dash line.
China relies heavily on its coast guard, along with its
paramilitary maritime militia, to project power and assert its
claims through gray-zone tactics that seek to blur the line
between civilian and military forces, and engage in coercive
actions while remaining under the threshold of military
response. China has been rapidly expanding and modernizing its
coast guard. And today the Chinese Coast Guard is the world's
largest, boasting more hulls in its fleet than all of the
regional neighbors, combined.
Chinese Coast Guard ships have played a lead role in
several recent gray-zone skirmishes in Southeast Asia,
including the political row sparked by the incursion of several
Chinese Coast Guard cutters escorting Chinese fishing vessels
into Indonesia's EEZ off the coast of the Natuna Islands in
December, and the standoff between Vietnam and China over the
Vanguard Bank, and recent harassment of Malaysia's oil and gas
exploration activities in waters on its extended continental
shelf. These episodes demonstrate the new normal in the South
China Sea, in which new energy development by Southeast Asian
states anywhere within the nine-dash line will be met by
persistent intimidation from Chinese law enforcement and
paramilitary vessels.
Chinese maritime coercion in the South China Sea grabs most
of the headlines, but the countries in the region face a number
of other maritime-related challenges that are very high on
their political agendas. And at the top of the list is illegal,
unreported, and unregulated fishing, IUU, which causes huge
economic losses to these countries.
There are other sorts of transnational crime, from wildlife
and human trafficking, to narcotics, and piracy that are also
very important, and real problems in the Territorial waters of
these countries.
And this region suffers disproportionately from large-scale
maritime natural disasters--the typhoons and cyclones in the
region are only intensifying, and growing more frequent with
climate change. And so disaster response capabilities are also
at the top of their list.
Faced with the growing challenges of Chinese maritime
assertiveness and other threats in the maritime domain,
Southeast Asian countries have been doing a lot recently to
build up their coast guards. And I go in my written testimony
into some detail about the various steps that these countries
have taken.
And in seeking to boost their coast guard capabilities, the
U.S. Coast Guard is a partner of choice. Indeed, the U.S. Coast
Guard has played an important role in helping Southeast Asian
coast guards build capabilities through a variety of capacity-
building programs, training and educational opportunities, and
equipment transfers, in particular for the countries of the
Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. And I do go into some
detail again in my written testimony about the various ways
that the Coast Guard has assisted the coast guards of these
countries.
Of all the tools in the U.S. foreign policy toolkit, the
U.S. Coast Guard is perhaps the most valuable and yet
underutilized in cooperation with Southeast Asia. The U.S.
Coast Guard is uniquely positioned to engage with Southeast
Asian counterparts and advance U.S. national security interests
for several reasons.
First and foremost, Chinese threats to these countries'
maritime sovereignty is the largest security challenge that
they face, which has led them to really seek the expansion and
deployment of their coast guards to counter Chinese gray-zone
tactics. And as these countries increasingly rely on their
coast guards, U.S. Coast Guard engagement and capacity building
with these partners is incredibly valuable.
Because the United States does not take sides in maritime
disputes with different claimants, American diplomatic efforts,
as well as military options to deal with Chinese maritime
coercion, are, to some degree, limited. The U.S. Navy,
conducting frequent and regularized FONOPS to challenge
excessive claims of China and other states is a very useful
tool to underscore the U.S. commitment to freedom of
navigation.
However, FONOPS alone are not sufficient as a strategy to
help these countries counter Chinese maritime aggression,
because it does not directly address the immediate challenges
they face in terms of coercion against fishing, oil
exploration, and other lawful activities within their waters.
Mr. Maloney. Dr. Searight, if I could ask you to----
Ms. Searight. Yes.
Mr. Maloney [continuing]. Wrap up your prepared remarks, so
we can move to Members' questions, and then we would be happy
to give you a chance to elaborate on that, in particular, in my
own. But if you have any concluding remarks, feel free to
conclude.
Ms. Searight. No, I would just reiterate that I think, you
know, there are various reasons why the U.S. Coast Guard is
uniquely valuable as a tool of engagement with these countries
on core issues of importance to them. And so I think it is
really important to consider the Coast Guard in light of an
effective Indo-Pacific strategy. Thank you.
[Ms. Searight's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Amy E. Searight, Ph.D., Senior Adviser and
Director, Southeast Asia Program, Center for Strategic and
International Studies
Chairman Maloney, Ranking Member Gibbs, and other distinguished
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify
before you. The strategic importance of Southeast Asia to the United
States is often underappreciated. Southeast Asia lies at the heart of
the Indo-Pacific, and vital sea lanes of communication that connect the
Indian Ocean to the west with the Pacific Ocean to the east flow right
through the region. These critical waterways include the South China
Sea where one third of global shipping passes, the Malacca Straits
which is one of the world's busiest waterways, as well as the Sulu Sea,
which is both a hotbed of transnational crime and the focus of emerging
regional cooperation in the form of joint patrols conducted by
Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Aside from its geostrategic
location, the region provides critical ballast for a rules-based order
through its regional organization, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, or ASEAN, which has led the creation of regional security and
economic architecture that convenes the major powers of the region and
helps establish ``rules of the road'' for good behavior. ASEAN norm-
setting and ASEAN-led regional dialogues provide somewhat of a bulwark
against China's growing assertiveness in the region. Because of
Southeast Asia's pivotal geostrategic role in the Indo-Pacific, it has
become the fulcrum of emerging U.S.-China strategic competition, and
yet U.S. engagement with countries in the region does not always match
its strategic significance.
