By Lawrence J. Korb
The Virginian-Pilot
WASHINGTON — Despite the pressing need to cut government spending, under President Barack Obama’s proposal all the nation’s military services are set to see their budgets increase -- all, that is, except the Coast Guard. The nation’s chronically overburdened maritime force is responsible for everything from global search and rescue to port security.
Under the president’s proposal, the Coast Guard’s budget will decline by 3 percent, to $10.1 billion, smaller than many medium-sized agencies under the other services. It’s a puzzling decision, considering the increasingly critical role the Coast Guard plays in protecting the national security interests of the United States -- and considering many much less vital military programs have been spared.
Beyond combating drug smuggling and international piracy, the 41,000-member Coast Guard is our nation’s first line of defense against nuclear terrorism. If someone wanted to detonate a nuclear bomb in this country, would he be more likely to launch it on a missile with a return address, or would he try to smuggle it in a container through one of our ports? The latter, obviously -- and the Coast Guard’s Port Security Units would play a pivotal role in stopping him.
The Coast Guard is also our nation’s first responder to natural disasters and maritime emergencies, both at home and abroad. The service played a vital role in the U.S. assistance effort after the 2004 Asian tsunami; at home, it rescued nearly 25,000 people and medically evacuated close to 10,000 after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.
Coast Guard cutters were also the first American ships to arrive after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January. It helped evacuate the first Americans and has continued to provide crucial search and rescue and medical assistance there.
All of this activity is already straining the Coast Guard budget. Most of the 19 cutters that were sent to Haiti eventually needed help themselves -- thanks in large part to their age, 12 of them suffered severe problems at sea, and three required emergency dry-dock repairs. That’s not surprising, since the average “high endurance” cutter is 41 years old, compared to 14 years for the average Navy ship.
True, the deficit means painful cuts have to be made somewhere. But consider some of the programs that haven’t been cut, like the missile defense program. Although it has yet to be successfully tested under realistic conditions, it will receive more funds in the proposed 2011 defense budget than the entire Coast Guard.
Unlike the programs and services grouped under the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and therefore must compete for scarce dollars with its 22 other agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration. The Pentagon, in contrast, receives virtually unconstrained defense funding, which has doubled in real terms in the last 10 years.
The solution is simple: We need a unified national security budget.
Under such a budget, savings garnered by cuts in a defense agency could be easily moved over to finance a homeland security agency. For instance, part of the Navy’s $16.1 billion shipbuilding budget for 2011 includes an extra $2.7 billion Virginia-class submarine, an arguably unnecessary expense in the post-Cold War world. That money could help the Coast Guard buy new ships before large parts of its current fleet are forced into retirement.
Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Sean E. Duggan is a research associate there. This column appeared earlier in The New York Times.
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