<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ba3c5a846ef324a008b4569-2400/gettyimages-1026264418.jpg" border="0" alt="Trump National Golf Club Sterling, Virginia" data-mce-source="Ken Cedeno-Pool/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="Protestors stand at the curb with signs against President Donald Trump as his motorcade departs the Trump National Golf Club on September 2, 2018 in Sterling, Virginia." data-link="https://www.gettyimages.com/license/1026264418"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/license/1026264418">Ken Cedeno-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></p><p class="caption">Protesters stand at the curb with signs against President Donald Trump as his motorcade departs the Trump National Golf Club on September 2, 2018 in Sterling, Virginia.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>A group of paddlers who frequent along the Potomac River in Maryland are suing President Donald Trump and his administration.</strong></li><li><strong>They are angry that his frequent golf course visits are shutting down the river, the Washingtonian reported Thursday.</strong></li><li><strong>The Canoe Cruisers Association of Greater Washington filed a lawsuit in Maryland accusing the administration of failing to notify residents and surrounding businesses of a policy that prevented them from using part of the river.</strong></li></ul><hr><p>A group of paddlers are suing President Donald Trump and his administration for his frequent golf course visits shutting down the Potomac River, the <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/09/20/trumps-golf-course-visits-shut-down-the-potomac-so-often-these-paddlers-are-suing-him/">Washingtonian reported Thursday</a>.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.canoecruisers.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&amp;club_id=394800&amp;module_id=282425" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Canoe Cruisers Association of Greater Washington</a> filed a lawsuit in Maryland accusing the administration of failing to notify residents and surrounding businesses of a policy that prevented them from using part of the river.</p><p>The fight between paddlers and the Trump White House has been going on since the US Coast Guard implemented a temporary shutdown of the river next to Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/07/17/trump-virginia-golf-course-potomac-boaters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">last summer</a>, according to the report. The 1.6-mile stretch is roughly 30 minutes upriver from Washington.</p><p>The lawsuit specifically mentions Karl L. Schultz, who is the commandant of the Coast Guard, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the Washingtonian reported.</p><p>It says that the Coast Guard's policy prevents the public from legally enjoying this specific area of the river when Trump was ever at his golf club. It also alleges that DHS, under the leadership of Nielsen, ignored over 600 public comments from individuals who were negatively impacted by the policy.</p><p>"The ball's been in their court for over a year," attorney Nitin Shaw told the Washingtonian. "We hope with this lawsuit they certainly do what is right and reverse this rule to accommodate the very serious ramifications on the paddling community."</p><div><iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d22179.465350394115!2d-77.35177006517051!3d39.05670577883174!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x89b630cff7eacf01%3A0x946f22a03bb13b5e!2sTrump+National+Golf+Club!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1537461987788" width="600" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-trump-maga-hat-factory-california-make-america-great-again-2018-8">Inside the Trump 'MAGA' hat factory</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/4DgmmjFK-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div></hr>

Paddlers are so mad Trump's visits to his Virginia golf course keep shutting down the Potomac River that they're suing the administration

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef288e10114245b0779880-1280/4900721.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard cutter James cocaine drug bust narco sub low-profile vesse" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard" data-mce-caption="The Coast Guard cutter James interdicts a low-profile vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, October 22, 2018." /></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The Coast Guard offloaded nearly 38,000 pounds of cocaine on Thursday - a haul worth $500 million.</strong></li><li><strong>The past three years have seen some of the service's highest levels of seizures on record.</strong></li><li><strong>The Coast Guard and its partners are trying to catch traffickers on the high seas, where the cargoes are larger and more vulnerable.</strong></li></ul><p>FT. LAUDERDALE, Florida - While scouring the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean over the past several months, the crew of the US Coast Guard cutter James seized 19,000 pounds of cocaine.</p><p>The James's haul was about half of the 38,00o pounds of cocaine its crew offloaded on Thursday in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Those drugs were seized in 19 interdictions at sea carried about by six US Coast Guard ships - nine of which were conducted by the James.</p><p>The total haul had an estimated wholesale value of about $500 million.</p><p>"Operating in the dark of night, often under challenging conditions, these outstanding Coast Guard men and women ... driving our boats, flying our armed helicopter swiftly interdicted drug smugglers operating in a variety of vessels used to move these tons of narcotics, from the simple outboard panga to commercial fishing vessels to low-profile high-speed vessels and even semi-submersibles designed to evade detection," Capt. Jeffrey Randall, the commander of the James, said Thursday.</p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2869beb67036171b4a9d-1400/4905443.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard cutter James cocaine drug seizure offload" data-mce-source="Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray" data-mce-caption="A pallet of interdicted cocaine being offloaded from the Coast Guard Cutter James by crane in Port Everglades, Florida, November 15, 2018." /></div></div></div></span></p><p><span>The drugs were unloaded just a few weeks after the end of fiscal year 2018 on September 30. During that fiscal year, the Coast Guard intercepted just over 458,000 pounds of cocaine - the second highest total ever. Fiscal year 2017 set the record with 493,000 pounds seized, topping the previous record of 443,000 pounds set in fiscal year 2016.</span></p><p><span>The increase in seizures comes amid growing cocaine production in Colombia, the world's largest producer of the drug and the main supplier to the US market. Production of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, has steadily risen since hitting a low in 2012.</span></p><p><em><strong>Read also</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-capturing-more-drug-smuggling-narco-subs-2018-10">The Coast Guard is catching more drug-running subs, but most 'very stealthy' narco subs are probably going undetected</a></em></p><p><span>Colombia is the only South American country that borders both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but most of the cocaine it sends to the US takes a westerly route.</span></p><p><span>"In 2017, at least 84 percent of the documented cocaine departing South </span><span>America transited the Eastern Pacific," the US Drug Enforcement Administration said in its most recent National Drug Threat Assessment. </span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2f27da27f8534c2e0d15-1400/james crew and cocaine bales.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter James cocaine brick drug bust seizure" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bales of cocaine on display aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James, in front of the ship's crew and its helicopter, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /></div></div></div></p><p>"Shipments around the Galapagos Islands <span>increased to 17 percent of overall flow in 2017, up from four percent in 2016 and one percent in 2015," the DEA report found. "In 2017, 16 percent of cocaine moved through the Caribbean, nine percent traveling through the Western Caribbean and seven percent through the Eastern Caribbean."</span></p><p>The Coast Guard's activity in the eastern Pacific, where it works with other US agencies and international partners, is meant to the drug flow at its largest and most vulnerable point: at sea.</p><p>"The Coast Guard's interdiction efforts really employ what I call a push-out-the-border strategy. We're pushing our land border 1,500 miles deep into the ocean here a little bit, and that's where we find the success taking large loads of cocaine down at sea," Adm. Karl Shultz, the commandant of the Coast Guard, said Thursday during the offload.</p><p>"When we take down drugs at sea it reduces the violence. It maximizes the impact. When these loads land in Mexico, in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, they get distributed into very small loads, very hard to detect, and there's associated violence, corruption, instability," Shultz added. "It's just very hard to govern in that space when there's that much associated disarray here that surrounds these drugs, so we're really proud of the ability to push that border out."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2f279e8c5345d247a236-1400/bricks of cocaine.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter James cocaine brick drug bust seizure" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bricks of cocaine visible among bales of cocaine seized by US Coast Guard ships, aboard the USCG cutter James, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /></div></div></div></p><p>Coast Guard officials have said after having success against self-propelled semi-submersibles, which are like subs but typically can't fully submerge, the service has seen an uptick in the use of low-profile vessels, which look similar to speedboats but sit lower in the water, often with their decks right at water level.</p><p><span>"The low-profile vessel, it's evolutionary," Schultz told Business Insider in an interview earlier this year. </span><span>"The adversary will constantly adapt their tactics to try to thwart our successes," he said, adding that the increase "reflects the adaptability" of traffickers.</span></p><p><em><strong>Now read</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/an-isis-inspired-tactic-is-raising-concerns-in-us-ports-2018-10">An ISIS-inspired tactic is raising concerns in US ports</a></em></p><p>Asked on Thursday about smuggling trends the Coast Guard has observed above and below the water, Schultz said again pointed to increased use of low-profile vessels.</p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">"We're seeing these low-profile vessels now, which is a similar construct [to semi-submersibles] but with outboard engines," Schultz told reporters. "They paint them seafoam green, blue. They're hard to detect ... from the air."</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Semi-submersibles and low-profile vessels are pricey, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-capturing-more-drug-smuggling-narco-subs-2018-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">running $1 million to $2 million each</a>. But the multiton cargoes they carry can fetch hundreds of millions of dollars, making the sophisticated vessels an expense traffickers can afford.</span></span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2f2738150741b01ad1fe-1400/brick of cocaine label.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter James cocaine brick drug bust seizure" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="A brick of seized cocaine, labeled with an image of a crown, aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /></div></div></div></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Schultz and Randall both touted the Coast Guard's work with its US and foreign partners. </span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Claire Grady, third in command at the Homeland Security Department, put the service's high-seas interdictions squarely within the government's broader efforts to go after drugs and the smugglers bringing them north.</span></span></p><p>"We must take actions abroad in addition to our actions at home. This merging of the home game and the away game represents the layered <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">defense</keyword> that we employ to keep the drugs off our streets and dismantle the criminal organizations that wreak violence and instability," Grady said aboard the James on Thursday.</p><p>"The Coast Guard is critical to this effort, and the seized narcotics that you see behind me represents a major victory."</p>