Maritime challenges faced by Southeast Asian littoral states: Chinese
grey-zone coercion
A fully integrated and well-resourced Indo-Pacific strategy for the
U.S. would place a high priority on maritime cooperation with the
littoral states of Southeast Asia to help them address the serious
challenges they face in the maritime domain. These challenges include,
first and foremost, protecting their sovereignty and their ability to
monitor maritime activity, access natural resources, and protect the
marine environment within their territorial waters and EEZs--all of
which are under growing threat from China's increasing maritime
assertiveness. Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in
particular have seen growing Chinese encroachment into their
territorial waters and around disputed maritime claims, as China seeks
to aggressively assert its expansive and excessive sovereignty claims
under its nine-dash line, which lays claim to about 90% of the South
China Sea.
China relies heavily on its coast guard, along with its
paramilitary maritime militia, to project power and assert its maritime
claims through grey-zone tactics that seek to blur the line between
civilian and military forces, and engage in coercive actions while
remaining under the threshold of a military response. China has been
rapidly expanding and modernizing its coast guard and today the Chinese
Coast Guard (CCG) is the world's largest, boasting more hulls in its
fleet that those of all regional neighbors combined. The CCG has 260
offshore patrol ships over 500 tons, including two massive 12,000 ton,
165-meter cutters that far outclass all other coast guard ships and
navy vessels in Southeast Asia.
Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) ships have played a lead role in several
recent grey-zone skirmishes in the region, including the political row
sparked by the incursions by several CCG cutters escorting Chinese
fishing vessels into Indonesia's EEZ off the Natuna Islands in
December, and the standoff between Vietnam and China over the Vanguard
Bank. My colleagues at the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI)
at CSIS recently reported on a ``dangerous, ongoing game of chicken''
involving at least two CCG vessels leading an effort to harass and
intimidate Malaysian oil and gas exploration activities on the extended
continental shelf claimed by both Malaysia and Vietnam. These episodes
demonstrate the ``new normal'' in the South China Sea, in which ``new
energy development by Southeast Asian states anywhere within the nine-
dash line will be met by persistent, high-risk intimidation from
Chinese law enforcement and paramilitary vessels.'' \1\
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\1\ https://amti.csis.org/malaysia-picks-a-three-way-fight-in-the-
south-china-sea/
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Other maritime challenges: illicit activities at sea and disaster
response
China's maritime coercion in the South China Sea grabs most of the
headlines and focuses the attention of U.S. policymakers and
strategists, but governments in the region also face a spectrum of non-
traditional security challenges linked to the maritime domain that
often rise to the top of their policy agendas. At the top of the list
are fish. The South China Sea is one of the most productive commercial
fisheries in the world, supporting the livelihood of millions of
Southeast Asians fisherman and those in related industries. Illegal,
unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) cause huge economic losses for
these countries. It also contributes to the rapid depletion of fish
stocks and declining biodiversity, causing perhaps irreparable damage
to the marine ecosystem. China's massive fishing fleet, supported by
its Coast Guard, paramilitary maritime militia and naval forces, is a
major contributor to the IUU problem, but fishing vessels from other
regional neighbors are also involved. IUU vessel catches are estimated
to be over one third of reported catches in Southeast Asia. Indonesian
President Joko Widodo has made confronting IUU fishing a top political
priority, with his government putting the value of Indonesia's stolen
catch at $20 billion a year.
Other forms of transnational crime, from trafficking to piracy,
continue to challenge the maritime law enforcement capabilities of
Southeast Asian governments. Maritime trafficking routes run throughout
Southeast Asia and serve as a conduit for illegal trade flowing between
China, Africa, and Southeast Asia itself. A recent UN report
highlighted how transnational organized crime groups are expanding
``aggressively'' in Southeast Asia, generating hundreds of billions in
illicit revenue and posing a destabilizing force in the region.
Methamphetamine use is exploding across Southeast Asia, along with a
large heroin trade that combine for illicit annual revenues of between
about US$ 40-70 billion for the drug trade. Human and wildlife
trafficking remain serious and large-scale problems, both within the
region and to and from destinations in China and Africa. Although
piracy has declined overall in key waterways like the Malacca Straits,
kidnappings-for-ransom and other maritime attacks, largely carried out
by affiliates of the Islamic State (IS), continue to plague the waters
of the Sulu Sea, despite increased maritime cooperation between the
Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The region also suffers disproportionately from large-scale
maritime natural disasters brought on by typhoons and cyclones, which
are intensifying in their impact with the warming waters of the ocean.
``Super typhoons'' like Typhoon Haiyan, Cyclone Pam and Cyclone Winston
devastated parts of the Philippines and Pacific Islands, causing high
death tolls and requiring large-scale relief operations. These super-
charged storms are becoming more frequent, requiring governments to
improve their ability to carry out coordinated humanitarian relief
efforts for those affected.
Southeast Asia's Coast Guard build-up
Faced with the growing challenges of Chinese maritime assertiveness
and the broad range of other maritime-related threats, maritime
Southeast Asian countries are responding by expanding the role of their
coast guards and building up their capabilities. The littoral states of
Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia have been most
focused on raising the profile of their coast guards and modernizing
their capabilities, although most still lack the scale and
sophistication needed meet their broad mandates and deter Chinese
aggression.
