The Coast Guard's Mission in the Gray Zone

"OPINION - U.S. defense planning rests on the assumption that wars are fought abroad, by expeditionary forces, against defined adversaries. For decades, those assumptions held. But today, many of the most consequential security challenges facing the United States violate all three. They occur closer to home, below the threshold of armed conflict, and in domains where sovereignty is enforced incrementally. The shift has exposed a chronic mismatch between how the United States defines its defense priorities and how it allocates resources and respect."

"Sitting at the center of this gap between prestige and need is the U.S. Coast Guard, whose mission profile aligns directly with America's most important strategic objectives - the enforcement of sovereignty and homeland defense - yet remains strategically undervalued because its work rarely resembles the celebrated and well-funded styles of conventional warfighting. In an era of increased gray-zone competition and persistent coercion, the failure to properly appreciate the Coast Guard threatens real strategic fallout."

"In the third decade of the 21st century, U.S. defense planning remains heavily oriented toward expeditionary warfighting and high-end kinetic conflict. Budget conversations still revolve around Ford-class supercarriers, F-35 fighters, and A2/AD penetration. This orientation shapes not only force design and budget allocations, but also institutional prestige and political capital. The services associated with visible combat power, with the Ford-class and the F-35, continue to dominate strategic discourse-even as many of the most persistent security challenges confronting the"

U.S. defense planning remains focused on expeditionary, high-end warfighting and large platforms, creating a persistent mismatch with security challenges that occur near U.S. territory, below the threshold of armed conflict, and in domains of incremental sovereignty enforcement. Many enduring threats require routine enforcement of territorial integrity and homeland defense rather than power projection abroad. The U.S. Coast Guard executes core sovereignty and homeland-defense missions but lacks comparable strategic value, funding, and prestige relative to conventional combat services. Rising gray-zone competition and coercion amplify the strategic costs of underinvesting in the Coast Guard.

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