ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The crew of
Coast Guard Cutter Resolute (WMEC-620) returned home on May 19 following a
60-day patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the Coast Guard 7th District said
in a release.

Upon getting underway, Resolute
patrolled south to the Panama Canal, transiting the 51-mile canal and passing
through three separate locks over the course of 10 hours to reach the Gulf of
Panama and the Pacific Ocean. After reaching the Pacific, Resolute transitioned
to conducting law-enforcement operations in support of the Joint Interagency
Task Force South counter-drug mission under the tactical command of the 11th
Coast Guard District.

Resolute embarked an aviation detachment
from the Coast Guard helicopter interdiction tactical squadron to assist with
counter-drug missions. With the aid of the aviation detachment, Resolute
interdicted seven suspected drug-smuggling vessels, seizing or disrupting over
4,000 kilograms of cocaine, worth an estimated $129 million in street value.
Additionally, Resolute detained 23 suspected narcotics traffickers and ensured
they received proper care and proper disposition to various agencies.

Resolute’s cases ranged from high-speed
interdictions of go-fast vessels to fishing vessels concealing contraband in
hidden compartments. Many of these cases lasted more than 20 consecutive hours
and some required detailed operational planning and partnership with additional
assets, including Canadian navy and Central American coast guard assets.

This patrol was one of Resolute’s most
successful counterdrug patrols in recent years. Resolute disrupted transnational
criminal organizations through the interdiction and apprehension of seven
separate vessels, ensuring more than $130 million of illegal narcotics were
seized prior to making it to the United States.

Resolute is a 210-foot Reliance class
cutter and has a crew of 78. The cutter was commissioned in 1966 and has been
homeported in San Francisco, California, Astoria, Oregon, and now St.
Petersburg. Resolute has a decorated past, including patrols in both the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, participating in the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez
disaster in Alaska, the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the
search-and-rescue efforts for the El Faro. The ship’s recent patrols have
focused on law-enforcement missions of drug-and-migrant interdiction.

MANILA,
Philippines — The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf (WMSL 750) and vessels from
the Philippine coast guard conducted joint search-and-rescue exercises May 14 in
the South China Sea west of Manila, the Coast Guard Pacific Area said in a
release.

The Bertholf,
a 418-foot national security cutter based in Alameda, California, worked
together with the Philippine coast guard vessels Batangas and Kalanggaman on
small-boat search-and-rescue tactics to conduct the mock rescue of a person in
the water. The Bertholf is in the midst of a Western Pacific deployment under
the tactical control of the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.

In training
with and learning alongside partners in the Philippines on search and rescue,
maritime law enforcement and small-boat tactics, Bertholf’s crew enjoys the
benefits of the strong, often personal ties between the countries, the release
said.

The work also
strengthens one of the most enduring partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region,
between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines and supports both
countries’ commitment to a free and open Pacific, governed by international
maritime law that promotes peace, security and prosperity of all nations.

“Bertholf
completed an at-sea search-and-rescue exercise today with our counterparts from
the Philippine coast guard. This engagement proved an excellent opportunity to
compare techniques, maintain proficiency and build a friendly relationship
amongst professional mariners and coast guards,” said Capt. John J. Driscoll,
Bertholf’s commanding officer.

The crew of
Bertholf also will participate in other joint events with members of the
Philippine coast guard during the ship’s Manila port call. The events include a
series of engagements on operational subjects such as damage control and search
and rescue as well as sporting and social events. The activities are designed
to improve interoperability and strengthen the ties between the two countries.

“The U.S.
Coast Guard is proud to operate with our Pacific counterparts, and together we
are dedicated to enhancing our capabilities and strengthening maritime
governance and security while promoting individual sovereignty,” said Vice Adm.
Linda Fagan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Area. “Today’s exercise
is a great opportunity to share our experiences and learn from our partners in
the Philippine coast guard.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Coast Guard has faced a challenging year — and going forward the sea service will continue to emphasize the importance of increasing resources in the Arctic, said Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said May 8 during Sea-Air-Space 2019 here.

