Gregorio del Pilar. Via Global Post.

The just ended standoff between China and the Philippines over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea is a painful reminder of Manila’s maritime weakness.

On April 10, sailors from the Philippine Navy warship Gregorio del Pilar attempted to arrest Chinese fishermen inside the Scarborough Shoal, which both Manila and Beijing claim. Two Chinese government vessels intervened and blocked the arrest. Shortly thereafter, Manila pulled the Gregorio del Pilar away from the shoal and sent in a smaller vessel instead as more Chinese ships and aircraft arrived.

Read the rest at The Diplomat.

USCG responds to Japanese vessel in Gulf of Alaska. Coast Guard photo.

The U.S. Coast Guard sank a derelict Japanese ship that has been drifting towards U.S. waters since last year’s tsunami. From the Coast Guard Website:

The Japanese fishing vessel Ryou-Un Maru burns after the Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa crew fired explosive ammunition at the vessel 180 miles west of the southeast Alaskan coast April 5, 2012. The Coast Guard worked closely with federal, state and local agencies to assess the immediate dangers the vessel presented and determined that sinking the vessel at sea would be the best course of action to help minimize any navigation and environmental threats.

Video here.

Navy photo.

The U.S. Coast Guard could finally be on track to acquire a new oceangoing icebreaker to boost its dwindling polar fleet.

The Coast Guard asked for $8 million in its 2013 budget proposal to begin acquiring the new ship, which can scythe through sea ice to clear a channel for other vessels, and could ultimately cost up to $1 billion, according to press reports.

Read the rest at The Diplomat.

In terms of personnel the [U.S.] Coast Guard is now larger than the Royal Navy. In effect it is the [U.S.] Navy’s closest and most reliable ally. The economic advantages of close coordination are compelling.

Taiwan coast guard.

“There are many factors that make it extremely unlikely that the [People's Republic of China] will use military force to try to achieve the long-held goal of ‘reunification,’” Jeffrey Wasserstrom wrote in his book China in the 21st Century. For one, “money and people are moving across the straits regularly and in ways that benefit both countries.”

Quietly recognizing this, China and Taiwan have slowly begun to cooperate on low-level cross-Strait security. Last week the Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards held a combined rescue exercise off southeastern China, according to Focus Taiwan, reporting just before the event took place:

Boats and aircraft from Taiwan and China will simulate the collision of two ships on the Kinmen-Xiamen route — one of the busiest areas in the Taiwan Strait — and try to save passengers that fall into the sea, the [Coast Guard Administration] said. The CGA will send nine patrol boats, including a 500-ton patrol vessel, and helicopters to Kinmen for the joint drill. …

On Thursday, former Deputy Minister of National Defense Lin Chong-pin said that although the participants in the rescue drill are not from the military, he sees the event as a “positive signal” in the two sides’ pursuit of mutual military trust.

by DAVID AXE

Eight years ago the U.S. Coast Guard, owner of one of the world’s oldest naval fleets, launched a $25-billion program to build new ships and airplanes, all connected by a sophisticated communications network. The rescue service called the ambitious program, “Deepwater.”

Deepwater soon found itself in, uh, deep water.

Old patrol boats modernized with Deepwater electronics famously fell apart, resulting in lawsuits and lots of corporate shenanigans by contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. A new class of frigate-size patrol vessels, called “National Security Cutters,” had bad backbones, poorly-designed computers and radios and ended up late and costing twice their original budget. With costs spiraling, the Coast Guard cut the NSC build from 12 to just eight. Things got so bad that the Department of Homeland Security slapped the Coasties with a bunch of restrictions on how they could spend their own money.

To make up for the smaller National Security Cutter fleet, the Coast Guard mulled adding vessels to a follow-on class of smaller “Offshore Patrol Cutters.” Nearly a decade into Deepwater, it’s finally time to start designing the OPCs and finding a company to build them. Considering the service’s track record on new ships, if I were the Coast Guard, I would be very, very nervous.

Coast Guard Blog reminds us of the Offshore Patrol Cutter’s theoretical basic outline: 25 copies, each 360 feet long, diesel-powered and capable of 25 knots, for a maximum of 45 days’ endurance. Crew of around 100, room for two small boats and a helicopter.

Coastie Rear Admiral Gary Blore had looked into buying the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, but the LCS is meant to be fast and short-legged, whereas the Coast Guard likes its ships slow and long-legged. Also, the Littoral Combat Ship is roughly 100-percent over budget. The Coast Guard can’t afford to hitch itself to another acquisitions disaster. “Certainly, LCS is something that we would consider,” Blore said last year, but I think he was just being nice.

So hold your breath, cross your fingers. Pretty soon, one of the world’s worst shipbuilders is going to start building more new ships, from scratch, with your money.

(Art: Coast Guard)

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by DAVID AXE

Global climate change is changing the patterns of ice coverage in the Arctic. For nations with polar territory, this change represents a danger, and an opportunity. Maritime forces are at the forefront of mitigating growing risks in Arctic, while also exploring opportunities for new shipping routes, mineral exploration and tourism.

Russia, Canada, Denmark and the United States stand to experience the greatest fallout from changes in the Arctic. In the U.S., the Coast Guard — the smallest of the country’s five military services — has assumed leadership of America’s Arctic challenge. And challenging it is, owing to harsh conditions and a lack of funds for specialized equipment.

