How About USCG do Coast Guarding ... and USN do Navaling?
don't explain it, it just sounds like excuses
This little announcement as reported over at gCaptain got my attention yesterday:
The U.S. Coast Guard has dramatically expanded its presence along America’s southern maritime border, deploying the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) as part of an unprecedented response to border security challenges.
The Coast Guard announced Monday it has already tripled its assets along the southern border since January 21 and it is now “leveraging U.S. Navy capabilities with Coast Guard teams aboard to augment our assets there off California and Texas,” the agency stated on X.
“USS Gravely’s deployment will contribute to the U.S. Northern Command southern border mission as part of the DOD’s coordinated effort in response to the Presidential Executive Order,” said Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander, U.S. Northern Command. “Gravely’s sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security.”…with Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) teams embarking aboard the Navy destroyer.
Gravely is a Flight IIA Arleigh Burke, she’s only 15 years old. A young girl by US Navy standards. “Why,” you are hopefully asking, “is such a ship doing border control when we have Carrier Strike Groups running out of VLS cells attacking and defending against the piratical Houthi in the Red Sea?”
This isn’t like in the early 1990s when we have more ships than we knew what to do with and had the nuclear powered cruiser USS Long Beach (CGN 9) on her last deployment chasing drug runners in the Caribbean.
You might wonder, “Don’t we have a Coast Guard for this?”
Funny you should ask, it appears that, well…I’ll let the Coasties explain to you where our Coast Guard is:
Since 2003, Bahrain has been a forward-deployed home for the USCG, and is currently home to six Island-class patrol boats (WPB): USCGC ADAK (WPB-1333), USCGC AQUIDNECK (WPB-1309), USCGC BARANOF (WPB-1318), USCGC MAUI (WPB-1304), USCGC MONOMOY (WPB-1326), and USCGC WRANGELL (WPB-1332)
No…wait…let’s not do that. Look at those ships mentioned on the USCG’s own website.
Unless I have time-traveled, a lot of those ships are decommissioned. ADAK in 2021, BARANOF in 2022. That official guv’munt webpage has not been updated in almost half a decade.
You can’t make this stuff up. Let’s try again.
Oh, here they are…I think.
The mission of PATFORSWA is to equip, deploy, and support mission-ready Coast Guard forces to conduct maritime operations across the Middle East for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM).
Initially deployed in 2003 in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, PATFORSWA is now a permanent presence based out of the Kingdom of Bahrain, providing capable littoral assets for maritime interdiction, theater security cooperation, and maritime domain awareness operations.
In the midst of a fleet transition from WPBs to WPCs, the PATFORSWA squadron currently consists of six 154’ Sentinel Class Fast Response Cutters, a cutter relief crew, and a 150-member mission support detachment in Bahrain.
PATFORSWA also has a Maritime Engagement Team (MET) that conducts Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) expertise exchanges and engagement activities with U.S. and partner nation maritime forces.
So, the Kingdom of Bahrain has USCG cutters on the other side of the planet, while on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula we are probably short a DDG so one can instead do USCG duties?
Have I got this right? Man…inertia is a hell of a drug.
On the list of things to revisit…a half-dozen USCG cutters stationed in the Persian Gulf in 2025 should probably be on the short list.
We have a Pacific to pivot to and boats of people coming ashore uninvited in SoCal.
PS: yes, I too would prefer that we task LCS to do this, but at this point, does anyone expect them to be of use for much of anything?
We have a Coast Guard that has come a long way from the early days of the Wood Island Life Saving Station in the mouth of Portsmouth New Hampshire harbor. There is nothing intelligent in this current use of CG and Naval assets especially when they are all in short supply. By the way, not a blue water sailor here, the fore deck of the vessel in the photo looks like someone bugled their lunch on it. It is. Is so that scraping rust and applying a coat of paint are no longer able to be done at sea? Or in a port of call. Even cursory efforts? Asking for a friend. Also asking for a friend so we really need a combantant command in Africa? The Chinese apparently wish to colonize the sub Saharan continent, so why don’t we let them try? It’s worked out for everyone else who have tried…..
How about we decide to either fight the Houthi, or quit pretending to fight them?