Vietnam has the largest Coast Guard fleet in Southeast Asia,
reflecting its focus on deterring Chinese challenges to its
sovereignty. The uptick in clashes with China over disputed territories
and China's growing reliance on its Coast Guard to patrol contested
waters and assert claims has led Vietnam to sharply increase
investments in its coast guard. Along with renaming the Vietnam
Maritime Police as the Vietnam Coast Guard (VCG) and separating it from
the navy, Vietnam has commissioning four 4,300 ton patrol vessels,
which will be the largest coast guard vessels in Southeast Asia,
building on a surge in total tonnage across the board, rising from
20,500 to 35,500 from 2010-2016. The United States, Japan and Korea
have transferred vessels to Vietnam in recent years, with the U.S.
transferring a Hamilton-class U.S. Coast Guard cutter in 2017, a total
of 18 metal shark patrol boats, and another transfer of a U.S. Coast
Guard cutter planned in 2020.
The Philippines has also initiated a buildup of its Coast Guard,
although its role has softened somewhat under President Duterte as he
seeks closer ties with China by downplaying tensions in the South China
Sea. Duterte has supported the development of the Philippines Coast
Guard (PCG), allocating relatively large budgets and calling for more
ships and personnel for the PCG. In 2019, the Coast Guard began
recruiting 4,000 new personnel, and is planning for an additional 6,000
new recruits in 2020, which will result in a 23,000-strong PCG, more
than doubling its size from a few years ago and far surpassing the
14,000 member Philippine navy. The pace of acquisitions of vessels for
the PCG has also surged under both the Duterte and Aquino
administrations, including ten new 44-meter patrol boats from Japan;
two 92-meter offshore patrol vessels from Japan; four 24-meter fast
boats, and an 84-meter, 1400 ton offshore patrol vessel built in France
and recently delivered to the PCG, which is now the largest vessel in
its fleet. Duterte's ``fondness'' for the Coast Guard is explained in
part by his desire to de-escalate maritime tensions with China by
replacing grey hulls with white hulls to police the Philippines
territorial waters and having them operate under softer ``rules of
engagement'' with Chinese coast guard and fishing vessels when
incidents occur with Filipino fishermen.\2\ This runs counter to the
trend in the region that has Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia seeking
to expand the use of their coast guards to increase presence and assert
maritime claims in the face of growing Chinese incursions.
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\2\ Observers have noted that in its current operations the PCG
seems more intent on enforcing violations of Filipino fishermen rather
than aggressive actions by Chinese fishing vessels.
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Indonesia lags behind its neighbors in developing a coast guard,
although under President Jokowi efforts have been underway to build
one. The Jokowi government has been focused on rationalizing its 12
different entities responsible for civilian maritime security and
establishing a coast-guard-like agency, known by its acronym BAKAMLA,
meant to synergize national efforts among the patchwork of civilian
maritime agencies. However as a ``coordinating body,'' BAKAMLA has had
to rely on the assets and personnel from other civilian and naval
entities and coordinate efforts rather than lead on maritime law
enforcement. BAKAMLA fields a fleet of old refurbished naval ships that
are hardly adequate to secure and patrol the waters of is vast
archipelago. However the incursions of Chinese Coast Guard ships in the
waters surround the Natuna Islands last December have galvanized the
Jokowi administration to focus anew on enhancing the capacity and
strengthening the bureaucratic position of BAKAMLA, with President
Jokowi declaring his vision of having BAKAMLA evolve into a full-
fledged Indonesian coast guard, entrusted with the authority to secure
the country's maritime territory.
In line with the trend of other Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia
officially renamed its Maritime Enforcement Agency the Malaysian Coast
Guard in 2017, and has also rapidly expanded its capacity in recent
years. Its largest patrol boats are a pair of Japanese Coast Guard
cutters transferred in 2017, and it is building three 83-meter Damen
patrol boats expected to be commissioned in 2021.
U.S. Coast Guard cooperation and capacity-building with Southeast Asian
partners
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has played an important role in helping
Southeast Asia's coast guards build capabilities and capacity through a
variety of capacity-building programs, training and educational
opportunities, and equipment transfers.
Coast guard cooperation with the Philippines offers a great
example. U.S. assistance to the Philippines has included training and
education, which has surged under the Duterte administration. Over the
last three years an average of 60 PCG officers have been sent to the
United States to participate in coast guard-related training, while
more than 1,500 PCG personnel were trained within the Philippines in
various courses taught by USCG personnel.\3\ Last year the USCG
participated in two maritime exercises with the PCG, using each of its
two National Security Cutters that were deployed in the Indo-Pacific
under the operational control of the Navy's 7th Fleet. In May the USCG
cutter Bertholf participated in search-and-rescue exercises with the
PCG near Scarborough Shoal and then made a port call to Manila, the
first visit of its kind in seven years. In October the USCG cutter
Stratton participated in the annual Sama Sama exercise near disputed
waters in the Spratley islands, and made a port call to Palawan. This
was followed a few weeks later by a visit to Manila from U.S. Coast
Guard commandant Admiral Karl Schultz for a series of engagements. The
U.S. government has funded the Philippines National Coast Watch Center
(NCWC), designed as an interagency hub for maritime domain awareness
which opened in 2015, and last year USCG training teams helped the PCG
stand up the first phase of a planned $3 million law enforcement
training and maintenance facility that will greatly expand the PCG's
capacity to train its workforce and sustain its equipment.
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\3\ https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/what-is-the-us-coast-guards-
role-in-the-indo-pacific-strategy/
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In addition to the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam have been
priority countries for the USCG Security Sector Assistance since at
least 2015. With Indonesia, the focus has been supporting the
organizational development of the Indonesian Coast Guard, BAKAMLA, and
enhancing the technical skills and professional development of its
workforce through educational partnerships, reciprocal visits by USCG
mobile training teams and BAKAMLA personnel, and other engagements.
