As the U.S. Navy continues a long, forty-year trend of moving away from small combatants, the U.S. Coast Guard’s recapitalized fleet of small cutters is surging out onto the world stage.
, the Coast Guard’s procurement record is solid. The Navy spent $20 billion developing and building the Littoral Combat Ship, while the Coast Guard is spending less than $4.5 billion to field 66 of their tiny Sentinel Class cutters. The little ships are a great value.
In the Middle East, four of an expected six-ship Fast Response Cutter detachment have either arrived or are on their way to their new homeport in Bahrain. The final pair will embark in late 2022. The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship—a ship purpose-built to work in the littorals and whose first variant was commissioned four years before the firstClass Cutter entered service, has yet to arrive in the Gulf.
But it is not just the ships that matter. Throughout history, the Coast Guard has always pushed their small patrol boat navy to the limit. It’s the strategies and low-cost operational innovations that really made the Coast Guard more effective. Cost constraints made the Coast Guard experts in conducting dispersed operations. Low funding incentivized the Coast Guard to unlock the efficiency of intelligence-based targeting.
But the Coast Guard has a lot of other needs, too. The Coast Guard’s new cutters bring a lot more to the table, but they need more funding to operate. Thecutters each cost 1.5 to 2 times more to operate than their less-effective predecessors. The incoming Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Linda Fagan, also cautioned Congress at her confirmation hearing that every cruise starts and ends at a shore facility, warning that the Coast Guard’s shore facilities need more investment. The Coast Guard’s $1.
The Navy’s push to shed small ships is an ideal opportunity to boost America’s effective and cost-conscious Coast Guard. Given America’s changed geopolitical circumstances and the Navy’s evident disinterest in continuing its traditional constabulary missions, the Coast Guard needs to grow.
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