The Coast Guard's 'push-out-the-border strategy' is fighting drugs in the Pacific - and it just brought home $500 million in cocaine

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ae1e6ce19ee861a008b457a-1400/4334877.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard US Navy go-fast smuggling drug bust" data-mce-source="US Customs and Border Protection" data-mce-caption="Cyclone-class patrol coastal USS Zephyr (PC 8) crew conducts ship-to-ship firefighting to extinguish a fire aboard a low-profile go-fast drug vessel suspected of smuggling in international waters of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, April 7, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Customs and Border Protection</span></p><p class="caption">The USS Zephyr conducts ship-to-ship firefighting to extinguish a fire aboard a low-profile vessel suspected of smuggling in the eastern Pacific Ocean, April 7, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Seizures of so-called narco subs have increased, according to US and Colombian authorities.</strong></li><li><strong>These low-profile vessels are hard to detect and can move massive quantities of contraband.</strong></li><li><strong>US officials say they're having success catching them as sea, but traffickers may see those as acceptable losses.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p>Through September this year, Colombia's navy had captured 14 "narco subs" on the country's Pacific coast - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-navy-catches-narco-subs-as-cocaine-production-hits-record-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than triple</a> the four it captured all last year and another sign of drug traffickers' ingenuity.</p><p>Colombia is not alone. The US Coast Guard reported in September 2017 that it had seen a "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-is-detecting-a-new-trend-among-high-seas-narco-smugglers-2017-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resurgence</a>" of low-profile vessels, the most common kind of "narco sub," capturing seven of them since June that year.</p><p>"We're seeing more of these low-profile vessels; 40-plus feet long ... it rides on the surface, multiple outboard engines, moves 18, 22 knots ... and they can carry large loads of contraband," Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz told Business Insider this month during an interview aboard the Coast Guard cutter Sitkinak in New York harbor.</p><p>"They're very stealthy in terms of our ability to see them from the air [and] to detect them by radar," Schultz added.</p><h2>'Era of experimentation'</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bbf69559a4ab8578833b815-1521/screen shot 2016-10-31 at 11016 pm.png" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard narco sub drug smuggling seizure Pacific Ocean" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard" data-mce-caption="US Coast Guardsmen sit atop a narco sub stopped in the Pacific Ocean in early September 2016." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard</span></p><p class="caption">US Coast Guardsmen sit on a narco sub in the Pacific Ocean in early September 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Low-profile vessels were the earliest kind of narco sub, a category that includes self-propelled semi-submersibles, which use ballast to run below the surface, and true submarines, which are the most rare.</p><p>They emerged in the early 1990s, as traffickers who had made a fortune moving drugs into the US - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/carlos-lehder-george-jung-prison-cell-together-drug-trafficking-plans-2017-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">like George Jung</a> and members of Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel - encountered more obstacles.</p><p>"In the '80s, the drug traffickers ... were using go-fast boats, they were using twin-engine aircraft, and those were very easily detected by radar systems that we had," particularly in the Caribbean and the southeastern US, said Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"So they started to counter those efforts by building submarines or semi-submersibles, because they were much more difficult to detect," Vigil added. "They were made out of ... wood, fiberglass, and then sometimes they had a lead lining that would reduce their infrared signature."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55229cebeab8eaad292860cd-2400/ap080718017827.jpg" border="0" alt="narco sub" data-mce-source="Luis Alberto Cruz Hernandez/AP" data-mce-caption="Navy sailors ride atop a 10-meter submarine packed with 5.8 tons of cocaine, as it is being towed into the port of Salina Cruz, Mexico, Friday, July 18, 2008. Navy vice admiral Jose Maria Ortegon said the submarine, seized off Mexico's southern Pacific coast on Wednesday, was equipped with GPS and a compass and had planned to drop off its shipment on Mexican shores. Four Colombian crew members have been taken into custody." /><p class="source"><span>Luis Alberto Cruz Hernandez/AP</span></p><p class="caption">Sailors ride a 10-meter submarine packed with 5.8 tons of cocaine as it is towed into the port of Salina Cruz, Mexico, July 18, 2008.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>The early 1990s was "<span style="font-weight: 400;">the era of experimentation," for Colombian narco subs, according to Vigil, who was stationed on the country's Caribbean coast at the time and recalls encounters with them on the Magdelena River, which stretches nearly 1,000 miles from southwest Colombia to the Caribbean.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"They were not full-fledged submarines. They would float ... just slightly underneath the water, but you could still see the tower, and they were not sophisticated at all," he said. "Their navigational systems were poor; communications systems were poor."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There are varying figures for how many narco subs have been caught over the years.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55229d4feab8ea0a292860d2-2400/ap091230032632.jpg" border="0" alt="narco sub" data-mce-source="AP" data-mce-caption="Soldiers stand on a seized submarine in the jungle region of La Loma in Ecuador, Saturday July 3, 2010. DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border and is capable of transporting tons of cocaine. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage. " /><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">Soldiers on a seized submarine in the jungle region of La Loma in Ecuador, July 3, 2010.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The first such vessel seen at sea by US law enforcement was <a href="https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/a-change-in-tactics-in-the-caribbean/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">intercepted</a> in 2006, carrying 3 tons of cocaine about 100 miles of Costa Rica's Pacific coast. The first one encountered in the Caribbean was stopped in summer 2011 - despite efforts to scuttle it, US authorities were able to recover 14,000 pounds of cocaine.</span></p><p>Criminal groups in Colombia continue to churn out homemade narco subs - 100 a year, according to Vigil - building them in the interior and using the country's extensive river network, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-adm-paul-zukunft-for-targeting-cocaine-on-colombia-rivers-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">where law enforcement is scarce</a>, to get them to sea.</p><p>The technology has advanced, and criminal groups, flush with profits from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-navy-catches-narco-subs-as-cocaine-production-hits-record-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Colombia's booming cocaine production</a>, have been able deploy more sophisticated vessels for covert runs to Central America and Mexico, where cargos then move overland to the US. The routes have also grown more circuitous, likely <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-drugs-are-getting-smuggled-from-south-america-to-the-us-2017-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to avoid detection at sea</a>.</p><p>Better technology "has upped the chess game" between criminals and the military and law enforcement, Vigil said.</p><h2>'A drop in the bucket'</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b997f59803c51e008b597b-2106/centam trafficking map.jpg" border="0" alt="Central America drug trafficking map" data-mce-source="Adam Isacson/US Southern Command" data-link="https://adamisacson.com/2016-suspect-trafficking-maps/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://adamisacson.com/2016-suspect-trafficking-maps/">Adam Isacson/US Southern Command</a></span></p><p class="caption">Suspected drug-smuggling routes in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The recent increase in low-profile vessels intercepted by authorities indicates traffickers will adjust their tactics.</p><p>"There was certainly an uptick where the semi-submersibles were being utilized quite frequently, and then we had a lot of success against them," Lt. Cmdr. Devon Brennan, head of the Coast Guard's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CGMSSTNewYork/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maritime Safety and Security Team</a> in New York, said during an interview aboard the Sitkanik.</p><p>"The drug-trafficking organizations are very agile and adept organizations, so they try to shift back," Brennan said. "F<span style="font-weight: 400;">or one reason or another, they thought [low-profile vessels] might be a better option because of the success we've had against the [self-propelled semi-submersibles], so we have seen an increase in them."</span></p><p>"This thing called the low-profile vessel, it's evolutionary," Schultz said. "The adversary will constantly adapt their tactics to try to thwart our successes." The increase "reflects the adaptability, the malleability" of traffickers, he added.</p><p>Schultz and Brennan both emphasized that the Coast Guard is having success capturing narco subs. And Colombian officials have said that intercepting those vessels at sea - along with arresting traffickers on land - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-navy-catches-narco-subs-as-cocaine-production-hits-record-2018-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lands a serious blow</a> to criminal organizations.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59c28e4638d20d3c098b8720-840/2gtm-narcosub.jpg" border="0" alt="Narco sub low-profile vessel Guatemala" data-mce-source="Guatemalan army/US Southern Command" data-mce-caption="A abandoned low-profile vessel found by the Guatemalan coast guard on April 22, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>Guatemalan army/US Southern Command</span></p><p class="caption">A abandoned low-profile vessel found by the Guatemalan coast guard on April 22, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Vigil was skeptical of the true impact, saying the DEA estimated at least 30% to 40% of drugs coming to the US were moving on narco subs, but authorities were likely only intercepting 5% of those vessels.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"They may be capturing more but, again, that's because there's a hell of a lot more being using to smuggle drugs," Vigil said. (Coast Guard Vice Commandant Adm. Charles Ray has said the service faces "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-drugs-are-getting-smuggled-from-south-america-to-the-us-2017-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a capacity challenge</a>" in trying to patrol trafficking routes through the eastern Pacific, an area the size of the continental US.)</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Vigil also noted that the costs seemed to favor the traffickers.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"The submarines cost $1 million or $2 million ... depending on the communications systems, the engine, the materials used in them, the navigational systems," Vigil said. Even though many are likely only used once, he added, "they have absolutely no economic impact on the cartels."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Each kilogram of cocaine is worth only a few thousand dollars in Colombia. But the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-seize-narco-submarine-cocaine-pacific-ocean-2016-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiton cargos</a> narco subs <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-us-coast-guard-seize-a-narco-submarine-2016-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">can carry</a> are worth hundreds of millions of dollars once they're broken up and sold in the US or Europe.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The cost to build a narco sub is "a drop in the bucket compared to the payload that they carry," Vigil said. "So a million, $2 million is nothing to them."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-seizes-narco-sub-73-million-worth-cocaine-2016-11">Watch the US Coast Guard seize a narco sub laden with $73 million worth of cocaine</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/XxBBgvai-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