Last year, the USCG partnered with BAKALMA on a multilateral
engagement for regional coast guards on IUU fishing and drug
trafficking under the Southeast Asia Maritime Law Enforcement
Initiative (SEAMLEI). BAKALMA hosted the workshop and training
exercise, with participation by Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and
Vietnam in addition to Indonesia. USCG also participates regularly in
the annual Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) exercises
that bring together regional navies and coast guards from across
Southeast Asia to promote interoperability in order to better
coordinate, communicate and counter illicit activities at sea.
Finally, U.S. Coast Guard officers serving as liaisons in the U.S.
Embassies in the Philippines and Vietnam have been tremendously
valuable in fostering engagements and identifying opportunities for
closer coast guard cooperation between the United States and these
countries.
Increasing USCG focus on Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific
The U.S. Coast Guard's recent moves to step up engagement with
Southeast Asia and other partners in the Indo-Pacific, in particular
the Pacific Island countries, have been strongly welcomed and point
towards and even larger role that the USCG can play in support of a
Free and Open Indo Pacific strategy. Although security sector
assistance and training cooperation have been important features of
USCG cooperation with Southeast Asian partners for at least a decade,
the recent high level of engagement and increasingly visible and
frequent bilateral and multilateral coast guard engagements have been
notable. The deployments of two National Security Cutters for long
tours (ten months in 2019) in the Indo-Pacific theater under the
operational command of the Navy's Seventh Fleet is another very
encouraging development.
The U.S. Coast Guard is a uniquely positioned to engage with
Southeast Asian counterparts and advance U.S. national security
interests for several reasons. First and foremost, Chinese threats to
these countries' maritime sovereignty is the largest security challenge
that they face, which has led them to focus on expansion and deployment
of their coast guards as a counter to Chinese grey-zone tactics. As
these countries increasingly rely on their coast guards, U.S. coast
guard engagement and capacity-building with these partners offers an
important and still relatively underutilized tool for U.S.
policymakers. Because the United States does not take sides on maritime
disputes among the different claimants, American diplomatic efforts as
well as military options to deal with Chinese maritime coercion are to
some degree limited. The U.S. Navy conducting frequent and regularized
Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) to challenge excessive claims
of China and other states is a very useful tool to underscore the U.S.
commitment to the principle of freedom of navigation and to demonstrate
the resolve of the U.S. military to fly, sail, and operate wherever
international law allows. However FONOPs alone are not sufficient as a
strategy to help these countries counter Chinese maritime aggression.
As important as this signal of resolve may to regional partners, it
does not directly address the immediate challenges of Southeast Asians
facing maritime coercion against fishing, energy exploration, and other
lawful activities within their waters. A highly skilled, well equipped
and professionalized coast guard is one of the most important
instruments these countries can deploy the face of these challenges.
U.S. coast guard assistance can contribute substantially to their
ability to monitor their waters and begin to mitigate Chinese coercion.
Second, the capability gaps remain large, not just because of the
scale of the CCG and paramilitary forces and their coordinated and
aggressive tactics, but also because of the myriad of other maritime-
related challenges these regional coast guards face and the vastness of
their maritime domains, making their mandate very challenging even in
the best of times. The Philippines for example has 7,000 islands and
36.7 thousand kilometers of coastline, equivalent to one-tenth the
world's coastline. Indonesia's challenge is even greater, with a vast
archipelago of over 70,000 islands and a coastline of 54 thousand
kilometers. The increase in tonnage of the coast guard fleets in
maritime Southeast Asia and the growth of personnel and
professionalization of the workforce is laudable, but coast guard
capacity remains insufficient to meet the growing demands they face in
Southeast Asia. U.S. Coast Guard capacity-building, training, transfer
of equipment, and other U.S. resources have a huge potential role to
play in helping to narrow this gap.
Third, coast guard cooperation is seen as a comfortable ``safe
space'' for countries like Vietnam and Duterte-era Philippines where
naval cooperation remains sensitive.
Finally, the U.S. coast guard is ideally positioned to focus on
enforcing a rules-based order in the Indo Pacific, which is at the core
of a successful U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. The USCG can work with
regional coast guards on a whole range of skills, professional
development and capacity building, all of which help these countries
police their territorial waters and EEZs, and work with regional
counterparts to counter transnational threats by sharing information
and working collaboratively in maritime enforcement operations. By
boosting the capability to enforce the rules in areas of great interest
to these countries, including IUU fishing, countering illicit
activities that take place on the seas, and dealing with piracy and
other maritime-related threats, regional coast guards can contribute to
regional stability and promote regional cooperation, which in turn can
help strengthen regional solidarity in ways that may help keep Chinese
maritime assertiveness in check.
Of course, the U.S. Coast Guard is limited in how much it can
expand cooperation with Southeast Asia and other Indo-Pacific partners
due to its core homeland security mission, competing global priorities
and constraints on its resources, including the size of its budget, its
fleet, and perhaps most importantly the size and training requirements
of its personnel. However from the perspective of an Indo-Pacific
national security strategy that puts Southeast Asia and the challenge
of Chinese maritime coercion at the center, the prospect of increasing
U.S. Coast Guard cooperation and engagement with regional coast guards
offers a big strategic opportunity for the United States, one that I
hope Congress can support and resource.