The Technical University of Denmark estimated this year that, with rising temperatures, the Arctic would be ice-free in the summer, beginning in 2015. Less ice means easier navigation for commercial vessels and cruise ships, and opportunities to tap previously inaccessible oil and natural gas reserves. “The receding summer ice pack … is opening up a world of possibilities,” noted Stratfor, a U.S. think tank. Though Arctic waters might be ice-free during summer within a few years, winters will still be icy.

For the U.S., less icy summers mean more human activity along Alaska’s North Slope, also known as “Arctic Alaska.” Today, the North Slope is inhabited by only a small number of native Eskimos. There’s little commercial activity and virtually no major government presence. The military has no permanent facilities on the North Slope.

That might change in coming years. In 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard organized its first major expedition to the North Slope, deploying a small number of boats and helicopters to test whether the region could support sustained security operations. Every year since, the Coast Guard has repeated the exercise, gradually refining its equipment and practices as the 42,000-strong maritime service moves closer to a formal Arctic strategy, to be completed in the next few years.

The Coast Guard is an unusual organization, by American standards. It combines the deployable security functions of a navy with the domestic law-enforcement tasks usually assigned to police forces. With around 100 frigates and patrol boats (the service calls them “cutters”) and several hundred aircraft, the Coast Guard represents one of the world’s top 20 navies, all on its own.

There are a number of reasons the Arctic mission fell mostly to the Coast Guard. “There’s not a requirement that would need naval warships,” explained Admiral Thad Allen, the Coast Guard’s top officer. Broadly speaking, Arctic nations have chosen not to deploy heavy military forces to the Arctic, as the ice melts. Instead, rescue craft, lightly-armed patrol vessels and icebreakers have dominated governments’ planning. Canada has announced plans to build a new class of six patrol vessels, strengthened to withstand collisions with loose ice.

The U.S. Navy quietly maintains under-sea Arctic patrols, using nuclear-powered attack submarines “hardened” to surface through ice. However, routine government operations are focused on law enforcement, fisheries protection, search and rescue and environmental response, activities will all take place within the 200-mile-wide U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, Allen said. While the Coast Guard frequently deploys its larger vessels abroad, most of its day-to-day activities take place inside the EEZ. The Coast Guard also owns all three of the U.S. military’s icebreakers.

Even with reduced levels of ice in certain months, the North Slope is a hostile environment for military forces, due to harsh weather and historically low levels of infrastructure investment. For one, there are no purpose-built boat launches on the North Slope. “We have a very hard time launching small boats up there,” Allen said. In its annual Arctic experiments, the Coast Guard has learned to use natural outcroppings as makeshift launches.

Wet, cold weather causes icing on Coast Guard helicopters. For its first two Arctic deployments, the Coast Guard sent short-range HH-65C Dolphin helicopters, which have no organic de-icing systems. Aviators weren’t comfortable with the icing risk, so this year the Coast Guard sent larger HH-60J Jayhawk choppers with de-icing gear. On the North Slope, the helicopters operate alongside Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules patrol planes.

“The communications infrastructure is very sparse and spotty,” Allen added. This summer, Allen accompanied a government team on a tour of North Slope communities. While airborne, the team had to relay radio communications via two other aircraft, in order to contact ground facilities.

In other parts of the U.S., the Coast Guard works closely with local police forces, which often possess their own boats and helicopters for rescue and enforcement. But North Slope communities have very little in the way of major equipment, Allen said. This heightens the need for a sustained Coast Guard presence. Allen posited scenarios that could end disastrously, without Coast Guard intervention.

Allen described the possibility of a sinking cruise ship evacuating hundreds of tourists into lifeboats off the North Slope. “What do you do with the people in the boats?” he asked. Today, the Coast Guard “could get aviation there fairly quickly, but the closest ships are … 900 miles away.” If the survivors numbered in the hundreds, the Coast Guard’s helicopters might not be able to shuttle them all to land, in time to prevent deaths. To head off such a catastrophe, the Coast Guard needs a bigger, year-round North Slope presence.

The Coast Guard’s Arctic forces would also safeguard expanding oil infrastructure. During his summer tour this year, Allen rode on a British Petroleum hovercraft to survey oil pipelines. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated this year that Arctic waters might contain between 50 and 150 billion barrels of oil plus huge natural gas deposits.

Due to the apparent wealth of Arctic mineral deposits, many commentators anticipate a cold war between Arctic nations, as they deploy more military forces to the pole. But Allen doesn’t seem too concerned. He described changes in the Arctic reinforcing existing close ties between the U.S. and Canada. With one of the Coast Guard’s three icebreakers undergoing deep maintenance following a long period in storage, the U.S. has arranged to have Canadian icebreakers help cover the western portion of Arctic Alaskan waters.

The state of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet is one of Allen’s biggest concerns. Two of the icebreakers are more than 30 years old and in need of replacement, but Congress has not appropriated the roughly $1 billion per ship that it would cost to buy new icebreakers. “We should not diminish the current capability,” Allen said. In other words, America needs new icebreakers, soon, if the Coast Guard is going to make the Arctic a full-time job.

(Photo: U.S. Geological Survey)