The service released a new Arctic Strategic Outlook in
April, which updated the same report from six years ago that highlighted the
shortfalls the service faces in the ever-evolving region.

“We were trying to be honest with the report, … be bold
enough and frank and be candid enough with what the circumstances are,” Schultz
said.

The service has a full-time presence, District 17 in Juneau,
Alaska, but have never had a full-time base in the Arctic. Over the past decade-plus,
the Coast Guard has upped the rhetoric on the need to increase funding for
resources in the region. This is starting to come into fruition, as the Coast
Guard has begun to recapitalize its dated icebreaking fleet.

In April, the service awarded a $745 million design and
construction contract to Pascagoula, Mississippi-based VT Halter Marine Inc. to
begin building the next heavy icebreaker for the service. The Coast Guard now
only has one, Polar Star, that is more
than four decades old and suffering from increased mechanical issues and missed
time at sea due to it.

Schultz added that the new icebreakers will have unmanned
systems and a helicopter on them. The current fleet does not have either of
these capabilities.

The commandant said the lack of resources, such as
icebreakers able to operate in the Artic, keeps him up at night. But the new
heavy icebreaker is expected to be ready by fiscal 2024, at the latest, though Schultz
acknowledged there will be challenges in filling in the gap between that cutter
coming online and keeping Polar Star operating.

“We are working on how we bridge this gap,” he said.

The service also has plans to build six new icebreakers — three
heavy ones and three medium capability — over the next two decades.

Schultz said the Arctic is competitive economically as well
as for national security. As sea lanes there open for longer periods due to melting
sea ice from climate change, cruise ship activity has increased, and commercial
ships are able to traverse through the former icy waters more frequently.

“It’s an increasingly dynamic portion of the world. How do
we innovate and adapt to the region?” the commandant said.

Schultz noted that the conversation is expanding regarding
the Arctic. Congress is paying more attention, and the Defense Department conducted
extensive exercises there earlier this year.

“How do we speak with a unified voice up there?” he said.

Part of the new Arctic Strategic Outlook states the Coast
Guard will look to strengthen partnerships, address emerging demands in maritime
law enforcement there and advance and modernize the Arctic’s marine
transportation system.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Artificial intelligence in all its forms, from machine learning algorithms to unmanned systems, is a sure thing for the sea services and its partners, but there is still much to determine in terms of the technological and operational challenges it presents for warfighting.

In a panel discussion on May 8 at Sea-Air-Space, U.S. Coast
Guard Rear Adm. David Dermanelian, assistant commandant for C4IT and commander
of Coast Guard Cyber Command, framed the conversation as a relevant, real-world
issue for the sea services.

“This is not the art of the future. It’s happening today,” Dermanelian
said.

U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Christian Wortman, vice chief
of naval research, said the Corps has an expansive approach to AI and is
seeking to embed it into everything the service does, including machine
learning to make war more efficient and help make more informed decisions. But
he stressed that users “can’t look at this in isolation,” and the Marines also
need enhanced network capabilities and to use the cloud so algorithms can take
advantage of the data that is harvested.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Casey Morton, who was on day three of
his job as program executive officer of Unmanned and Small Combatants, said his
service is “firmly” moving in the direction of adding more unmanned elements to
its assets, from unmanned surface vehicles to unmanned underwater vehicles and
beyond.

“They are going to be a part of our team,” Morton said. “It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when and how fast and how can we get there.”

Right now, he believes the Navy is not yet at human-machine
teaming but is working toward that future where Sailors and machines work
closely together. He cautioned that there are still a lot of unanswered
questions about AI, like what infrastructure it will need, where it will be
based in the fleet, how it will be supported, if it will be forward-deployed
and other policy issues.

“We are at the early stages of this still,” Morton said. “There
are a lot of questions here that are still unanswered.”