Mr. Maloney. I appreciate that. And we will now move to
Members' questions for 5 minutes each. I will begin by
recognizing myself.
Let's just pick up right there, Dr. Searight. So would you
say a word, please, about what we should be doing in Southeast
Asia, the South China Sea, that we are not?
And if you could, say, in particular, a word about Vietnam,
specifically Vanguard Bank, and also the Philippines. And with
respect to the Philippines, I am curious about the role the
Coast Guard can play in an area--obviously, we understand the
importance of the island formations and the Spratly Islands,
and the rest. But also with respect to the different perception
President Duterte has of the Coast Guard versus, say, the rest
of the United States military.
Ms. Searight. Yes, the Philippines is an excellent example,
because under Duterte, of course, he has sought warmer ties
with China, and he has downplayed conflict with China, various
tensions in the South China Sea.
And he has also, of course, sought some distance between
the United States and our military alliance.
But he really favors the Coast Guard, in part because he
sees it as a de-escalatory mechanism for dealing with, you
know, various incidents in Territorial waters. So he has
boosted the Coast Guard, and that has offered an opportunity
for the U.S. Coast Guard to offer training, both in the
Philippines and educational opportunities here in the United
States.
There has been a, you know, a number of articles that--of--
excess defense articles, equipment that have been provided to
the Philippines, et cetera.
So, in terms of your--the broader question, though, what
can the United States do in the South China Sea, I mean, our
options are limited because, you know, we do not take a
position. The United States does not take a position on the
claims, the various claimants. And really, the--you know,
whereas the Navy, conducting FONOPS and doing various naval
engagements, is certainly important to boost the capabilities
of these partner countries, these countries are relying more
and more on coast guards to counter the white hulls of China.
And so that--the best--really, I think the best tool that
we have in our toolkit is to help them build up coast guard
capabilities and make them into professionalized, well-
equipped, and well-trained forces that can project presence and
deal with a variety of challenges on the maritime domain.
Mr. Maloney. And that would be equally true with respect to
our growing relationship with Vietnam and situations like the
Vanguard Bank, is that right?
Ms. Searight. Yes, absolutely. And when it comes to
Vietnam, there is still a lot of sensitivity about too much
military cooperation with the United States. They are concerned
about China's reaction to doing too much too soon.
Mr. Maloney. The Coast Guard provides an opportunity----
Ms. Searight. And the Coast Guard is a less sensitive area.
Mr. Maloney. I appreciate that.
Ms. Searight. Yes.
Mr. Maloney. But because I have limited time, let me turn
to you, Dr. Flynn. So let's just go up to 30,000 feet. So let's
say we were going to properly resource the United States Coast
Guard. Let's say we lived in a world--just this morning we have
heard about $2 billion. We know about that, and the backlog of
shoreside infrastructure. We know about $700 million, annually,
of unreimbursed expenses from DoD.
What does a fully resourced Coast Guard look like, in your
view?
And if you could be specific, that would be great, in terms
of where you would add additional resources.
Mr. Flynn. The great strain----
Mr. Maloney. We are spending about $11 billion--just to
calibrate people--we are spending about $11 billion now. It is
about 1.5 percent of U.S. military expenditures in a $700
billion budget, a pretty big bang for the buck, a bunch of
statutory missions.
What should that budget be? What should we resource it at?
If you could, help us with that, please.
Mr. Flynn. We should be working towards doubling----
Mr. Maloney. Over what period of time?
Mr. Flynn. The next decade.
Mr. Maloney. Doubling in a decade?
Mr. Flynn. In a decade, yes.
Mr. Maloney. And where would you put that additional $11
billion?
Mr. Flynn. Well, really----
Mr. Maloney. Are you including the backlog of shoreside
infrastructure in that under reimbursements, or is that in
addition to that?
Mr. Flynn. Yes, well----
Mr. Maloney. Did you get----
Mr. Flynn. I have a----
Mr. Maloney [continuing]. The $7 billion if you just
reimbursed, right?
Mr. Flynn. So I would say, yes, double--you got to clean
the backlog up here.
But it really is across the Service's missions. It is this
multimission capability, relationships, again, it has at the
domestic, international, law enforcement--so you don't want to
do this as a--pick a--just pointy-end-of-the-sword piece of it,
or just in a particular geography. It is the overall capacity
of the Service that creates such a powerful national asset. And
it is why the Service has such good standing and strong
standing with other countries, because it deals with the full
range of challenges, whether it is in the Caribbean or in
Southeast Asia.
But as we certainly look to the Arctic, just the need to
invest into at least three icebreakers, the needs we talked
about on the Great Lakes, the further icebreaking capability--
--
Mr. Maloney. Right----
Mr. Flynn. You know, and from economic policy and all the
rest of it here, those are the terms we should be talking
about, not in 5, 7 percents.
And overall, it is minuscule from the kinds of resources we
have been willing to invest in our national security
capabilities, and certainly in our intelligence capabilities.
We just haven't been putting the Coast Guard in that mix.
Mr. Maloney. I appreciate that, sir. And I couldn't agree
more.
And just by one data point that I think people might find
useful, Russia currently has 46 icebreaking vessels, I believe,
with 12 more on the way. The United States Coast Guard has two,
one large and one medium-sized, with a handful on the way.
Russia, just to calibrate people, has an economy the size
of the State of New York. It is approximately $1 trillion GDP.
We are a $20 trillion economy. And it is shocking, given the
emerging opportunities and challenges and national security
threats from the Arctic that we don't properly resource that
mission.
