http://citypaper.net/articles/012402/cs.side.shtml
http://www.uscg.mil/overview/article_meeting.htm
Also:
 ADMIRAL JAMES LOY, USCG COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
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Posted on 07/18/2002 10:34:05 AM PDT by PJeffQ
http://citypaper.net/articles/012402/cs.side.shtml
http://www.uscg.mil/overview/article_meeting.htm
Also:
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ADMIRAL JAMES LOY, USCG COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
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Adm. James M. Loy “A Unique Instrument of National Security” The Fletcher School, Tufts University October 17, 2001 Amenities: It is a distinct pleasure to be among you today at the Fletcher School. I want to thank Professor [Richard] Shultz [Director of International Security Studies], Professor [Robert] Pfaltzgraff [the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Studies] and Ms. Roberta Breen [Staff Assistant, International Security Studies Program] for inviting me to speak with you today—and for the excellent logistics support that is never easy and often overlooked. It is said that the opening of the Fletcher School in the midst of the Great Depression was an act of hope in a season of despair. I trust that you will permit my observation that the same hope sustains you today, a hope that is explicit in your presence here to study issues of national and international security. And it is the same hope that brings me here to speak with you during a very difficult time in our nation’s history. I share your hope about the future of our country and its place in the world. I’d like to share with you my hope in the future of the Coast Guard as a unique instrument of our national security. Introduction: Many people have compared the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the tragedy in southwestern Pennsylvania to the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor. With respect to the total surprise and absolute shock that both attacks on American soil caused among the citizens of our great country- not to mention the terrible destruction and devastation- they are certainly right. It is also true that both were similar in the way that they united our people and galvanized competing interests into a determined effort to defeat a powerful enemy. But the enemy that attacked us last month is far more insidious and elusive than the Imperial Japanese naval forces of sixty years ago. This new enemy has turned the instruments of our own prosperity into missiles aimed at the heart of America’s military and economic might. What was once unthinkable and nearly unimaginable to a nation that cherishes freedom has become a sudden and stark reality. We are at war with a homeless, rootless enemy, who can strike with terror in any place at any time, and then disappear from view as easily as a rat in the bilges. This enemy seeks to make us prisoners of our own prosperity by attempting to strike fear into the hearts of Americans and causing us to relinquish our freedoms for the sake of holding on to what we have made with our own hands. But as Admiral Bob Natter said at the prayer service in Yankee Stadium a few weeks ago, “They picked the wrong city. They picked the wrong country!” The call to action: As a nation, we have in the past been ill prepared to deal with such an enemy. We’re learning fast. And we are not alone. Much of the world suffers under the constant threat of terrorism as a means of coercion or retaliation. That will likely continue for some time. The insidious nature of terror as a weapon is that even without being used, it can conjure all sorts of mayhem in the minds of the victims. How does a nation go about guarding itself from whatever horrors the mind can imagine? Just the thought of terrorism is a weapon that can paralyze almost as effectively and surely as a nerve gas. This is the classical Fear of the Unknown. Ask your psyche major colleagues. It is not to be taken lightly. So far, the prospect of further terror awakens the American warrior spirit in us and calls our nation to action. And as a nation that depends so heavily on the oceans and sea-lanes as avenues of our prosperity, we know that whatever action we take must protect our ports and waterways and the ships that use them, which are just as important to our commerce with the world as airlines and trade centers, and potentially just as vulnerable. The national leaders in the executive and legislative branches of our government have confronted the difficult issue as to whether terrorism is a matter of law or war. President Bush has declared that our enemies have committed an act of war against us. But he also speaks of bringing Osama bin Laden and the other culprits of terrorism to justice. As the President said in his address to the joint session of congress, “Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or whether we bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.” Even as our Department of Defense girds for a widening war, our Justice Department is hard on the trail of a criminal organization. The fact is that both legal and military battles, as well as diplomatic and economic strategies and tactics, will be necessary to win this war. That is precisely why the Coast Guard is so well-suited to help fight this war. We can help bring justice to our enemies and bring our enemies to justice. As both a military service and a federal law enforcement agency, we are uniquely positioned among federal agencies to fight an enemy that crosses boundaries with seeming impunity. Most people are aware of our Search and Rescue and Maritime Law Enforcement missions from reading the front page of the newspaper. Those who work in maritime fields are also aware of our work in aids to navigation, oil pollution prevention and response, boating safety, and protection of natural resources like fisheries. Few people, though, understand the Coast Guard’s current and growing contributions to national security. I want to bring to your minds today an affirmation that the Coast Guard—with its multiple missions, maritime expertise, military discipline, and civil law enforcement authority—is a unique instrument of national security. And