By Calvin Biesecker
Despite his previous warnings that the Coast Guard would have to be doing “less with less” unless it is adequately resources, Commandant Adm. Bob Papp told Congress yesterday that his service has no plans to back off from its security missions.
“We have no intent to cut back on any of our security responsibilities,” Papp told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. “And I firmly believe in the need to do most of the things that we’re doing out there.”
Last fall, Papp began warning that the Coast Guard was getting stretched too thin given its historical responsibilities and post-9/11 missions in the face of constrained budgets. Earlier this year, he warned that without the resources he would have to start talking about “doing less with less” and not performing at the same levels as in the past (Defense Daily, Jan. 13).
Last month at his State of the Coast Guard Address, Papp began to qualify his earlier comments, saying “we may have to reduce our range of activities” to become more proficient (Defense Daily, Feb. 11). “This is acceptable,” he said. “Let me repeat this. We may need to reduce our number and range of capabilities we’ve added since 9/11, until properly resourced, and this will be acceptable.”
Yesterday, Papp further qualified what he means by reducing activities. For example, the service has stood up a number of Mobile Security and Safety Teams (MSSTs) since 9/11 that act as a sort of sea-borne “SWAT” force for fast response at National Special Security Events, he said. Along the way, however, because of the Coast Guard’s “can-do attitude,” the service has unilaterally added activities to these teams, which in turn requires additional training.
Going forward, the Coast Guard is going to have to review whether it can continue to do these added activities, such as conducting “opposed boardings” of vessels, Papp said. If so, they need to be funded.
Another example Papp provided where the Coast Guard has dramatically added responsibilities is in the area of aviation security. Before 9/11, most of what Coast Guard helicopter crews did was search and rescue missions, which required about 40 percent of their flight hours be done in training.
Now, with a number of new responsibilities such as airborne use of force, rotary wing air intercept and vertical assault insertions from helicopters onto non-compliant vessels, 60 percent of flight hours are devoted to training purposes, Papp said.
Taken together, these new responsibilities are an added burden and “not necessarily complementary skills for our pilots for the search and rescue mission,” Papp said. The added training burden essentially “dilutes the experience and proficiency level across those mission sets,” he said. “No one asked us to do all those things. We took that on ourselves in many cases and I think it’s incumbent upon me as a leader who has lost people now to take a very serious look at all these things that we’re doing and say perhaps we don’t need to be doing all that. Perhaps there are other agencies that might do it better. Or if the Coast Guard is the best to do it and there is a need to do it then I need to go forth to the Congress and administration and say I need additional resources to do it.”
Also during his testimony, Papp said the Coast Guard didn’t request funding in the FY ’12 budget request for a tactical unmanned aircraft system that could operate aboard the service’s National Security Cutters because these systems aren’t mature enough yet and dollars were better spent elsewhere. The Navy is currently examining Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] Fire Scout tactical UAS for shipboard operations but hasn’t settled on a path forward.
Papp said that it makes no sense for the Coast Guard to invest heavily until the Navy understands its path forward. This way the Coast Guard can take advantage of the Navy’s investments, he said.