But I take your point about the underinvestment in, I
believe you said, the most underleveraged and underinvested
asset we have. And I really appreciate your testimony on that.
A lot of us would like to work on that issue.
Mr. Gibbs?
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you,
Dr. Flynn, after 9/11 the United States and much of the
world updated its port security infrastructure and the
framework under which that security infrastructure was
regulated. There was discussion at the time on whether those
updates and initiatives were focused too narrowly on responses
to terrorist attacks, or whether they met the broader
resiliency need of our ports and supply chains that depend on
those ports.
It appears that the coronavirus response might pressure
that--the system. Do you believe that the current port safety
and security regimes in the United States provide a level of
resiliency necessary to protect our ports and the supply chains
that rely on the ports against the spread of coronavirus?
Mr. Flynn. No.
Mr. Gibbs. I kind of figured you might say that.
You know, it is just amazing, the conversation we are
having here. When I think where--what we are asking the Coast
Guard mission what to do. We have them off the coast of Africa.
We have them in the South China Sea. We have them in the
Arctic, and, of course, the Caribbean, and in both our Great
Lakes, and also, of course, our ports on the east and west
coasts.
And your discussion just now about how much money it would
take, it just amazes me.
The relationship that the Coast Guard has with DoD, how do
you see that? Is it strained, or is it a good working
relationship? Or is it, you know, the Coast Guard is treated
like the second child, or I don't know how you want to say it.
Mr. Flynn. I think----
Mr. Gibbs. Stepchild.
Mr. Flynn [continuing]. If you talk to anyone in the
operational part of our armed services----
Mr. Gibbs. I--go ahead.
Mr. Flynn. If there is--if you talk to anyone in the
operational part of the armed services, they are overwhelming
fans of the Coast Guard, if they know the Coast Guard. It is
the budget people that are a little bit of a challenge.
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Mr. Flynn. And they are very good at hanging on to
resources for DoD, not so good at spreading the resources when
they are getting capability out of the Coast Guard. But this is
how disconnected this is.
You know, we spend more money on protecting the Port of San
Diego than all the other commercial west coast ports combined,
because it is force protection, and it is a rounding error for
DoD to say, all right, we have got to step up our port
security. But for L.A.-Long Beach, Oakland, San Francisco,
Richmond, Seattle-Tacoma, we spend less on port security for
those ports than we are spending----
Mr. Gibbs. Combined?
Mr. Flynn [continuing]. On a single port--yes.
And then further, we deploy the Coast Guard to do force
protection for the fleet from L.A.-Long Beach to San Diego to
escort it in and out.
Now, DoD is getting an important service that is a vital
national security interest for us, for it to be able to project
power. But again, as a tradeoff, we are trading off investing
in our own security, and then the capacity of the Service to be
able to be out in front of something like the coronavirus, and
managing with the merchant marine, and all the kind of
capabilities there that require--you are always robbing Peter
to pay Paul in the Coast Guard when, in fact, the need for it
is being well recognized, operationally. It is not being well
recognized by--as resources.
Mr. Gibbs. And I know in your testimony you referred to the
Caribbean, and also the challenges up in the Arctic. Obviously,
the Russians are eating our lunch up there, and I assume the
Chinese are trying to do the same. You know, we don't even have
a port close to the Bering Strait, right?
Mr. Flynn. No, it is--and the needs of--the investment in
the Coast Guard to provide that presence is an order of
magnitude less than it often takes to get--for DoD assets, and
you get all this other multimission capability, as well.
And you get an agency that is used to dealing with the
domestic. So the State of Alaska, which has very good relations
with many of the local communities, because there are Coast
Guard women and men who are living in those communities, and
they are relationships with all the Arctic nations, Canada,
and----
Mr. Gibbs. Well, what is the----
Mr. Flynn. And so you have leveraged that, and yet we are
looking at the money--national security as entirely separate
from homeland security. And when we look at homeland security,
we are overwhelmingly looking at the border, and the Coast
Guard just sort of falls away as a----
Mr. Gibbs. Are----
Mr. Flynn. As a----
Mr. Gibbs [continuing]. International agreements in the
Arctic up with Canada, what is that situation, the status with
Canada, our working relationship? Does Canada have enough
capacity to make up some of this deficit, or----
Mr. Flynn. There is, I think, a real willingness on the
part of the Canadian Government to work very closely with the
U.S. Coast Guard on additional Arctic presence.
You know, as we know, we have freedom of navigation issues
and others up there. But done in a collaborative way to engage,
both recognize--our country and theirs--recognize the Chinese
and the Russian, particularly, presence presents a real
challenge to the security, economic security, as well as both
countries.
So there is opportunity, but we have to bring some
resources to the party. The Canadians are making an investment
with a much smaller GDP than ours, and, you know, they should,
they are a true Arctic nation. But we are, as well. Alaska is a
big chunk of the Arctic, and our sea lanes, whether they come
from transpacific, transatlantic, come with great circle routes
right through the Arctic Ocean as, essentially, the--Chinese
and Russia have more presence there. It is extraordinary that
the Department of Defense has not woken up and taken that on as
a higher national security priority.
Mr. Gibbs. I am glad to--thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. And just to put some
gloss on that point, it is interesting to note that the closest
point China has to the Arctic is 900 nautical miles, and yet
they have a more aggressive presence in the region than we do.
Mr. Larsen?
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize I wasn't
here for the Coast Guard portion. I will be submitting
comments, questions for the record to the Coast Guard.