The Coast Guard is catching more drug-running subs, but most 'very stealthy' narco subs are probably going undetected

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/544920e2ecad044e6c839bc9-2400/china-fishing-boats-east-china-sea-1.jpg" border="0" alt="China Fishing Boats East China Sea" data-mce-source="Stringer China/REUTERS" data-mce-caption="Fishing boats are seen departing from Shenjiawan port in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province towards the East China Sea fishing grounds, September 17, 2012. " /><p class="source"><span>Stringer China/REUTERS</span></p><p class="caption">Fishing boats depart Shenjiawan port in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province toward East China Sea fishing grounds, September 17, 2012.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Chinese fishing vessels are trawling the world's oceans to feed their country's appetite for seafood.</strong></li><li><strong>That has brought those vessels into conflict with foreign coast guards and navies.</strong></li><li><strong>In South America, it's further straining countries' resources and fisheries, according to a report by a US military website.</strong></li></ul><p>China's "insatiable appetite" for seafood is straining the limited abilities of South American countries to enforce their maritime boundaries, according to <a href="https://dialogo-americas.com/en/articles/voracity-chinese-fishing-vessels-threaten-latin-american-seas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a December 13 article in Dialogo</a>, a website run by US Southern Command.</p><p>Countries on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts have been affected, and most of the illicit fishing activity in those areas is done by Chinese vessels.</p><p><span>Juan Carlos Sueiro, fisheries director for Peru at the ocean conservation and advocacy organization Oceana, told Dialogo that Peru and Argentina saw "the largest congregation of these vessels in the world."</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c2f9149bd77305deb1f55a1-800/ap18056652132338.jpg" border="0" alt="Argentina China coast guard fishing" data-mce-source="(Argentine Coast Guard via AP)" data-mce-caption="An Argentine soldier fires at a Chinese fishing boat named Jing Yuan 626 in Argentine waters, February 22, 2018. Argentine ships pursued the vessel, but the chase was called off by Argentina's foreign ministry after nearly eight hours." /><p class="source"><span>(Argentine Coast Guard via AP)</span></p><p class="caption">An Argentine soldier fires at a Chinese fishing boat in Argentine waters, February 22, 2018. Argentine ships pursued the vessel, but the chase was called off after nearly eight hours.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>"It's not that they can't fish in international waters, but their close presence generates controversy. For example, Oceana already identified vessels entering into Peruvian waters without a license or with duplicated ID," Sueiro <a href="https://dialogo-americas.com/en/articles/voracity-chinese-fishing-vessels-threaten-latin-american-seas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.</p><p>"Refrigerated fishing vessels can be found in international waters to transfer their captures, fuel, and supplies," he said, adding that transshipment activity, which can launder profits from illegal fishing, had also been detected.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-weighs-p-8-poseidon-deployment-to-alaska-to-track-russia-china-2018-12" data-analytics-position="10">The US Navy is thinking about sending advanced sub-hunting planes to Alaska to keep a closer eye on Russia and China</a></em></p><p>Officials and experts have warned that rising demand for fish and increased competition over dwindling stocks could spark new conflicts. Many of them have pointed specifically to China.</p><p>Fishing stocks around China have <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8bd1373a-12df-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shrunk dramatically</a>. But Beijing has expanded its distant-ocean fishing fleet, and those vessels have been involved in disputes as far afield as Argentina, where the coast guard has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/15/americas/argentina-chinese-fishing-vessel/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sunk</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/argetina-coast-guard-shoot-chinese-boat-fishing-water-jing-yuan-626-a8230096.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fired at</a> them, and in Africa, where Chinese firms <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8bd1373a-12df-11e8-8cb6-b9ccc4c4dbbb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">are building</a> fish-processing facilities.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c2f91bfbd773055bb1fddcc-1400/ap16274178074986.jpg" border="0" alt="South Korea China coast guard fishing" data-mce-source="(South Korean Mokpo Coast Guard via AP)" data-mce-caption="A Chinese fishing boat catches fires during an inspection by the South Korean coast guard in the water off Hong Island, South Korea, September 29, 2016. South Korea's coast guard said three Chinese fishermen were found dead when a fire broke out on their boat after the coast guard fired a flashbang grenade at the vessel to stop it." /><p class="source"><span>(South Korean Mokpo Coast Guard via AP)</span></p><p class="caption">A Chinese fishing boat after the South Korean coast guard fired a flash-bang grenade at it to stop it off Hong Island, South Korea, September 29, 2016. Three Chinese fishermen were killed.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In a September 2017 article, retired US Navy Adm. James Stavridis and a coauthor <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fishing-wars-are-coming/2017/09/13/05c75208-97c6-11e7-b569-3360011663b4_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that Beijing was spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to subsidize its long-range fishing fleet and that its coast guard often escorts those ships while they fish illegally.</p><p data-elm-loc="5">"As such, the Chinese government is directly enabling and militarizing the worldwide robbing of ocean resources," they said.</p><p data-elm-loc="5">In September 2018, US Coast Guard Cmdr. Kate Higgins-Bloom <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/food-fight-illegal-fishing-conflict/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that "t<span>he odds that a squabble over fishing rights could turn into a major armed conflict are rising."</span></p><p data-elm-loc="5"><span>Countries overplaying their hand with fishing and fisheries enforcement in contested waters and increasingly aggressive responses to illegal fishing were two ways that conflict could develop, Higgins-Bloom wrote, adding that </span>"p<span>olitical leaders of rising powers will feel enormous pressure to secure the resources their citizens demand - even if it means violating international norms and rules."</span></p><p data-elm-loc="5"><span>Indonesia has <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesia-blows-up-and-sinks-another-81-fishing-boats-for-poaching" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blown up</a> boats caught fishing illegally, including a Chinese vessel, and the country's fisheries minister <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2169153/china-calls-it-fishing-indonesia-calls-it-crime-pudjiastuti" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has said</a> what Chinese fishing boats "are doing is not fishing. It is transnational organized crime."</span></p><p data-elm-loc="5"><span>"There's no need to worry [about conflicts with other nations] as we have government vessels protecting us," a Chinese fisherman <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2109469/chinese-fishing-fleets-threaten-inflame-tensions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in September 2017, after the expiration of a fishing ban in the South China Sea.</span></p><p data-elm-loc="5"><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52be25d3ecad041239204516-1500/teadlasedjl.jpg" border="0" alt="Xue Long icebreaker China" data-mce-source="Wikimedia Commons" data-link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Teadlased_j%C3%A4%C3%A4l.jpg" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Teadlased_j%C3%A4%C3%A4l.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Chinese icebreaker Xue Long conducts operations at an ice-flow camp in the Arctic.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>The Arctic, where retreating ice has increased interest in commercial shipping and resource extraction, could also become a venue for that competition.</span></p><p>"I think the Chinese are very interested in the potential protein sources, the fishing stocks," in the Arctic, Heather Conley, <span>senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider in late 2018.</span></p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-arctic-freedom-of-navigation-exercise-polar-star-russia-2018-12" data-analytics-position="12">The Coast Guard turned down a request for an Arctic exercise out of concern the US's only heavy icebreaker would break down and Russia would have to rescue it</a></em></p><p>Nine countries, including China, and the EU signed an agreement in late 2017 prohibiting commercial fishing in the central Arctic for 16 years to allow study of the region - a deal meant to ensure there's sufficient information to fish manageably "when these decisions have to be reached," Conley said.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"We're seeing anecdotal evidence of fishing stocks traveling north to get to cooler waters," Conley added. "China certainly wants to ensure that ... they're not excluded from" those potential fishing grounds.</span></p><h2>'Confronting the Chinese voracity'</h2><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c2f9dcfbd773063e568e90b-1400/ap99454099654.jpg" border="0" alt="Indonesia fishing boat explosion" data-mce-source="(AP Photo/Kanwa)" data-mce-caption="The Indonesian navy blows up foreign fishing boats off Batam Island, Indonesia, October 20, 2015. Authorities sank several foreign fishing boats caught operating illegally in Indonesian waters as part of the country's campaign to battle illegal fishing." /><p class="source"><span>(AP Photo/Kanwa)</span></p><p class="caption">The Indonesian navy blows up foreign fishing boats off Batam Island, Indonesia, October 20, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">US Coast Guard officials have said they are on good terms with their Chinese counterparts when it comes to fisheries enforcement, though they are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tillerson-arctic-late-to-the-game-china-russia-2017-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paying attention to what's going on</a> in the North Pacific Ocean.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span>Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz told Business Insider in October that the Coast Guard has "a good, functional working relationship" with China, describing an incident when the two services cooperated to stop a high-seas drift-netter, which uses massive nets to scoop up fish without regard to limits on what species can be caught.</span></span></p><p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Read more: </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coast-guard-crews-take-down-drug-smugglers-on-the-high-seas-2018-11" data-analytics-position="3">Coast Guard crews are capturing record amounts of cocaine - here's how they chase down high-seas smugglers</a></em></p><p>"We identified that ship and responded with a Coast Guard cutter. It was a few hundred miles off the nearest mainland in that part of the world. The Chinese came out. It was a Chinese flagship, very cooperative," Schultz said. "We had a Chinese ship-rider on our Coast Guard ship. We turned that ship over to the Chinese for prosecution."</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span>In South America, however, "the fight is not easy," even with cooperation among countries in the region, Dialogo cautioned in the December 13 article.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span>"China clearly intends to exploit regional seas, and many species already suffer the consequences," the article adds. "Confronting the Chinese voracity for marine resources requires a regional commitment that can't wait."</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-dragon-fish-expensive-2019-1">These expensive Asian fish cost as much as a new car - and people have gone to jail trying to sell them in the US</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/5hecuZTK-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

