House Homeland Security Hearing on Coast Guard's Role in Combating Narcoterrorism

Coast Guard's Role in Homeland Security

• 🇺🇸 The Coast Guard is a vital instrument of national power, serving as a military service, federal law enforcement agency, and intelligence community member tasked with securing maritime borders and facilitating commerce.
• 🎯 The service is on the front lines against narcoterrorists and transnational criminal organizations, pushing borders out and targeting vulnerable networks.

Deployable Specialized Forces (DSF) Capabilities

• ⚓ DSF units are highly skilled teams providing a versatile toolkit for ever-changing and asymmetric threats, including maritime counterterrorism and dangerous drug interdictions.
• 📈 In fiscal year 2025, DSF achieved historic drug interdiction results, seizing over 511,000 pounds of narcotics valued at over $3.8 billion.
• 🚢 Recent operations include high-risk boardings of sanctioned oil tankers to enforce sanctions at sea and uphold international law.

Challenges Facing the Coast Guard

• ⚠️ GAO reports highlight persistent challenges including staffing shortfalls, declining vessel and aircraft availability due to aging assets and increasing maintenance costs, and acquisition program delays.
• 📉 Specialized forces units can be underutilized or oversubscribed, indicating a potential mismatch in the right mix and number of personnel to meet mission demands.
• ✈️ The availability of critical assets like cutters and aircraft has declined, with increasing maintenance challenges leading to missed patrol obligations.

Force Design 2028 Modernization

• 🚀 Force Design 2028 is a modernization initiative aimed at transforming the Coast Guard into a more agile, capable, and responsive force.
• 🧑‍✈️ This plan includes expanding the workforce by 15,000 personnel, with a focus on operators for unmanned systems and deployable specialized forces.
• 🏛️ The establishment of a unified DSF command is proposed to improve the manning, training, equipping, and deployment of specialized forces.

Interagency Coordination and Future Needs

• 🤝 The Maritime Operational Threat Response (MOTR) process ensures interagency coordination with partners like the Department of Justice and State, especially when boarding vessels and enforcing sanctions.
• 💰 The Coast Guard requires continued resources, including operating funds for personnel and asset sustainment, to effectively combat evolving threats.
• 🚢 The service needs more cutters, unmanned systems, and intelligence programs to adapt to new trends in criminal organization tactics, such as the use of "dark fleet" tankers and semi-submersibles.