Is it Dr. or Ms. Searight? I have questions for you, but
you answered them. They were along the lines of the unique
capability the Coast Guard has in Southeast Asia that is
different, say, from our U.S. Navy, and I think you answered
that adequately for me. That is fine.
I do have a question for Dr. Flynn and Mr. Balton,
Ambassador Balton--is that right? Yes, I can't see that far
anymore. So--bigger print on the name tags.
The issue of U.S.-Canada. So my concern--I have a lot of
concerns. One is about the Arctic. But we share a water border
with Canada in Washington State. So British Columbia and U.S.-
Canada. So the questions I have are really less maybe
strategic, and more about that particular relationship,
especially as it impacts the management of the waters, as that
impacts the Southern Resident killer whales.
So Canada has a--I forget what they call it--like, a whale
plan to deal with ensuring shipping doesn't interfere, as best
they can, with migratory routes of the Southern Resident killer
whale, introducing increased regulations in the event of
increased oil transport through the Salish Sea, through the
Gulf Islands, and outside of the San Juan Islands.
And I am wondering what kind of cooperation can we and
should we expect the U.S. to provide Canada so that we are
comanaging across the boundary, as opposed to just relying upon
Canada to manage that, manage that set of issues.
Dr. Flynn?
Mr. Flynn. I think the key--I think, with our relationship
with the Canadians in the Pacific Northwest, as it is in the
Atlantic, as well as along the Great Lakes, is a willingness to
share. And so, if they have some extra capacity, we can
leverage some of theirs. And if we have some extra capacity on
the--our side of the border here, we can play those. And so we
are willing, I think, to look at it portfolio versus purely
one-on-one.
An area there, I think, there is real need and opportunity
that I think the Coast Guard, working with its Canadian
counterparts can be quite helpful, is an area with--concern
that I have--is when we have the major Cascadia quake, the
impact on the Port of Vancouver, and on Seattle-Tacoma, and
potentially, depending on how the quake works, all the way down
into Oregon.
You need close cross-border collaboration for managing--if
what--what assets you have, where can you direct resources. So
things like Jones Act and a whole series of other sort of
challenging issues that could evolve when you are trying to
respond and recover are things that require good planning and
engagement in advance.
And if you find issues where you have real common
interests, like the recovery post a major earthquake, where, if
there is going to have to be shared assets across the Cascadia
region, then some of the issues where there is real tension,
perhaps, because, you know, we are not quite in alignment on
some of the ways we look at whaling or other things, you can
start to get some movement in those areas.
So, again, I think a unique strength of the Coast Guard is
they can look at that through that sort of comprehensive lens,
not just as a single agency looking at it purely as an
environmental issue or purely as a security or law enforcement
issue. You bring all the issues in play, and you use it to get
the best outcome. And so--but more work needs to be done in
planning for that inevitable disruption, what it will do to the
port infrastructure.
You know, the Northwest really is an island infrastructure
for most of the rest of the Nation's critical infrastructure.
It is true of southern California, as well. And so the sea is
where you are going to be able to manage your response and
recovery. And we have got to think through very carefully how
we have all the capacity we can, and do it in the context of
our Canadian neighbor, as well.
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
Ambassador Balton?
Mr. Balton. Congressman, the question you are asking is not
really about the Coast Guard, though. If your concern is
cooperating with Canada to protect marine mammals or to manage
shared fisheries in the Northwest, we are talking mostly NOAA,
some Department of State--I worked in that space a lot.
But I would echo what Dr. Flynn was saying. There is a high
degree of cooperation on both coasts with Canada. There is a
willingness to share, including sharing data. So I think you
couldn't ask for a better neighbor in that one respect, yes.
Mr. Larsen. Yes. So--and who is best equipped here to
answer any--sorry, oh, well--answer my next question on the
second round, as we come up on my time. Thank you, I yield
back.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. That completes the
first round. I have no questions at this time, and neither does
the ranking member. So you may continue, Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Maloney. For an additional 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Yes. That might be a--again, getting back to
some of the testimony, some of the written testimony about the
Bering Sea and North Pacific, and IUU, what--the written
testimony comes across a little bit too much like everything is
great. But in talking with the fisheries folks in my State,
there is a little more--perhaps a little more conflict between
the U.S. and Russia than reflected in the testimony.
So I am wondering if you have any thoughts on what more
needs to be done on IUU when it comes to the fisheries in the
North Pacific and Bering Sea.
Yes?
Mr. Balton. Excuse me, Congressman, sorry.
Mr. Larsen. The chair didn't remind everyone to turn their
phones off before we started?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Balton. Sorry, my bad.
Not everything is wonderful. The relationship between U.S.
and Russia has problems even in the fisheries space.
That said, in the Bering Sea it is in the interest of both
countries to prevent illegal fishing. And there is a fairly
high degree of cooperation, even now, thanks largely to the
Coast Guard in the Bering Sea. We don't have a lot of fishing
vessels coming over from the Russian side to fish illegally in
U.S. waters. That used to happen in the mid-1990s. It has not
happened very much since, thanks largely to the Coast Guard.
There is also some better sharing of science. And frankly,
the Russian science on fisheries has gotten better in the last
generation. I have seen that, as well.
The Russians fish all over the world, though, and are not
necessarily a force for good. They don't police their vessels
the way we do, especially far from home. And as fisheries start
moving north of the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, I
worry about the sustainability issues there, and our ability to
cooperate with Russia on those.
Mr. Larsen. You say as fisheries begin to move north
because of the warming water?