The US military is warning that China's fishing boats are bullies and could start a war on the high seas

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf42fd7b73c2802082231bd-2400/cowling 9.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard drug cocaine offload engine cowling gunshot hole" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" /><p class="source"><span>Christopher Woody/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">The crew of the Coast Guard cutter James stands behind bales of cocaine with disabled engine cowlings stacked on them in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The Coast Guard is catching increasing amounts of cocaine at sea.</strong></li><li><strong>Most of the cocaine heading to the US is coming through the eastern Pacific Ocean.</strong></li><li><strong>More smuggling routes are swinging deep into the Pacific and around the Galapagos.</strong></li></ul><p>FT. LAUDERDALE, Florida - The Coast Guard has been seizing record amounts of cocaine, bringing in more than 458,000 pounds during fiscal year 2018, which ended in September.</p><p>That was less than the record-setting 493,000 pounds seized in fiscal year 2017 but more than the 443,000 pounds intercepted in fiscal year 2016, which was the record at the time.</p><p>More than 80% of that cocaine travels through the eastern Pacific Ocean as it is smuggled between South America and entry points in Central America and Mexico.</p><p>According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, an increasing portion of that smuggling is going around the Galapagos Islands - a cluster of volcanic islands that straddle the equator and are better known for unique wildlife than transnational crime.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf5839b110d4c37be226a0d-1057/screen shot 2018-11-21 at 110918 am.png" border="0" alt="South America Pacific Ocean drug cocaine trafficking smuggling Galapagos Islands" data-mce-source="US DEA" data-mce-caption="An increasing portion of drug-smuggling routes in the Pacific Ocean go around the Galapagos Islands." /><p class="source"><span>US DEA</span></p><p class="caption">An increasing portion of drug-smuggling routes in the Pacific Ocean go around the Galapagos Islands.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Cocaine production in Colombia, the world's largest producer of the drug, has more than quadrupled since 2012, according to the DEA's most recent National Drug Threat Assessment. (Peru and Bolivia are the world's other main cocaine producers, but combined they produce less than Colombia.)</p><p>Booming production kept cocaine moving out of South America at "elevated levels" in 2017, the DEA said.</p><p>"In 2017, at least 84% of the documented cocaine departing South <span>America transited the eastern Pacific," the DEA report states.</span></p><p><strong><em>Read also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-cant-stop-most-of-the-cocaine-it-sees-headed-for-the-us-2018-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Billions of dollars of cocaine are smuggled into the US by sea every year, and the Coast Guard says it can only stop one-quarter of it</a></em></strong></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5919ee1b144293db7b8b4c73-1200/clyoozxuaaq-xy.jpg" border="0" alt="Ecuador cocaine seizure" data-mce-source="Diego Fuentes Acosta/Twitter" data-mce-caption="Authorities in Ecuador seized 5.5 metric tons of cocaine and arrested 20 men on a freighter off the country's coast, May 11, 2017." data-link="https://twitter.com/DiegoFuentesEC/status/862818281308213250" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/DiegoFuentesEC/status/862818281308213250">Diego Fuentes Acosta/Twitter</a></span></p><p class="caption">Authorities in Ecuador seized 5.5 metric tons of cocaine and arrested 20 men on a freighter off the country's coast, May 11, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"The Galapagos has always been a staging area," Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA said. Traffickers shifted to the eastern Pacific in response to more law-enforcement focus on Caribbean routes.</p><p>"There's no better staging area, because it's close to South America; they can loiter there," Vigil said. "It's a big fishing area. They can always say they're fishing. They're in tune with any kind of enforcement shift" around the islands, whether it's by the US Coast Guard or Colombian authorities.</p><p><span>Usually a large ship like a freighter or a commercial fishing boat, what Vigil called the "mothership," will approach the Galapagos with a load of drugs or fuel that would be distributed to smaller vessels heading north.</span></p><p><span>The Galapagos and the surrounding waters are "very safe" for traffickers, Vigil added. "Even if you have surveillance there [by] Coast Guard cutters or whatever, they're going to pick it up" and can abort smuggling operations.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b997f59803c51e008b597b-2106/centam trafficking map.jpg" border="0" alt="Central America drug trafficking map" data-mce-source="Adam Isacson/US Southern Command" data-link="https://adamisacson.com/2016-suspect-trafficking-maps/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://adamisacson.com/2016-suspect-trafficking-maps/">Adam Isacson/US Southern Command</a></span></p><p class="caption">Suspected smuggling routes in the eastern Pacific Ocean in 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Most of the cocaine being staged in the Galapagos originates in Peru or Bolivia, Vigil said, but travels over sea or land to Ecuador, of which the Galapagos Islands are a province. From Ecuador, that cocaine mostly leaves through the ports of Esmeraldas or Manta. </span></p><p><span>Ecuador has been seen as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-seized-in-florida-from-trafficking-hub-ecuador-2016-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a major</a> transshipment <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-spain-ecuador-net-55-metric-tons-of-cocaine-in-pacific-2017-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">point for cocaine</a> for some time. But given a lack or resources, it can only search about 3% of the shipments coming out of those ports, Vigil said. </span></p><p><span>US law-enforcement ties with Ecuador withered under former President Rafael Correa. His successor, Lenin Moreno, has been more open to working with the US, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-latin-american-diplomacy-to-isolate-venezuela-mixed-success-at-oas-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreeing in April</a> to allow the DEA and Customs and Border Protection back into the country.</span></p><h2>The US government has touted at-sea interdictions as a way to undermine trafficking organizations</h2><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef28690d7c67375114f989-1280/4900721.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard cutter James cocaine drug bust narco sub low-profile vesse" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard" data-mce-caption="The Coast Guard cutter James interdicts a low-profile vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, October 22, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard</span></p><p class="caption">The Coast Guard cutter James interdicts a low-profile vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, October 22, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Traffickers "may use a variety of routes, and that's a tactical calculus ... that these transnational criminal organizations make," Capt. Jeffrey Randall, commander of the Coast Guard cutter James, said on Thursday during a drug offload from the James in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"Some of them may choose to go that route. Some of them may choose to go a shorter route," Randall said of trafficking around the Galapagos. "It all depends on how that individual cartel or individual drug-trafficking organization chooses to move their narcotics."</span></p><p><strong><em>Now read: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/drug-cartel-activity-in-and-links-to-the-us-market-2018-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Drug cartels make billions in the US, but somebody else is doing the selling</a></em></strong></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"But you can't do that without some sort of logistics change, so there's a network at play there," he said. "Dismantling that network is what's key to reducing the overall flow."</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The US government has touted at-sea interdictions as a way to undermine trafficking organizations. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Coast Guard <a href="https://www.mensjournal.com/adventure/drug-war-on-the-high-seas-behind-the-coast-guards-billion-dollar-busts-w213087/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has said</a> its seizures between 2002 and 2011 and information gained from them contributed to the extradition of 75% of Colombian cartel leaders, as well as to the 2014 capture of Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf434549e8c531373575cb5-1400/1093110.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard helicopter HITRON Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron warning shots" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Hulme" data-mce-caption="A helicopter crew from the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville demonstrates warning shots fired at a non-compliant boat off the coast of Jacksonville, September 24, 2009." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Hulme</span></p><p class="caption">A Coast Guard Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron crew demonstrates warning shots fired at a non-compliant boat, off the coast of Jacksonville, September 24, 2009.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Coast Guard can stop drug smuggling early in the process and "exploit connections amongst the transnational criminal organizations to not just catch a single bad actor but reach back across the organization and disrupt the overall flow," Claire Grady, the Homeland Security Department's management chief, said aboard the James on Thursday.</p><p>"That is probably the best progress that we've made," Grady added, "making every time we encounter a nefarious actor that much more important because of our ability to then penetrate and disrupt the entire organization."</p><p>Decisions about at-sea interdictions are based on "a time-speed-distance calculation," Randall said when asked whether the Coast Guard was spending more time around the Galapagos Islands.</p><p>"You want to optimize your position to react," he added, "because the last thing you want to do is be in a tail chase, chasing somebody down and you're both going the same speed. You're never going to get there if that happens."</p><p>Nevertheless, Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said, the Coast Guard has the edge deep in the Pacific.</p><p>"When those 419-foot national security [cutters] show up with a [Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron] helicopter and very capable boats [and] you're in a fishing boat [or] you're in a fast boat," Schultz said Thursday, "it's sort of game, set, match when you're out past the Galapagos."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-seizes-narco-sub-73-million-worth-cocaine-2016-11">Watch the US Coast Guard seize a narco sub laden with $73 million worth of cocaine</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/XxBBgvai-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

