The Coast Guard has lost close to 40 percent of its acquisition budget in the past four years, yet it is faced with growing demands such as the opening of operations in the Arctic and “unchecked transnational organized crime,” making it difficult to stay sharp, Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said on Tuesday.
“The Coast Guard is, once again, under heavy strain,” Zukunft said in the annual State of the Coast Guard address. “Make no mistake. I will take decisive action to alleviate this strain. We will not do more with less. Those days are over.”
Instead, Zukunft said, tradeoffs are looming.
“Rather, we will make tough decisions and tradeoffs,” he said. “I am committed to ensuring that our budget priorities are driven by a Coast Guard strategy aligned with national priorities to ensure our people have the platforms they need to serve the nation now and into the future.”
Zukunft’s remarks about not doing more with less echo those of his predecessor, former Commandant Adm. Bob Papp, when he first became the top Coast Guard official. However, Papp backed off of those remarks shortly after.
Of the Arctic ice melt, increased transnational drug crime originating from Central America, increased oil and gas production in the United States–much of which is being transported by sea–and increased cyber attacks, Zukunft said that “Never in our history have four such growth areas converged on the Coast Guard at the same time.” He added that “Today we’re seeing significant increase in demand across all of our daily activities and it limits our ability to respond to major contingencies.”
Coast Guard readiness is “not yet dull, but we are cutting at a furious pace with no whetstone to sharpen the edge,” he said.
Zukunft said that the service only has $40 million annually to pay down $1.4 billion in shore infrastructure repairs, noting that “The bill is growing at a faster rate than we’re paying. So we’ll never get out of debt at this rate.”