Small Teams, Large Impact

[rangerrebew]

Small Teams, Large Impact
By Lieutenant Travis Dopp, U.S. Coast Guard | September 9, 2022
 
Lieutenant Travis Dopp, U.S. Coast Guard

Lieutenant Dopp currently serves with the Office of Congressional Affairs as a Congressional Fellow for Senator Dan Sullivan. Previous assignments include Direct Action Section Assistant Team Leader at Maritime Security Response Team East and Command Duty Officer at Sector Anchorage.

Join USNI
 
Off the coast of South America, a helicopter embarked upon a U.S. Navy destroyer spots a semi-submersible— a vessel capable of holding several tons of drugs helping to fund transnational criminal organizations. Absent a boarding team with the legal authority to intervene, they can only take photographs and report what they had seen. Elsewhere, a similar vessel encounters a Chinese fishing vessel suspected of human trafficking. Hoping to avoid capture, the Chinese crew communicates that they are armed and will actively fight off any attempted boarding. Lacking the requisite level of boarding team, the vessel backs off until such a team can arrive. In contested waters, a cutter undergoes attempted cyberattacks from supposed fishing vessels. Lacking cyber experts, the vessel continues on, oblivious of the attack and any compromised data.

These potential events are troubling. However, the Coast Guard has been able to address these types of scenarios with much success in the past using small, focused teams. While these teams have had tremendous impact, they are relatively scarce in numbers. To fully realize this capability, the Coast Guard must invest in small, deployable groups, comprised of certain skillsets that can fill niche roles at a moment’s notice.

Coast Guard Use of Small Teams

For decades, the Coast Guard has utilized small teams with a focused purpose either on their own, or as part of a team comprised of other military services, government agencies, and even other nations. For example, Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) or Advanced Interdiction Teams (AITs)—entities with a heightened skillset including the capability to conduct non-compliant and opposed boardings. Their efforts routinely result in the interdiction of multiple tons of drugs, weapons bound for terrorists, and often terrorists themselves.

https://blog.usni.org/posts/2022/09/09/small-teams-large-impact

[Smokin Joe]

The Coast Guard wants some special forces teams of their own.

[sneakypete]

The Coast Guard wants some special forces teams of their own.

@Smokin Joe

The USCG is famous for sailing into storms to rescue people on sinking boats/ships,but NOBODY has ever joined the USCG because they want to get into a fire-fight.

Last time I heard,they weren't even considered to be a branch of the US military. They come under the command of the US Treasury Department.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

The USCG is famous for sailing into storms to rescue people on sinking boats/ships,but NOBODY has ever joined the USCG because they want to get into a fire-fight.

Last time I heard,they weren't even considered to be a branch of the US military. They come under the command of the US Treasury Department.

The Coast Guard has been considered a branch of the military for some time.
It isn't all buoy tenders and rescuing tourists in a rental boat, by a long shot, although their original focus was on making sure taxes and duties were paid (interdicting smugglers). 

They are currently under the DHS rather than the DOD, so maybe that is the source of the confusion.

Created by Congress as the Revenue-Marine on 4 August 1790 at the request of Alexander Hamilton, it is the oldest continuously operating naval service of the United States.[Note 1] As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton headed the Revenue-Marine, whose original purpose was collecting customs duties at U.S. seaports. By the 1860s, the service was known as the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the term Revenue-Marine gradually fell into disuse.[13]

The modern U.S. Coast Guard was formed by a merger of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915, under the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In 1939, the U.S. Lighthouse Service was also merged into the U.S. Coast Guard. As one of the country's six armed services, the U.S. Coast Guard has deployed to support and fight every major U.S. war since 1790, from the Quasi-War with France to the Global War on Terrorism.[
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard

Most of the people I knew who had joined up during Vietnam were looking for a way to not be drafted, and to still fulfill their military obligation, a couple so they could be closer to situations at home.

[sneakypete]

The Coast Guard has been considered a branch of the military for some time.
It isn't all buoy tenders and rescuing tourists in a rental boat, by a long shot, although their original focus was on making sure taxes and duties were paid (interdicting smugglers). 

They are currently under the DHS rather than the DOD, so maybe that is the source of the confusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard

Most of the people I knew who had joined up during Vietnam were looking for a way to not be drafted, and to still fulfill their military obligation, a couple so they could be closer to situations at home.

@Smokin Joe
.
Nope! I grew up with one of the USCG senior officers as a family friend. I don't know when it changed,but from Day One the USCG came under the US Treasury Departmint. Back when they were first organized and right up through the 70's at least,that is where they got their orders from because their primary mission was to stop smuggling and the loss of tax income smuggling was responsible for.

Their primary mission these days seems to be trying to stop drug smuggling via shipping.

The do life-saving ocean missions because nobody else is as equipped or trained to do these things as well as the USCG,and because patrolling off our shores and along trade routes IS what they do. If ya want to catch the drug smugglers,ya gotta go where they are operating.

Yeah,a USN carrier battle fleet damn sure has the assets to stop and/or sink drug smugglers,but that's like hunting mice with a Spooky Gun Ship,and they DO have more important things to do than going after smugglers.

[Kamaji]

Guys, the history of the Coast Guard is, as they say, complicated:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard

[Smokin Joe]

Guys, the history of the Coast Guard is, as they say, complicated:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard

Yep (I linked that also), but they have been a "uniformed service" for a long time. Gotta protect the revenue stream to protect the republic, and keep Nazi spies from getting off the U Boats.