The U.S. Maritime Administration’s Christopher Walher, who
focuses on the education programs of MARAD’s six state maritime academies, sees
AI as a pedagogical challenge, since sometimes subject matter experts are too
advanced to be excellent teachers, often skipping over critical points that, to
them, appear obvious.

He prefers a “crawl, walk, run” approach to the training
pipeline, where MARAD leverages a training process so AI can manage what it
excels at and humans can focus on their strengths, much like the current relationship
between smartphones and users.

Key for MARAD going forward will be working with other organizations, including a meeting the agency has next month with AI experts so they can share information, versus starting from ground zero on research and development.

“As we talk about crawl, walk, run in the Maritime
Administration, we are the little ship that could,” he said. “We don’t have a
lot of money for R&D.”

Steven Escaravage, senior vice president for the Strategic
Innovation Group at Booz Allen Hamilton, briefly went over his company’s 60
current programs that involve machine learning and robotics, including areas
like sensor data processing, electronic warfare, predictive maintenance and
optimized planning.

Escaravage said the field of AI in the last six to 12 months
has focused on taking what has been written about and researched in the lab and
tried to operationalize those concepts so they can be used in real-world
environments. He said while AI has suffered from being overhyped, there are
some rich capabilities for it today.

“Although today’s capabilities are probably over-extended
and somewhat brittle, what’s going to happen in a matter of months is going to
be real capability that changes pretty much everything we do.”

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Coast Guard’s maritime security response teams (MSRT) continue to evolve, as the service looks to make them more effective and expand their capabilities.

The mission of the teams — one is based in San Diego, California,
and another is in Chesapeake, Virginia — is tactical, as MSRT is a ready
assault force, whose members are trained in maritime security, law enforcement
boarding procedures, force protection and environmental hazards response within
a tactical law enforcement operation. The teams also combat chemical,
biological, radiological and nuclear threats posed to the United States.

Lt. Jake Tronaas, Direct Action 6 team leader, Maritime Security
Response Team West, said his team is working on a more robust working
relationship with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and other Department of Defense
agencies.

“In the last few years, our mission set has changed,” Tronaas
said.

Once focused primarily on issues related to San Diego, his team
now focuses on vast counter-terrorism responses and is responsible for an area
from Alaska to Australia.

Tronaas said his unit recently completed three weeks of training
in Alaska, in preparation for response potential incidents in the Arctic.

“We definitely need to work on being prepared to cover our
operational area,” he said during the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space exposition.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security agency team stays consistent
in terms of operations throughout the year, but sees a slight uptick in the
summer months, as more events, such as United Nations meetings along with presidential
and Coast Guard commandant missions, occur.

The team also recently transitioned to a maritime security
response team from the maritime safety and security team, allowing them to
focus on additional legacy anti-terrorism missions that predate the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. 

“This
is a consolidation and will make us and the Coast Guard more efficient,”
Tronaas said.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The Coast Guard plans to release its
fifth request for information (RFI) to industry in the coming months, as they
continue to gather information on how best to recapitalize their dated
waterways commerce cutter (WCC) fleet.

“This aging fleet, it is extremely important to our nation’s
economy,” Aileen Sedmak, manager of the WCC program, said during a floor
presentation at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition May 7.

The 35-ship fleet consists of three cutter types, an inland
construction tender, a river buoy tender and an inland buoy tender. They
primarily operate along the Mississippi River and Great Lakes region. The ships
average 50 years of age and are responsible to making sure $4.6 trillion for
the nation’s economy per year is able to move freely in the inland waters.

In February, the service released an RFI asking for industry
to gather information about the state of the market and current industrial
capabilities to support pile-driving systems for the WCC program.

Sedmark said the recapitalization program is currently in
the analyze-select phase, which includes collaborating with the Navy’s Naval
Sea Systems Command to analyze needs and requirements.

“We are doing our due diligence,” she said.

The acquisition program will cost over $1 billion, and the
exact number of cutters needed remains uncertain. Sedmark said they would like
to have initial operational capability in fiscal 2024 and full operational
capability by fiscal 2030.