The Coast Guard is catching record amounts of cocaine, and activity is growing around a smuggling hotspot

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a3806024aa6b580708b536d-1600/3462086.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard search and rescue survival" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Joel Guzman" data-mce-caption="Petty Officer 2nd Class Lyman Dickinson, an aviation-survival technician at Coast Guard Sector San Diego, is lowered into the water from an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter during a joint search and rescue exercise with the Mexican navy off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico, June 7, 2017. The exercise simulated a vessel fire that required a coordinated international search-and-rescue effort." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Joel Guzman</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Lyman Dickinson, an aviation-survival technician, is lowered into the water during a search-and-rescue exercise with the Mexican navy off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico, June 7, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Twenty-four days after the government shuttered, Coast Guard members will miss their first paycheck on January 15.</strong></li><li><strong>The service has been without funding to pay them since the government shutdown on December 21.</strong></li><li><strong>Coast Guardsmen are still working around the world, and communities throughout the US are organizing to support them and their families.</strong></li><li><strong>"It's worrisome. I have to put food in my family's belly," <a href="https://abc7news.com/society/coast-guard-families-receive-food-donations-during-government-shutdown-/5071519/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Coast Guard mechanic Kyle Turcott, who is working without pay.</strong></li><li><strong>"It's hard to focus on search and rescue if you don't know whether your kids and family are going to have a roof over their head and food on the table," a Coast Guard spouse said.</strong></li></ul><p>Twenty-four days into the longest government shutdown in US history, the strain is being <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-about-to-go-without-pay-due-to-government-shutdown-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">felt acutely by the US Coast Guard</a>, as some 42,000 active-duty members are preparing to miss their first paycheck on January 15.</p><p>In a January 10 letter, Vice Commandant Adm. Charles Ray <a href="https://www.dcms.uscg.mil/Portals/10/DCMS%20files/CCG_All_Hands_Email_10Jan19.pdf?ver=2019-01-10-184522-093" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that without an appropriation or funding measure, "the Coast Guard will not be able to meet the next payroll," an extreme disruption that officials averted in late December by moving funds around.</p><p>"Let me assure you your leadership continues to do everything possible, both internal and external to the Service, to ensure we can process your pay as soon as we receive an appropriation," Ray added. "However, I do not know when that will occur."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c2671552ab31e4790122352-1024/60588577636ba906279eb.jpg" border="0" alt="us coast guard" data-mce-source="The 621st Contingency Response Wing/Flickr" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/621crw/6058857763/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/621crw/6058857763/">The 621st Contingency Response Wing/Flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps are funded through the <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">Defense</keyword> Department, which got it its fiscal year 2019 budget in the fall, and none of their troops are missing a paycheck.</p><p>But the Coast Guard, while technically a military branch, is funded through the Homeland Security Department, funding for which has been held up amid a dispute between President Donald Trump and Congress over $5.7 billion Trump wants to start construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-about-to-go-without-pay-due-to-government-shutdown-2019-1" data-analytics-position="1">The Coast Guard is about to miss a paycheck because of the government shutdown, but its members are still doing missions</a></em></p><p>A work-around secured funding for Coast Guard payroll on December 31, paying the service's active-duty members and reservists who drilled before funding lapsed, but service leaders have said it cannot be repeated. Civilian employees are unpaid since December 21.</p><p>Active-duty members deemed essential have continued working, as have about 1,300 civilian workers. Most of the service's <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/01/11/no-pay-coast-guard-members-likely-jan-15.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8,500</a> civilian employees have been <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/commandant-tells-coast-guard-families-you-have-not-and-will-not-be-forgotten-1.564340" target="_blank" rel="noopener">furloughed</a>, and pay and benefits for some 50,000 retired members and employees could be affected.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a37f03db0bcd51e008b59bc-1600/3174307.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Vermont ice rescue" data-mce-source="US Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Sarah Mattison" data-mce-caption="US Coast Guard ice-rescue team members participate in training on Lake Champlain at Coast Guard Station Burlington, Burlington, Vermont, February 17, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>US Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Sarah Mattison</span></p><p class="caption">US Coast Guard ice-rescue team members participate in training on Lake Champlain at Coast Guard Station Burlington, Burlington, Vermont, February 17, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The service <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-about-to-go-without-pay-due-to-government-shutdown-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continues to operate</a>, however.</p><p>In the Coast Guard's 14th district, which covers 12.2 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean, 835 active-duty personnel and some civilians are still working from bases in Hawaii and Guam and detachments in Japan and Singapore, carrying out "<a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-coast-guard-focuses-on-essential-missions-without-pay-as-government-shutdown-continues-1.563765" target="_blank" rel="noopener">essential operations</a>" such as search-and-rescue and law enforcement, 14th district spokeswoman Chief Sara Muir told Stars and Stripes.</p><p>Between December 21 and January 7, the district handled 46 cases, including two major ones, Muir said. On January 13, Coast Guard personnel <a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/news/306910/coast-gard-conducts-medevac-fisher-off-kauai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">medevaced</a> a crew member off a fishing vessel 80 miles north of Kauai.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-warns-chinas-aggressive-fishing-boats-could-start-a-war-2019-1" data-analytics-position="4">The US military is warning that China's fishing boats are bullies and could start a war on the high seas</a></em></p><p>Other operations, like recreational-vessel safety checks and issuing or renewing licenses and other administrative work, has been curtailed. The service has said vendors who provide fuel and other services also <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-coast-guard-focuses-on-essential-missions-without-pay-as-government-shutdown-continues-1.563765" target="_blank" rel="noopener">won't be paid</a> until funding resumes.</p><p>As the shutdown drags on, communities around the country have mustered to support Coast Guard members and families, particularly junior members, many of whom lack savings.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a37fe984aa6b5b51a8b5753-1600/4013000.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard swimming survival Florida" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Michael De Nyse" data-mce-caption="Crew members from Coast Guard Station Sand Key, Florida, take part in survival swim training, December 8, 2017. Emergency situations happen in all types of conditions so the Coast Guard trains year-round in different elements to be ready at all times." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Michael De Nyse</span></p><p class="caption">Crew members from Coast Guard Station Sand Key, Florida, take part in survival swim training, December 8, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>On January 12, dozens of northern Michigan residents gathered for a silent auction and donation event, with funds raised going toward expenses like rent, medical bills, and heating for service members and their families.