I travel across Victoria Harbour every morning. At the moment there is a small flotilla of US warships berthed halfway between Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island.
Curiously, there is also a clipper, all in white with the red stripe and stencilled on the hull, “US Coast Guard”.
We are a bit far from the US coast. Why is the Coast Guard all the way out here? Does it provide some sort of support to the warships?
Many times the Paramilitary (or maybe paranavy) Coast Guard is welcome to make port calls when the scarier USN is not.
Support for the clipper (all seagoing USCG ships are clippers) comes from the Navy.
(Perhaps TMI, but here it is)
The USCG goes out to the farther Pacific regularly for several reasons:
To send icebreakers to the Antarctic to resupply the US research stations there.
To send “blackhulls” to tend navigational aids on and around the numerous islands and reefs (some uninhabited or uninhabitable) that are US territory. Guam, Samoa, and the Marianas are obvious, but there are also obscure places Howland Island and French Frigate Shoals. (US Coasts that need guarding include a lot more than the lower CONUS 48).
To send “regular” type cutters (like 378’s of the Hamilton class) do law enforcement, environmental, SAR, and fisheries type patrols in and around said US territorial islands.
To share experience and training with other nations’ Coast Guards.
The USCG (AFAIK) only conducts ops with or on the behalf of US Navy vessels where such ops are a primary mission of the USCG. In other words, sometimes the Navy cooperates by participating in CG type missions, but not the other way around. I don’t think they’ve done any cooperative open-ocean war-type exercises with the Navy since the late 80’s, although they did do harbor security during Desert Storm. USCG vessels no longer have sonar, and the service has no rate (= job) for sonar operators.
At one time, a very hawkish CG Commandant had the 378’s (the largest CG cutters) outfitted with Harpoon missile launchers so the service could have more war capability if it were ever brought into Navy service in case of an all-out sea war, but his successor wisely reversed that and had the equipment removed.
In some theoretical near-future war, the USCG’s role might well be like MPs are to the Army; it wouldn’t be like a reserve division of ready-to-go full-capability warships.
The CG isn’t equipped, manned, or funded to perform naval war type missions as well as the numerous peacetime missions it is assigned. The CG wisely leaves naval warfare to the Navy, and does its civil role maratime law enforcement, evironmental, and search-and-rescue …and does it damn well, I might add!
FYI, but not related to the OP:
One other thing: I see the OP said a “clipper”. If this mneands a big sailing ship, it’s the USCGC Eagle, the training vessel out of the CGF Academy. It used to be the WW2 Kriegsmarine’s traning ship Horst Wessel.
My Idiot Cousin was in the USCG and on one tour went to:
Chile (during the Allende days, not a happy country)
Antarctica
Australia
Hong Kong
Var. US terr. and bases in the W. Pacific.
(And probably a lot of other places I have forgotten.)
Ships sailing from A to D routinely stop at ports B and C along the way. The smaller the ship, the more likely stopping at ports is needed.
Paul in Saudi:
All USCG ships are “Cutters” not “Clippers”. A USCG vessel is officially USCGC, meaning “United States Coast Guard Cutter”.
I fully intend to blame my spool checker.
yeah, cutter, clippers are PanAm flying boats.
Paul: The United States Coast Guard is not a paramilitary. It is 100% a military service of the United States of America. It is one of our five Armed Forces.
JC: The Eagle is a barque. Regarding your assertion that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” doesn’t apply to the USCG: prove it. After all, it’s one of our Armed Forces and is subject to the same law (the UCMJ) as the other Armed Forces. For that matter, the other Uniformed Services are subject to the UCMJ also.
The USCG may be an armed service, but so is the FBI, Customs, Border Patrol, etc. The USCG is only under the Department of Defense (Navy) in times of war.
In that sense, it is paramilitary. It’s closer to civilian than military, but does use military ranks. The USCG does civilian law enforcement, which the military is not allowed to do.
Whatever, Starfish. The Coast Guard is subject to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” DOT notwithstanding.
OK, just so we are all on the same page: legally, IRT the US Government, "Armed Forces"and “Uniformed Services” refers to certain very specific organizations under the command of the Prez, subject to the UCMJ, using a standardized paygrade structure, etc. That an organization bears arms, like the ATF, or that it wears uniforms, like the Border Patrol, or even that it flies AWACS-equipped P-3s, like Customs, does not make them one.