as such, it may present a unique model on a small scale of how we might go about fashioning a larger model that could apply to the emergent need for Homeland Security. The emergent need for security closer to home: Despite the expected sense of Pax Americana following the end of the Cold War, we must now accept that the United States is arguably less secure than at any time in its history from catastrophic attacks against the homeland. Until recently, our view of national security has been projected abroad, rather than within our own borders. However, after the recent attacks on our own cities, we now have good cause to be concerned about the threats right under our own noses. In this era of globalization, the expansive influence of America’s economy and culture has created powerful resentments in some places of the world. Osama bin Laden’s rise to lead a reactionary movement against America’s economic power and cultural dominance should come as no surprise, despite the shock from the vicious nature of his attacks on us. One of the burdens of being the sole remaining superpower is that Americans are frequently the target, rightly or wrongly, of grievances around the world. Sadly, sometimes those grievances even come from our own citizens. Terrorism is only one of many modern threats that confront us. Illegal migration and drug smuggling compound the threat of terrorism, because they contribute to the illicit movement of people, money, and weapons across borders. Common to each of these threats is the use of an asymmetric means of attack on the United States by a state or non-state actor, such as Osama bin Laden, who is either unwilling or unable to confront us directly. The difficulty of attributing such attacks to the perpetrator makes it all the more difficult to deter, defend against, or respond to them using traditional military means. Homeland Security as the primary element of a National Security Strategy: All of these threats bring the problem of security much closer to home. Consequently, Homeland Security has emerged as a very important element of a broader National Security Strategy. The President has now responded to this change by establishing a new cabinet-level position, the Director of Homeland Security, whose job it will be to coordinate the national effort to fight terrorism¾and the other transnational threats that feed it. Much has been written on the issue of Homeland Security over the past few years. Much of it has been rather narrow in scope, focusing mainly on “Homeland Defense” as a function of the military. This view is much too restrictive, however, as recent events have proven. The main exception to this rather narrow view has been the Commission on National Security Strategy/21st Century, aka the Hart-Rudman Commission, which was published earlier this year. Here is what the Hart-Rudman report said in a nutshell: “The United States will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on the American homeland, and U.S. military superiority will not entirely protect us…” And it concluded: “…the security of the American homeland from the threats of the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government. The commission finally recommended: “The President should develop a comprehensive strategy to heighten America’s ability to prevent and protect against all forms of attacks on the homeland, and to respond to such attacks if prevention and protection fail.” The commission was right. What might such a strategy look like, given that conventional uses of military, diplomatic, or economic power would likely not be effective in countering the threats? Some additional capability is needed. That capability is civil authority blended with the other forms of state power. The importance of civil authority to Homeland Security: Civil authority has usually been linked mainly with domestic security, rather than national security policy. But as the Hart-Rudman Commission observes, “the distinction between national security policy and domestic security is already beginning to blur and in the next quarter century it could altogether disappear.” When viewed against transnational and asymmetric threats, such blurring tends to make sense. Terrorism, for example, has consistently been defined as a criminal act, and if terrorists are rooted out from among our own population, they will most likely be tried as criminals. Military means will now be used to destroy terrorist organizations who have a global reach, and the nations who give them refuge. But the proper response to a criminal act within our own borders is to enforce the law. Similarly, inspecting cargo shipments for contraband at the border is an expression of civil authority, whether the contraband is computer technology, financial instruments, drugs, or WMD. A correct response to these new threats should adhere to the principles of the constitution and the rule of law. We must continue to protect the civil liberties of our citizens while we protect their security. If our gut reaction to terrorism were to militarize our borders, we would undermine our own freedoms, and we would hand a victory to the terrorists. The maritime dimension of Homeland Security: These growing threats to our security at home have a distinct maritime dimension. They can be conveyed towards our shores in ways that can’t always be countered by traditional naval forces. We can’t launch cruise missiles or air strikes against them as they approach: they draw near in civilian vessels that look like and mingle with legitimate commercial and recreational traffic. Somebody has to engage these vessels one at a time up close and personal. Somebody has to distinguish the suspicious from the obviously innocent. To separate the guilty from the merely suspicious, somebody has to get alongside and put a boarding team aboard, even if the suspect vessels resist or won’t stop. Once aboard, somebody has to exercise sound judgment about employing such physical force as may be necessary to maintain the safety of the boarding teams and the crews of the vessels boarded. That includes the use of deadly force. Somebody has to size up each case and dispose of it based on the complex humanitarian, diplomatic, military, geo-political, environmental, and