</p><p>"Whenever you cannot predict when you're gonna get your next paycheck, but you know exactly when the bills are due, it causes a lot of stress," Kenneth Arbogast, a retired Coast Guard chief petty officer, <a href="https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/former-jail-employee-charged-after-facilitating-illegal-inmate-communication" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told UpNorthLive.com</a>. "And for younger members, young families, that's really a challenge."</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-arctic-freedom-of-navigation-exercise-polar-star-russia-2018-12" data-analytics-position="16">The Coast Guard turned down a request for an Arctic exercise out of concern the US's only heavy icebreaker would break down and Russia would have to rescue it</a></em></p><p>On January 13, more than 600 service members, including 168 families, gathered in Alameda, California, for a giveaway organized by the East Bay Coast Guard Spouses Club, providing them with everything from fresh fruit to diapers.</p><p>"It's worrisome. I have to put food in my family's belly," <a href="https://abc7news.com/society/coast-guard-families-receive-food-donations-during-government-shutdown-/5071519/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Coast Guard mechanic Kyle Turcott, who is working without pay. "Ain't no telling, we may not get paid until the first of next month," <a href="https://abc7news.com/society/coast-guard-families-receive-food-donations-during-government-shutdown-/5071519/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a> Nathan Knight, another service member.</p><p>The organizers <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Coast-Guard-Group-Holds-Food-Drive-For-Government-Workers-504298241.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> they were working on another food drive and could host another distribution event this week.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a37f2a2b0bcd5f7018b59b1-1600/3294477.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter Munro San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge Bay Area" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class Adam Stanton" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard Cutter Munro passes under the Golden Gate Bridge on its way into the Bay Area, April 6, 2017. The Munro, the Coast Guard's newest National Security Cutter, was commissioned in Seattle." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class Adam Stanton</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard cutter Munro passes under the Golden Gate Bridge on its way into the Bay Area, April 6, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>On January 14, Thomas Edison State University in New Jersey <a href="https://www.tesu.edu/news/1651553/tesu-foundation-offer-tuition-assistance-for-coast-guard-memebers-affected-government-shutdown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that Coast Guard students affected by the shutdown would be able to defer payments until tuition assistance was available again. The school has 135 active-duty students - 27 of whom are registered for February.</p><p>In Rhode Island, Roger Williams University <a href="https://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/rwu-and-bon-appetit-offering-hot-meals-coast-guard-families-amid-federal-government-shutdown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that on January 15 it would offer free dining-hall meals to active-duty Coast Guard members and their families from Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-operations-around-miami-and-in-the-caribbean-2018-12" data-analytics-position="18">We got aboard a Coast Guard chopper to see how they bust smugglers and save boaters in the crowded waters around Miami</a></em></p><p><span>Navy Federal Credit Union, which serves military members, veterans, and civilian Defense Department employees, has said it would offer <a href="https://www.navyfederal.org/about/government-shutdown.php?intcmp=hp%7Ccont%7C4%7Cclns%7Cshutdown%7Cgovshutdown%7C12/22/2018%7C%7C%7C" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no-interest loans</a> up to $6,000 to workers affected by the shutdown, with repayment automatically deducted from paychecks once direct-deposit resumes.</span></p><p><span>In his January 10 letter, Ray also <a href="https://www.dcms.uscg.mil/Portals/10/DCMS%20files/CCG_All_Hands_Email_10Jan19.pdf?ver=2019-01-10-184522-093" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that the Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Board had increased the interest-free loans it was offering, focusing on junior members, allowing those with dependents to get up to $1,000.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bfcaa2a9e8c531eec165da5-1400/4629955.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard drug smuggling self-propelled semi-submersible narco sub Pacific" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard" data-mce-caption="Crewmembers of the Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk (WMEC 913) and Tactical Law Enforcement Team South on top of a self-propelled semi-submersible they stopped July 3, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard</span></p><p class="caption">Crewmembers of the Coast Guard cutter Mohawk and Tactical Law Enforcement Team South on a self-propelled semi-submersible, July 3, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>In Texas, Coast Guard noncommissioned officers have <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/As-shutdown-lingers-anxiety-rises-for-Coast-13530692.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raised money</a> through local chapters of the Coast Guard Petty Officers Association. Last week, they brought in food to cook at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, encouraging younger service members to take food home.</span></p><p><span>Erin Picou, whose husband is a chief petty officer with 17 years experience, said her family could cover the most important bills, but the mortgage for their house, on which they spent their savings six months ago, is less certain.</span></p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-coast-guard-crews-take-down-drug-smugglers-on-the-high-seas-2018-11" data-analytics-position="6">Coast Guard crews are capturing record amounts of cocaine - here's how they chase down high-seas smugglers</a></em></p><p data-words="15">"It's pretty scary. I don't want the bank to take my new house," Picou <a href="https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/As-shutdown-lingers-anxiety-rises-for-Coast-13530692.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told The San Antonio Express-News</a>.</p><p data-words="55">"I can't speak for them, but I myself think my husband has worked his ass off. He needs to get a paycheck," Picou added. "It's hard to focus on search and rescue if you don't know whether your kids and family are going to have a roof over their head and food on the table."</p><p data-words="55"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/591c877c1442934d088b62a4-2400/trump coast guard.jpg" border="0" alt="trump coast guard" data-mce-source="AP" /><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">President Donald Trump addresses Coast Guard personnel.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p data-words="55">Measures have been introduced to Congress <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-about-to-go-without-pay-due-to-government-shutdown-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to ensure pay</a> for Coast Guard members. However, Ray said, "I cannot predict what course that legislation may take."</p><p data-words="55">In <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CommandantUSCG/posts/1704359656331013" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a Facebook post</a> on Sunday, Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz told service members the branch was continuing "228 years of military service around the globe," including preparations for yearly ice-clearing in Antarctica, maritime-security operations in the Middle East, and drug interdictions in Central and South America.</p><p data-words="55"><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-coast-guard-snipers-during-at-sea-drug-busts-2018-11" data-analytics-position="9">These photos show why the US Coast Guard's snipers are some of the best in the business</a></em></p><p data-words="55"><span>"While our Coast Guard workforce is deployed, there are loved ones at home reviewing family finances, researching how to get support, and weighing childcare options - they are holding down the fort," Schultz wrote.</span></p><p data-words="55"><span> "Please know that we are doing everything we can to support and advocate for you while your loved one stands the watch," he added. "You have not, and will not, be forgotten."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-boot-camp-military-basic-training-cape-may-new-jersey-2018-12">Inside the Coast Guard's 8-week boot camp where recruits go through extreme physical tests and brutal 'smoke sessions'</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/xyU5PtmA-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