The US Armed Forces, aka Military Services, are the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps (all under DoD) and Coast Guard (under DoT, proposed to be under HomeSec).
The Uniformed Services IIRC are those five plus the Public Health Service (under HHS) and the NOAA Corps (under Dept. of Commerce).
USCG does deploy around the world, to show the flag, to cooperate with friendly nations in developing their coast guards or navies, and to cooperate with friendly nations in stopping smuggling at the starting rather than end point. The “Coast” name was adequate in the 1920s or so when they merged the Revenue Cutter Service, Lighthouse Service and Lifeboat Service, all of which were “coastal”; but maybe something like “Maritime Guard” would have been more appropriate to what they evolved into.
The Coast Guard does provide frontline, military, combat service in specialized roles. During WW2 service they operated landing craft. In Vietnam they provided littoral-warfare assets (patrol boats) to fill the gap between the Navy’s river-patrol craft and high-seas ships, and exchanged fire with the enemy, incurring casualties. Until the mid-late 80s they did have ASW capabilities. However it was decided to better husband their very limited resources into what they do best – for one, modern warfighting systems work best when integrated as a whole aboard a custom-made specialized combatant like a Perry-class frigate or a Burke-class destroyer, and not so well when tacked on to a general-purpose platform that also has to do law-enforcement/rescue/research/environmental-protection jobs (and in peacetime they mostly just sit there using up space and resources). They just recently announced a plan to do a full update of their assets, and about time – the cutters and planes have been getting long in the tooth and spread thin.
FACT: The USCG is one of the nation’s Armed Forcfes.
FACT: The FBI, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol ARE NOT.
Half right is still wrong. The Coast Guard is assigned to the Department of the Navy during times of War or National Emergency (as declared by the President). Regardless of which Executive Department it falls under at any particular time, it is still on of the nation’s five Armed Forces.
Incorrect.
Now that’s just horse apples. The USCG is 100% military. Its officers are Commissioned, its enlisted members enlist and re-enlist. It is a military service.
That’s because it’s a military service. It uses (get this) COAST GUARD rates (enlisted) and ranks (warrant and commissioned officers).
Nice try, but no cupie doll. The USCG does the assigned military missions it exists to perform. Part of that is to defend the coasts (whod’ve guessed, hey?) from those who wish to violate the coast for illegal purposes.
Get back to me when you’ve a fact or two up your sleeve.
Be so kind as to edit in your mind the misspelling “Forcfes” back to “Forces” if you will.
BTW, JRD: Absolutely outstanding analysis you posted.
Right.
Back to the OP…
The USCG send vessels through HK from time to time to practice coastguard-type duties with other costguards. Typically, search-and-rescue and anti drug-smuggling operations. Other countries do the same thing with their military/paramilitary/law enforcement bodies. No big deal. US taxpayers might wish to ask whether their $$$ could be better spent, of course.
I am not aware of US warships visiting Hong Kong. AFAIK all warships visiting Hong Kong belong to the part of the Seventh Fleet stationed in Japan.
If the USCG is considered to be a police force it’s another story, but it’t not.
Have a look at the Coast Guard Web Site:
Coast Guard Web Site
Note the .mil designation.
Also:
I don’t know about Hong Kong but I know that the Coast has had a presence in the Persian Gulf since the Gulf war doing port security etc.
Another International function that they perform is the AMVER system of ship rescue. Amver surely doesn’t require an international presence, but it’s not simply a domestic function:
Hemlock:
What??? How is ensuring our freaking Coast Guard is trained not a good expenditure of money?
Oh, I guess you’d rather people just drown, ships’ crews not be rescued, and the borders be a freaking sieve.
Monty:
Have a good close look at the CG’s web site. I’ll bet you find something in there about law enforcement. The CG does enforce maritime law on civilians all the time (one example, BUI), and that is something the other services cannot do (except under martial law).
shunt: I don’t have much respect for intentional avoidance of facts. The USCG is a military service, it performs its assigned military duties. Those military duties include those aspects of maritime safety assigned to it.