Posted: December 7, 2015 4:10 PM
‘Not Enough’ USCG Vessels to Meet Demand for Presence in South China Sea, Arctic
By OTTO KREISHER, Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard’s No. 2 officer said the small size and advanced age of its fleet is limiting the service’s ability to carry out crucial missions in the Arctic and drug transit zones or to meet rising calls for presence in the volatile South China Sea.
“The lack of surface vessels every day just breaks my heart,” VADM Charles Michel, the Coast Guard’s vice commandant, said Dec. 7.
Addressing a forum on American Sea Power sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute at the Newseum, Michel detailed the problems the Coast Guard faces in trying to carry out its missions of national security, law enforcement and maritime safety because of a lack of resources.
“That’s why you hear me clamoring for recapitalization,” he said.
Michel noted that China’s coast guard has a lot more ships than the U.S. Coast Guard has, including many that are larger than the biggest U.S. cutter, the 1,800-ton National Security Cutter. China is using those white-painted vessels rather than “gray-hull navy” ships to enforce its claims to vast areas of the South China Sea, including reefs and shoals claimed by other nations, he said.
That is a statement that the disputed areas are “so much our territory, we don’t need the navy. That’s an absolutely masterful use of the coast guard,” he said.
The superior numbers of Chinese coast guard vessels and its plans to build more is something, “we have to consider when looking at what we can do in the South China Sea,” Michel said.
Although they have received requests from the U.S. commanders in the region for U.S. Coast Guard cutters in the South China Sea, “the commandant had to say ‘no’. There’s not enough to go around,” he said.
Another place where the shortage of Coast Guard capabilities is becoming harmful, Michel explained, is in the Arctic, where the melting of the polar ice is making the region more open to commercial transit and exploration for suspected vast amounts of oil and natural gas.
The USCG has only two active icebreakers, the 39-year-old Polar Star, considered a “heavy” icebreaker, and the younger but less capable Healy, he said. The heavy icebreaker Polar Sea currently is out of service due to its age and condition.
By contrast, Russia has 41 icebreakers, some of which are nuclear powered, and plans to build 11 more, he said.
Although Michel did not mention it, China, which has no territory near the Arctic, has one icebreaker and is building another.
Although the United States has territorial claims to a vast Arctic area, “our current icebreaker fleet is not adequate to meet the need,” Michel said. “If we can’t guarantee presence in the Polar regions … we can’t protect our sovereignty.”
Michel noted that President Barack Obama announced plans to build a new icebreaker during a Sept. 1 visit to Alaska, hoping to have it ready by 2020.
The admiral gave a detailed explanation of the impact on efforts to interdict the flood of illegal drugs out of South America — most of which comes to the United States — due to the shortage of Coast Guard ships. That problem has gotten worse, he said, because the Navy has stopped sending ships to aid in the drug interdiction mission.
At the same time, he added, the drug traffickers are employing increasingly sophisticated means to transport their illicit cargo, including use of semi-submersibles with radar-deflecting coatings that are very difficult to spot.
Intelligence estimates say that seizure of 30 percent of the multi-billion-dollar drug flow could hurt the traffickers’ operations, but “the best we can get is about 20 percent, Michel said.
http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20151207-uscg.html