legal issues at stake. Somebody has to coordinate proposed enforcement actions with other government departments, flag states, law enforcement agencies, and everybody else who has a legitimate voice in the matter. It must all be done according to the rule of law. For 211 years, that somebody has been the United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard’s unique qualities as an instrument of national security: Why is the Coast Guard so well suited as an instrument of national security? Consider how porous our maritime borders can be, especially in comparison to our land and air borders. Ninety-five percent of our trade is shipped by maritime means. Threats can pose as legitimate trade very easily among such a large volume of commercial and even recreational traffic. Very often, only the Coast Guard has the combination of military discipline, law enforcement authority, and maritime expertise that is needed to prosecute these threats successfully. That makes us a unique instrument for responding to these challenges. The Coast Guard offers scalable command and control frameworks suitable for preventing or responding to nearly any military or civil domestic emergency. Our Captains of the Port have broad and strong legal authority to secure and manage any situation that arises in our ports or on our waterways. This authority gives them the legal basis for ordering or approving just about any movement of shipping within the port. And our Port Security Units give enforcement teeth to that legal authority. In addition, we have recently re-capitalized inventories of buoy tenders, patrol boats, and motor lifeboats. And we have the C2 systems needed to coordinate domestic and coastal operations. To that foundation, we offer experience in disaster relief and pollution response—experience that has made us the most proficient agency anywhere in conducting emergency operations through the Incident Command Structure. Our Incident Command Structure, which has been adopted by FEMA, is the most effective way of coordinating inter-agency responses to domestic emergencies. And if one of those emergencies should require DOD involvement, our status as the nation’s fifth armed service seamlessly links us to them. There are many daily instances of CG and Navy cooperation, including the capacity to activate reserves to task and sending assets from either service to help the other, depending on the task. That’s what the National Fleet construct is designed to do. The sum of these pieces—legal authority, coastal assets, command structure for military and civilian agencies, command and control systems—offers a natural bridge between all the players who have to get involved within the civilian interagency community and the Department of Defense. Each of these elements has been demonstrated effectively during the past two weeks in response to the attacks on two of our major cities. Nobody else offers this combination. Whether the nation is responding to a hurricane, protecting critical infrastructure, or preventing terrorism, we are a unique instrument for enhancing homeland security. Maritime Domain Awareness as an element of Homeland Security: But how in the world do we protect ourselves against such insidious threats? This is the central question to us as a service and as a nation. A systematic approach of complementary security measures is needed among these various pieces of the homeland security puzzle. We need to think more seriously than ever about how to prevent, how to respond, and how to manage the consequences of asymmetric attacks. But we need to think first about awareness. Awareness involves recognizing the threats well in advance, and anticipating our vulnerabilities. It also has to do with having access to detailed intelligence about our adversaries, and sharing that information more effectively among federal agencies, with our international partners, and with those “on the scene” in our ports and waterways. In the maritime arena, we call this capability "Maritime Domain Awareness," or MDA. We need to build MDA to allow us to know what cargo, people, and vessels will be calling in United States ports well in advance. Thus armed, we can take a risk management approach to decide which vessels need to be boarded on the high seas, based on the greatest threats represented to us¾threats such as weapons of mass destruction, illegal drugs, and migrants. Maritime Domain Awareness will enhance homeland security by allowing us to push the maritime borders out from the coastline by sharing information on international arrivals and departures within the United States and among our partners around the world. It will also help by telling us what is going on daily in our ports and waterways─ events that very well could have escaped our attention before, but may be vital to understanding the impending threats against us. But you can’t just buy Maritime Domain Awareness. Awareness is not merely a system. It is not just having more people or better ships or aircraft or computer systems. More than anything else, it is a state of mind. It must be an urgent and conscious effort, infused into everything we do from now on. Like the Coastwatchers in the Solomon Islands during World War II, we must be constantly vigilant. Every member of our service and our citizenry must be engaged in watching and discerning the nature of what they see. Just as important as watching is having the will to be involved in reporting what they see—and the means to do so. It is this same sense of constant vigilance and activity that Alexander Hamilton charged to the new officers of the Revenue Cutter Service, the fledgling service that he created in 1790 to preserve the maritime security of the United States. That service became the Coast Guard that I am proud to serve today. International and domestic cooperation, both civil and military are essential in this regard, because we can’t hope to ensure our security by working alone or by waiting until the threats have already crossed the thresholds of our ports. Again, no other service is so well suited to the task of creating MDA as the Coast Guard, given our influence with and ties to national and international maritime authorities, both civil and military, as