Seapower - February 2008

Under New Management
Coast Guard’s DOG simplifies chain of command for specialized teams

By DAISY RIDGWAY KHALIFA, Special Correspondent

Culture Change

The U.S. Coast Guard has streamlined the management structure for its special forces, creating one group comprising several specialized teams that conduct missions crucial to law enforcement as well as maritime and homeland security.

Headquartered in Arlington, Va., with a staff of about 100, the Deployable Operations Group — or DOG — provides specially trained forces to the Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and interagency operational and tactical commanders.

Just seven months old, the DOG’s aim is to consolidate six robust Coast Guard units, also known as deployable specialized forces, so that each reports up through a single, unified chain of command.

Adm. Thad Allen’s vision for specialized Coast Guard forces under one command dates back about six years. Once he became commandant in May 2006, it did not take long to put in place a process to create the group. The DOG was established with a ceremony in Washington in July 2007.

Allen’s idea was driven principally by what already existed in the service in the form of a handful of specialized teams that had been built over three decades. These include the Tactical Law Enforcement Team

(TACLET), Port Security Units (PSUs) and the National Strike Force (NSF). In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the DHS and the Coast Guard established two more security teams for the counterterrorism effort, the Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) and the Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST). But what was missing was the right management structure in order to be able to provide adaptive force packaging.

The new organizational structure realigns the MSRT, NSF,

MSSTs, TACLETs, PSUs and Coast Guard personnel attached to Naval Coastal Warfare squadrons under the DOG commander, Rear Adm. Thomas F. Atkin. He, in turn, reports to the assistant commandant for operations, Rear Adm. David Pekoske, the latter office a result of the current long-term reorganization under way at Coast Guard headquarters.

Atkin characterizes the previous management structure as a labyrinth of different chains of command that was very difficult to control, much less understand.

“You had all these teams that were formed but weren’t necessarily standardized,” he said. “They were highly functioning and they were all doing great jobs for what their niche was, but they weren’t managed very well. It was very hard as a Coast Guard, internally, to try to pull pieces from each unit and put them together to respond to an event.”

He noted that despite the confusing management structure, the special force units still responded successfully to events such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“Now, underneath the DOG, we’re all under one boss,” said Atkin. “I can look across all deployable, specialized forces and say, ‘Here is a common thread. Let’s make sure we all train at the same level; let’s make sure we’re all

The old management structure for the Coast Guard’s deployable specialized forces was more like a labyrinth of different chains of command that was difficult to control.