Coast Guard members are about to miss their first paycheck due to the government shutdown, and communities around the US are trying to keep them afloat

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c13d28fcf079513f2740fca-1400/4663627.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star McMurdo Station Antarctica" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Fireman John Pelzel" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard cutter Polar Star crew members on the ice about 13 miles from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, January 26, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Fireman John Pelzel</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard cutter Polar Star crew members on the ice about 13 miles from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, January 26, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Countries are looking to take advantage of the opening of the Arctic for shipping and exploration.</strong></li><li><strong>Operating there requires specialized icebreakers, of which the US has just one.</strong></li><li><strong>That icebreaker is in such poor shape that the Coast Guard declined to send it north, fearing it would break down.</strong></li></ul><p>Countries are jockeying for position as the changing climate makes the Arctic more amenable to shipping and natural-resource extraction.</p><p>Conditions in the high north are still formidable, requiring specialized ships. That's felt acutely in the US, mainly because of the paucity of ice-breaking capability compared to other Arctic countries - particularly Russia.</p><p>Moscow, which has the world's largest Arctic coastline, has dozens of icebreakers, some of which are heavy models for polar duty and others that are designed to operate elsewhere, like the Baltic.</p><p>The US has just two, only one of which is a heavy icebreaker that can operate in the Arctic and Antarctica.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a6a3c9bcf84101f008b4896-1400/317401875332ef602226eo 1.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Polar Star icebreaker Arctic Antarctic Ross Sea" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Chief Petty Officer David Mosley" data-mce-caption="The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star cuts through Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea near a large group of seals as the ship's crew creates a navigation channel for supply ships, January 16, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Chief Petty Officer David Mosley</span></p><p class="caption">The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star cuts through Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea near a large group of seals as the ship's crew creates a navigation channel for supply ships, January 16, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>That heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star, is more than 40 years old and clinging to service life - something former Coast Guard commandant Paul Zukunft was well aware of when he was asked to send the Polar Star north.</p><p>"When I was the commandant, the National Security Council approached me and said, 'Hey, we ought to sent the Polar Star through the Northern Sea Route and do a freedom of navigation exercise,'" Zukunft, who retired as an admiral in 2018, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-arctic-and-us-national-security" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said this month</a> at a Wilson Center event focused on the Arctic.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-arctic-moves-eerily-familiar-coast-guard-commandant-2018-1" data-analytics-position="2">The former head of the Coast Guard says Russia has 'all the pieces on the chessboard' in the Arctic - but the US has 'only got a couple of pawns'</a></em></strong></p><p>"I said, 'Au contraire, it's a 40-year-old ship. We're cannibalizing parts off its sister ship just to keep this thing running, and I can't guarantee you that it won't have an catastrophic engineering casualty as it's doing a freedom of navigation exercise, and now I've got to call on Russia to pull me out of harm's way. So this is not the time to do it,'" Zukunft said.</p><p>The Polar Star was commissioned in 1976 and refurbished in 2012 to extend its service life. It's the Coast Guard's only operational heavy icebreaker, and it can chop through ice up to 21 feet thick. (The Healy, the service's other icebreaker, is a medium icebreaker that is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-navy-and-coast-guard-are-looking-to-play-catch-up-in-the-arctic-2017-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">newer and bigger</a> but has less ice-breaking capability.)</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c13d987630d9b144678ec41-1400/1071494.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star Polar Sea McMurdo Antarctica" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Rob Rothway" data-mce-caption="The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea passing the Polar Star in the ice channel near McMurdo, Antarctica, January 10, 2002." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Rob Rothway</span></p><p class="caption">The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea passing the Polar Star in the ice channel near McMurdo, Antarctica, January 10, 2002.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Coast Guard's other heavy icebreaker and the Polar Star's sister ship, the Polar Sea, was commissioned the same year but left service in 2010 after repeated engine failures.</p><p>Like Zukunft said, the service has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-icebreaker-polar-star-engine-failure-flooding-in-antarctic-2018-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stripping the Polar Sea of parts</a> to keep the Polar Star running, because many of those parts are no longer in production. When they can't get it from the Polar Sea, crew members have ordered second-hand parts from eBay.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-commandant-adm-paul-zukunft-interview-russia-smuggling-budget-2018-1" data-analytics-position="2">The former head of the US Coast Guard describes countering drug smugglers' 'free pass,' facing Russia in the Arctic, and how to 'think beyond the tyranny of the present'</a></em></strong></p><p>The icebreaker makes a run to McMurdo Station in Antarctica every year. On its most recent trip in January, the ship faced less ice but <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-icebreaker-polar-star-engine-failure-flooding-in-antarctic-2018-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">still dealt with mechanical issues</a>, including a gas-turbine failure that reduced power to the propellers and a failed shaft seal that allowed seawater into the ship until it was sealed.</p><p>Harsh conditions wear on the Polar Star - it's the only cutter that goes into drydock every year. It also sails with a year's worth of food in case it gets stuck. As commandant, Zukunft said the Polar Star was "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-arctic-moves-eerily-familiar-coast-guard-commandant-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">literally on life support</a>."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c13dbfa3224ed14d7101434-1400/4314590.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star propeller hull dry dock" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Matthew S. Masaschi" data-mce-caption="Contractors work on the hull of the Polar Star while the cutter undergoes depot-level maintenance at a dry dock in Vallejo, California, in preparation for its future polar-region patrol, April 16, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Matthew S. Masaschi</span></p><p class="caption">Contractors work on the hull of the Polar Star while the cutter undergoes depot-level maintenance at a dry dock in Vallejo, California, in preparation for its future polar-region patrol, April 16, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Coast Guard has been looking to start building new icebreakers for some time.</p><p>In 2016, Zukunft said the service was looking to build <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-navy-and-coast-guard-are-looking-to-play-catch-up-in-the-arctic-2017-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three heavy and three medium icebreakers</a>. Along with the Navy, it released a joint draft request for proposal to build a new heavy icebreaker in October 2017.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-chief-paul-zukunft-us-unprepared-for-extreme-weather-2017-12" data-analytics-position="3">The former head of the Coast Guard describes how the US remains unprepared to deal with the effects of climate change</a></em></strong></p><p>The Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Coast Guard, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-new-heavy-icebreaker-2019-budget-2018-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">requested $750 million</a> in fiscal year 2019, which began October 1, to design and build a new heavy polar icebreaker. (That request included $15 million for a service-life extension project for the Polar Star.)</p><p>But the department is one of several that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-coast-guard-chief-optimistic-about-icebreaker-ship-funding-2018-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have not been funded</a> for 2019, and it's not clear the icebreaker money will arrive, as lawmakers focus on other spending priorities, including a wall on the US-Mexico border.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a6a2f9ccf84101f008b4811-1400/1113253.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard cutter icebreaker Healy Alaska Russia" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis" data-mce-caption="The Coast Guard Cutter Healy approaches the Russian-flagged tanker Renda while breaking ice around the vessel 97 miles south of Nome, Alaska, January 10, 2012." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis</span></p><p class="caption">The Coast Guard Cutter Healy approaches the Russian-flagged tanker Renda while breaking ice around the vessel 97 miles south of Nome, Alaska, January 10, 2012.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The $750 million was stripped by the House Appropriations Committee this summer - a move that was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-protest-plans-to-cut-funding-for-coast-guard-icebreaker-2018-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">protested by House Democrats</a>. The current Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Karl Schultz, said earlier this month that he was "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-coast-guard-chief-optimistic-about-icebreaker-ship-funding-2018-12" target="_blank" rel="noopener">guardedly optimistic</a>" that funding for a new polar icebreaker would be available.</p><p>The need for Russian assets to support the US in the high north would not be unprecedented, however.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-adm-paul-zukunft-for-targeting-cocaine-on-colombia-rivers-2018-5">The former head of the US Coast Guard wants to cut a vital artery in the heart of the global cocaine trade</a></em></strong></p><p>When asked what infrastructure was needed in the Arctic to support US national <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">defense</keyword>, Zukunft stressed that much of it, like ports, would be dual-use, supporting military and civilian operations.</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"But the immediate need right now is for commercial [operations], and that was driven home when we didn't get the fuel delivery into Nome," Zukunft said, likely referring to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nome-alaska-finally-gets-russian-tanker-fuel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a 2012 incident</a> in which the Alaskan city was iced-in and a few weeks away from running out of fuel. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"At that point in time we were able to call upon Russia to provide an ice-capable tanker escorted by the Coast Guard cutter Healy to resupply Nome."</span></p>      <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/changes-earth-artic-ice-melted-animated-map-nasa-2017-3">Arctic and Antarctic sea ice just hit record lows - here's what would happen if all the ice melted</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/kHBlBv8U-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