well as the private maritime industries. Our reputation as a humanitarian service has afforded us access to some parts of the world where missions of diplomacy are welcomed, but missions of defense are not. Obviously, the Navy shares a vital interest in building our nation’s awareness on the high seas. Our MDA products must serve all who ply the domain. Looking to the future: With regard to the other pieces of the security puzzle—prevention, response, and consequence management—the Coast Guard also has answered the call to action. We are in the midst of some dynamic changes that will reshape the future of our service to meet the challenges before us. Immediately after the attacks on September 11th, the unique nature of the Coast Guard allowed us to increase our security posture, using existing active-duty, reserve, civilian, and auxiliary personnel, as well as existing shore units, ships, boats, and aircraft. On that day in New York City, we evacuated over one million people trying to escape by ferry from southern Manhattan, using a flotilla of boats, tugs, and barges. The typical passenger load on any other day would have been about 186,000. Coast Guard men and women everywhere have significantly increased the security of the nation’s ports and waterways, protected people and property, and assisted in rescue and recovery efforts. Our present challenge is to continue the increased security posture, while carrying out our other missions. However, this increased security posture is not sustainable with our current inventory of assets…nor is it an efficient or effective use of resources. Our people are working long hours, we are curtailing other important missions, and nearly 30% of our reservists are on active duty. I am working with my operational commanders to determine ways to provide the needed increases in security without diminishing our readiness in other respects. My first order of business is to restore the readiness and operations of existing assets to 100 per cent, which is even more urgent today than it was a month ago. As to the Coast Guard’s future capabilities, we have reached the inescapable reality that our current inventory of ships, aircraft, sensors, and other equipment must be replaced. And our current force-structure must be revised to meet the increased demands on our service. We must remain mindful that our other missions are no less important than they were before September 11th of this year. Conclusion: Last month, a unique instrument of science went on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. It is a telescope built by Sir William Herschel, the eighteenth century astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus, the first planet to be discovered beyond those visible with the naked eye. It is an instrument that Herschel used to peer beyond our solar system into the depths of space. With the aid of this telescope he laid the foundations of our modern understanding about the shape of our own galaxy. What he learned about the model of our own galaxy, he later applied to the structure of the universe. That telescope enabled him to proclaim, “I have looked farther into space than ever a human being did before me.” Though a musician by training and occupation, and knowing little about optics and physics, Herschel taught himself to build telescopes, and ground and polished his own mirrors from metal discs. What remarkable ingenuity! His desire to teach himself the science of astronomy came from a lifelong fascination with the heavens, and he devoted his adult lifetime to the first systematic study of the stars. The first century Roman statesman and philosopher, Seneca, once said: “A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them.” That time has come. And it will come again. Perhaps the same can be said of our efforts to determine how best to achieve Homeland Security, and of your studies here at the Fletcher School. A single lifetime is not enough to study such a vast and complex subject. And our descendents probably will be amazed at what we did not know. But I offer for your consideration a look through my telescope, if you will, at a model service called the United States Coast Guard. Perhaps in looking more closely at the ingenuity of the design of our service and its relatively small, but unique contributions to the security of our nation, we might learn more about how the larger structure and strategy of Homeland Security can be designed. I hope that such a view will help us all see more clearly and further than ever before, and thereby diminish what others, years hence, might wonder that we did not know. Thank you. And Semper Paratus!
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Roger that. While we're at it, we need to push Tom Ridge out the airlock, too.
When will Bush take Norman's resignation?
Sheer idiocy. Bush's first act as governor was to sign conceal-and-carry in Texas.
“John Magaw is a dedicated public servant with a lifetime of achievements in the law enforcement field, and we all owe him a debt for his role in the start-up phase of TSA,” Secretary Mineta said.
Is this good ot bad??
He certainly could not be any worse! McGaw's conclusion that it would be more distracting to have pilots armed than it would be for them to know that they were about to get their throats cut before an air force jet would be required to send their passengers to an immediate death, was about the most stupid conclusion ever made in a Federal Bureaucracy, which for the past century has been famous for its stupid decisions.
Good riddance!!
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ADM. JAMES LOY (USCG) - Commandant of the Coast Guard since May, 1998, Admiral James M. Loy has focused his leadership on restoring Coast Guard readiness and shaping the future of the Coast Guard. Although both themes involve many initiatives, the most visible expressions of restoring readiness have been rebuilding the workforce to authorized levels, improving retention and managing operational tempo. The most important element of shaping the future has been overseeing the Integrated Deepwater System acquisition project, which will modernize the ships, aircraft, and sensors that the Coast Guard uses to perform its many open ocean missions.