“This is a very critical mission right now,” she said.

Issues with the cutters currently include additional
maintenance requirements and lost operational time because of it.

Industry representatives at the presentation asked a series
of questions on production timelines, how many cutters may be in the fleet and
additional requirements that may needed on the cutters. 

Sedmark said she was uncertain when a request for proposal
would be issued or how many exact ships would be requested.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Citing recent high-profile comments
by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson and Marine Corps
Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller on cybersecurity’s importance, panelists at a
May 7 event at Sea-Air-Space agreed that it is a top issue for their services,
regardless of external perceptions.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. David Dermanelian, assistant
commandant for C4IT and commander of Coast Guard Cyber Command, said his branch
is known for its drug interdictions and waterway management missions, but often
perception does not equate that work with cybersecurity.

“All those missions are directly linked to the cyber domain,”
he said. “And I would posit that even within the Coast Guard, we’re in contact
with bad actors, or the enemy, every day. The Coast Guard’s role is to defend
our maritime transportation, our cyber domain.”

Detailing how maritime commerce coming through U.S.
waterways is valued at $5.4 trillion and supports 31 million Americans,
Dermanelian quantified the importance of cybersecurity for fellow panelist,
Maritime Administration Director of the Office of Maritime Security Cameron
Naron. 

Naron said it’s critical MARAD has cyber systems, as well as
resilient measures, in place should anything under their purview be
compromised. With MARAD sitting at the crux of defense, homeland security and
commerce, his office is focusing on working with all its stakeholders to
maintain security.

“Our role is really to make sure that industry’s needs,
industry’s equities, are represented in federal policy formulations,” Naron
said.

Naron said commercial network monitoring and vulnerability
remediation options are out there today, and there are also great government
solutions, and those resources need to be in the hands of industry, not only
because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for national security. MARAD
also must ensure the security of the Ready Reserve Fleet, and Naron stressed
that cyber concerns also extend to areas such as precision navigation and GPS
vulnerability.

Gregg Kendrick, Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command executive
director, addressed his service’s complex network of cybersecurity operations
and how that information is critical to the Marines’ return to its roots.

“Just like the Coast Guard, we have a little of a unique
mission as well. … The commandant and the chief of naval operations are
exceedingly … bringing us out of the ground force and bringing us back to our
naval heritage,” Kendrick said. That makes the fidelity of the information the
Marines and Navy share when they go from sea and ashore critical so the
services can make that gap as seamless as possible, he said.

Kendrick also addressed how the Marines are staffing up
their cybersecurity teams, when industry hiring is so competitive. He said 40%
of the Corps’ cyber mission force is civilian, stating that Neller wanted to
use best business practices from people that work for companies like Google or
other software developers to ensure the Marines had cutting-edge tactics.

The moderator, Navy Vice Adm. Matthew Kohler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare and director of naval intelligence, summed up the vastness of the challenge of keeping up with cybersecurity needs, and how it’s directly tied to the larger challenges the sea services face. “Technology is running at us at an unprecedented rate. … It’s not just the pace of the technology, it’s the race for how quickly we can adopt that technology … to how we fight and [it] gives us the ‘Great Power Competition’ that we find ourselves in today,” he said.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Coast Guard has a four-step process for setting and making requirements on missions to prevent and mitigate mission gaps.

“We look at a problem and find the best way to solve it,” Capt. Michael MacMillan, chief of the office of requirements and analysis, said during a floor presentation here at Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2019.

The service accomplishes this by publishing four different
types of documents. The first is a capability and analysis report. The second,
which marks the beginning stages of the acquisition process, is drawing up a
mission needs statement. From there the service will put together a concept of
operations document, the primary purpose of which is coming up with ideas for
filling in capability. The final document produced is the operational
requirements document, which outlines specific requirements, such as how fast a
ship needs to go or how long an aircraft needs to stay airborne.

“We don’t get to make our own missions, but we make
requirements on the ones we have,” MacMillan said.

