

Two months ago the Coast Guard cutter Dallas (pictured) sailed from Charleston, South Carolina. Rather than heading south to intercept drug runners and migrants – two of the biggest Coastie missions – the 40-year-old ship veered east ... and headed across the Atlantic to the West African coast.

Dallas' recently-wrapped deployment, though unusual for a quasi-military law enforcement agency, continues an accelerating trend in the U.S. sea services. The Navy and Coast Guard are shifting away from traditional missions in favor of "soft power" exercises in the the world's neglected shallow-water zones (aka "littorals"). Navy amphibious and hospital ships carry trainers, doctors, aid workers and scientists to Africa and South America, with the goal of alleviating environmental and humanitarian problems that could bloom into crises. Coast Guard cutters, Dallas included, bring law-enforcement training teams to developing countries in order to improve the countries' ability to police themselves.

Dallas skipper Captain Robert Wagner said the Coast Guard is perfect for the African mission. Dallas paid visits to Cape Verde, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, among other nations.

"Look at the threats these countries face: migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, pollution response – these are things the [U.S.] Coast Guard also faces every day," Wagner told DANGER ROOM today during a Pentagon teleconference. "Also some of the resources these countries have, small patrol boats, are similar to what the Coast Guard has."

But some critics have questioned the Coast Guard's increasing emphasis on "luxury" overseas deployments at a time when the tiny service's aging fleet is stretched thin, resulting in shortfalls in domestic missions. The Coast Guard's $25-billion "Deepwater" modernization plan (new ships, airplanes and electronics) has been hit hard by scandal, technical failure and delay, meaning old cutters must keep on keeping on for years longer than planned. Wagner said Dallas suffered not one, but several engine room fires during her African cruise – and kept right on chugging. Consider that a smallish fire on the aircraft carrier George Washington a few weeks back resulted in several senior officers losing their jobs. In the rusting, overworked Coast Guard, catastrophes are almost routine.

(Photo: Coast Guard)