Mr. Balton. Yes.
Mr. Larsen. Yes, yes.
Dr. Flynn, anything to add?
Mr. Flynn. [No response.]
Mr. Larsen. Do you have anything to add, Dr. Flynn? Sorry.
Mr. Flynn. I really don't. I don't have the kind of real
expertise to lend to that.
Mr. Larsen. All right.
Dr. Searight? All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Maloney. I thank the gentleman. Seeing no further
questions from the Members, I would thank each of the witnesses
for your testimony here today. We really do appreciate your
appearance. And it has been very helpful to the committee in
its work.
I would ask unanimous consent that the record of today's
hearing remain open until such time as the witnesses have
provided answers to any questions that may have been submitted
to them in writing, and further ask unanimous consent that the
record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments or
information submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in
the record of today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
If no other Members have anything to add, then the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Submissions for the Record
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sam Graves, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Missouri, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure
Thank you, Chairman Maloney.
The United States Coast Guard has unique authorities, international
relationships, and Service culture that make it a crucial part of our
national security system.
These authorities, relationships and the Service's culture also
allow it to undertake a significant role in combatting the
transnational crime organizations that bring drugs and illegal
immigrants into the United States.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses' views on how we can
strengthen our efforts to combat human and drug trafficking into the
United States.
Appendix
----------
Question from Hon. Sean Patrick Maloney to Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel,
Deputy Commandant for Operations, U.S. Coast Guard
Question 1. During the hearing you mentioned that the Coast Guard
would provide the cost of outfitting a SCIF on an Offshore Patrol
Cutter. Please provide that an update of that cost.
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions from Hon. Bob Gibbs to Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy
Commandant for Operations, U.S. Coast Guard
Question 1. The Fast Response Cutter and its parent craft have
proven to be reliable, flexible vessels for use throughout North
America, in non-continental U.S. areas, and throughout the world. Has
the Coast Guard looked at international uses of the FRC beyond its use
in PATSWFOR? For training of foreign Coast Guards and Navies which have
coastal patrol responsibilities? For use by nations with which we have
reciprocal defense agreements where interoperability is important?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. The Coast Guard's unique position as the only armed
service with law enforcement authority allows it to assist in or
conduct many international operations, and its expertise in near
coastal maritime safety allow it to provide training and work
cooperatively with the Navies of smaller nations. As Dr. Flynn notes in
his testimony and as former Commandant Bob Papp note frequently,
managing trans-national risks requires pushing borders outward. In
light of the increased pressure to carry out these missions, and the
continued pressure to conduct activities further offshore combat
transnational crime organizations, in other words to push our borders
out, is the Coast Guard reconsidering its fleet mix to include more
National Security Cutters which have greater range, capability and
sophistication?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. Current strategic guidance from the DOD and USCG sets
operations in the context of great power competition. Near-peers and
regional powers seek to undermine U.S. influence. Weak governance
exacerbates this trend and enables competitors to manipulate our
partner nations to our detriment. This harms US interests and increases
instability. The USCG's soft-power approach allows greater access where
the Navy would otherwise have challenges, making the USCG a key
component of U.S. strategy. Is the Coast Guard considering a new fleet
mix analysis that would include more Fast Response Cutters can be used
to train and coordinate activities with the Navies and Coast Guards of
smaller nations?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 4. Current strategic guidance from the DOD and USCG sets
operations in the context of great power competition. Near-peers and
regional powers seek to undermine U.S. influence. Weak governance
exacerbates this trend and enables competitors to manipulate our
partner nations to our detriment. This harms US interests and increases
instability. The USCG's soft-power approach allows greater access where
the Navy would otherwise have challenges, making the USCG a key
component of U.S. strategy. Is the Coast Guard considering a new fleet
mix analysis that would include more Fast Response Cutters can be used
to train and coordinate activities with the Navies and Coast Guards of
smaller nations? Do you anticipate the Coast Guard having cutters in
the South China Sea as part of the `tri-service' operations?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 5. In the Commandant's State of the Coast Guard Address,
Adm. Schultz announced the Coast Guard will continue Operation AIGA
where Fast Response Cutters are transiting 2,200 miles from Honolulu to
the island nations in Oceania. Can you give the Committee a sense of
how operations in 2018 and 2019 went? Has the Coast Guard considered
homeporting an FRC in American Samoa?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Questions from Hon. Rick Larsen to Vice Admiral Daniel B. Abel, Deputy
Commandant for Operations, U.S. Coast Guard
Question 1. Can you elaborate on the Coast Guard's role in the
response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 1a.. Does the U.S. Coast Guard have the resources
necessary to continue these efforts? If not, what else is required?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2. Canada's Enhancing Cetacean Habitat and Observation
(ECHO) Program aims to better understand and mitigate the effects of
vessels on at-risk Southern Resident Killer Whales throughout the
southern coast of British Columbia; which has implications in the
Pacific Northwest. What is the status of the U.S. Coast Guard work with
the Canadian Government on these efforts?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2a.. Do you have adequate resources to be an effective
partner? If not, what additional resources does the Coast Guard need?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 3. As a result of human activity, the Arctic is warming
faster than any other region. Yet, the Coast Guard's Arctic Strategy
makes little reference to climate change. This is a contrast with
previous administrations' recognition of the impacts of climate change
in the Coast Guard's Arctic Strategy. How will the Coast Guard
strengthen its international partnerships in the region when our Arctic
partners are clear-eyed about climate change, but this administration
is not?
Answer. A response was not received at the time of publication.
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