The Department of Homeland Security agency has 13 core
missions, with a bulk of those coming from search-and-rescue missions and drug
interdiction.

The
captain said that its important industry representatives understand the process
to help themselves and the Coast Guard.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Coast Guard rescue swimmer
program was born after a deadly ship sinking in 1983 off the coast of Virginia
that claimed the lives of 31 people.

During a stormy February night, the 605-foot SS Marine
Electric, a bulk carrying ship, capsized about 30 miles off the coast of
Chincoteague, Virginia.

The service sent a helicopter to assist in the rescue
mission. At that time the Coast Guard did not have any rescue swimmers, and
when they would respond to a distress call, they’d lower the basket and the
person in the water would have to swim toward it to then be raised up inside
the helicopter.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t always work the best,” Aviation
Survival Technician Chief Petty Officer Eric Biehn said during a floor
presentation.

The service spent two hours trying to recuse the 34 people
in the water after the ship capsized, but with the weather conditions, and
freezing water, was unable to lift anyone up. The Navy came, as they had
rescues swimmers at the time, and was able to save three lives with their
rescue swimmer.

The following year, the Coast Guard put funding in start a
rescue swimmer program in the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1984.

“That maritime disaster was enough to wake up Congress and
the United States,” Biehn said.

By 1985, the first team of rescue swimmers was deployed to a
base in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and by 1991 the program was fully
deployed in 23 bases.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.
– Future naval aviation will benefit from the fifth-generation F-35s,
manned-unmanned teaming and the possibility of greatly enhanced rotary wing
aircraft being developed under the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, a panel
of Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officials said.

The naval
services also are focusing on improving the readiness of their existing
aircraft, and some types of aircraft are coming close to meeting the 80% readiness
goal set by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the officials told a forum on
the future of naval aviation at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space
exposition May 6.

Lt. Gen. Steven
Rudder, deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation, said the Corps’ legacy
FA-18 Hornets hit the 80% readiness mark last week and were maintaining
availabilities in the high 70% rate. And the Corps’ new F-35Bs were operating
in the 70% range during their recent deployments in the western Pacific, Rudder
said.

Angie
Knappenberger, deputy director for naval warfare, said the Navy conducted a
study to determine what would be needed to improve readiness and found that “we
wouldn’t get there unless we changed our processes.” They have had to improve
their support infrastructure, which had suffered from the years of reduced
funding under sequestration and on the spare parts supply system, she said.

Looking to the
future, Rudder, Knappenberger and Vice Adm. Daniel Abel, the Coast Guard deputy
commandant for operations and a veteran helicopter pilot, all cited unmanned
systems they were looking to add.

“Autonomy is
really hard, but there are some things you can do,” and they are seeing a lot
of focus on manned-unmanned teaming, Knappenberger said. She cited the Navy’s
teaming of the MQ-8 Fire Scout UAS and MH-60s helicopters in a squadron and
will do the same thing with the MQ-4C Triton long-range UAS and the P-8A patrol
aircraft.

Rudder said the
Marines were narrowing their focus on requirements for their primary unmanned
aircraft program, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Expeditionary
system, commonly called MUX, which is to be a large Group 5 rotary-wing UAS
that can operate from amphibious ships. After initially looking at a wide range
of capabilities, including strike, the Marines currently are leaning toward an
early warning platform that could provide over-the-horizon surveillance and
network communications for the expeditionary task forces.

Rudder said the
Marines also are closely monitoring the Army-led FVL program, which is intended
to produce a rotary-wing manned aircraft with much higher speed and range than
current helicopters. Although the two prototypes being produced for the FVL
program are a composite helicopter and a tilt-rotor, Rudder said the Marines’
preference is a tilt-rotor because they know their tilt-rotor MV-22 Ospreys are
fast and they want something that can keep up with them.

Abel said the Coast Guard has been testing
contractor-operated Scan Eagle UAS on their national security cutters and are
looking at other unmanned systems.