The Coast Guard turned down a request for an Arctic exercise out of concern the US's only heavy icebreaker would break down and Russia would have to rescue it

Coast Guard crews are capturing record amounts of cocaine - here's how they chase down high-seas smugglers

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf1c6010591f26a2d589273-1400/james crew and cocaine bales.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter James cocaine brick drug bust seizure" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bales of cocaine on display aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James, in front of the ship's crew and its helicopter, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Christopher Woody/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Bales of cocaine on display aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James, in front of the ship's crew and its helicopter, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>US authorities continue to seize immense amounts of drugs coming to the US from South America.</strong></li><li><strong>Consistent demand and established routes make the US an appealing market for traffickers.</strong></li><li><strong>But in the US, relationships between wholesale distributors and retail-level sellers are murky.</strong></li></ul><p>FT. LAUDERDALE, Florida - Mexican transnational criminal organizations, often called cartels, have spent decades developing connections and routes to move cocaine from South America, across the Pacific and Caribbean, through Mexico, and finally into the US.</p><p>But once those drugs are in the US, the traffickers who've shepherded them north take a different, more hands-off role.</p><p>While cartels rely on the voracious US drug market, the personnel who handle their wares on US soil have a different role from the ones working in Latin America, according to Ariana Fajardo Orshan, the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, speaking aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James in Ft. Lauderdale.</p><h2>'<span>It's called transnational for a reason'</span></h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf1c81066be5033d93b84b5-1600/cocaine bricks.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard James drug offload cocaine drugs bricks" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bricks of seized cocaine aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Christopher Woody/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Bricks of seized cocaine aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"Cartels aren't here in the United States. There are people who work for the cartels within the United States," Fajardo Orshan said Thursday, standing in front of nearly 38,000 pounds of cocaine seized in the eastern Pacific Ocean by the US Coast Guard.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"The truth here is there aren't people working who are part of the cartel," Fajardo Orshan added in Spanish. "They are people who help the cartels."</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><p><strong><em>Read also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-offload-500-million-in-cocaine-seized-in-pacific-ocean-2018-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Coast Guard's 'push-out-the-border strategy' is fighting drugs in the Pacific - and it just brought home $500 million in cocaine</a></em></strong></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cartel operations in the US are usually overseen by Mexican nationals or US citizens of Mexican origin, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said in its <a href="https://www.dea.gov/documents/2017/10/01/2017-national-drug-threat-assessment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2017 National Drug Threat Estimate</a>.</span></p><p>Links between transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, and the US market are murky, and their operations in the US are generally considered to be opaque by design.</p><p>"US-based Mexican TCOs are composed of various compartmentalized cells assigned with specific functions such as distribution, transportation, consolidation of drug proceeds, and money laundering," the DEA said in its 2017 NDTA.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bf1c80fb73c28535520b24f-1400/cowling 13.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard James drug offload cocaine drugs bricks" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bricks of cocaine are visible among bales of the drug seized by US Coast Guard crews in the eastern Pacific Ocean, aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Christopher Woody/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Bricks of cocaine are visible among bales of the drug seized by US Coast Guard crews in the eastern Pacific Ocean, aboard the US Coast Guard cutter James in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Cartel operations in the US are typically divided into a supply chain, according to the DEA, with operators at one link in the chain unaware of other parts of the operation.</p><p>"In most cases, individuals hired to transport drug shipments within the United States are independent, third-party contractors who may be working for multiple Mexican TCOs," the report says.</p><p>In many cases, those third-party distributors are US-based street gangs. Unlike Mexican cartels, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-mexican-cartels-doing-in-the-us-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">those gangs have the local knowledge and the manpower</a> to manage street-level distribution.</p><p><strong><em>Go further: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-defense-chief-says-opium-legalization-may-help-reduce-violence-2018-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mexican troops are in the street to fight drugs, and the country's defense chief says legalization may be 'a way out'</a></em></strong></p><p><span>"US-based Mexican TCO members generally coordinate the transportation and distribution of bulk wholesale quantities of illicit drugs to US markets while retail-level distribution is mainly handled by smaller local groups and street gangs not directly affiliated with Mexican TCOs," the 2017 DEA report notes. </span></p><p><span>"In some scenarios, Mexican TCOs collaborate with local criminal groups and gangs across the United States to distribute and transport drugs at the retail level."</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2f279e8c5345d247a236-1400/bricks of cocaine.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard Cutter James cocaine brick drug bust seizure" data-mce-source="Christopher Woody/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Bricks of cocaine visible among bales of cocaine seized by US Coast Guard ships, aboard the USCG cutter James, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Christopher Woody/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Bricks of cocaine visible among bales of cocaine seized by US Coast Guard ships, aboard the USCG cutter James, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Gangs with connections to Latin America - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/where-does-ms-13-mara-salvatrucha-name-come-from" target="_blank" rel="noopener">like MS-13</a>, which was founded in Southern California but is now based in Central America - often partner with cartels to distribute drugs in the US.</p><p>But other US gangs, like the Bloods and the Crips, and even white-supremacist groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, have also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-mexican-cartels-doing-in-the-us-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">established links to Mexican cartels</a>.</p><p><strong><em>Now read: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-trial-mexican-presidents-accused-of-taking-cartel-bribes-2018-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'El Chapo' Guzman is on trial in New York for leading the world's largest drug trafficking organization, but his attorneys say he's a 'scapegoat' who 'controlled nothing'</a></em></strong></p><p><span>"These are intricate networks of distribution that include Americans on this side of the border that are part of their network," Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-mexican-cartels-doing-in-the-us-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in mid-2017. </span></p><p><span>"It's called transnational for a reason, and that is these are intricate networks and organizations that operation across borders, using nationals from multiple countries, including distributors at the state and local level that are Americans," Rubio added.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57fe3aed4046dd36318b4ff0-2000/ap112660810498.jpg" border="0" alt="us cocaine seizure" data-mce-source="Associated Press/Wilfredo Lee" data-mce-caption="A member of the U.S. Coast Guard guards the area as others offload bails of over eight tons of cocaine, at rear, interdicted in international waters, from the Cutter Bernard C. Webber at Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Miami Beach, Fla." /><p class="source"><span>Associated Press/Wilfredo Lee</span></p><p class="caption">A US Coast Guard member stands guard as others offload bails of over 8 tons of cocaine in Miami Beach, Florida, June 13, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>The DEA has published <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/where-do-mexican-drug-cartels-operate-in-the-us-2017-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analyses of which TCOs control distribution in US cities</a>, often finding multiple cartels present in larger areas. But shifting ties between groups and tenuous links across borders complicate such assessments.</span></p><p>"What is an operative?" David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego, said in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-mexican-cartels-doing-in-the-us-2017-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an early-2017 interview</a>.</p><p>"Are we talking about, like, your man in Durango, Colorado, who's sort of reporting directly back to 'Chapo' Guzman, or are we talking about basically the fact that there's someone who has a connection in that small town that is able to move drugs or obtain drugs from a Mexican supplier?" added Shirk, director of the USD's Justice in Mexico program.</p><h2>'We've got to stay ahead'</h2><p><span>The lucrative nature of the drug trade, with prices buoyed by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/where-drug-money-goes-2016-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the risks inherent in smuggling</a>, ensure there are always people willing to get involved.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bef2869beb67036171b4a9d-1400/4905443.jpg" border="0" alt="US Coast Guard cutter James cocaine drug seizure offload" data-mce-source="Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray" data-mce-caption="A pallet of interdicted cocaine being offloaded from the Coast Guard Cutter James by crane in Port Everglades, Florida, November 15, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Murray</span></p><p class="caption">A pallet of interdicted cocaine being offloaded from the Coast Guard Cutter James by crane in Port Everglades, Florida, November 15, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>In Colombia, the world's biggest producer of cocaine, a kilo of the drug, which is about 2.2 pounds, can fetch prices in the low five figures - usually about $2,000. Once it reaches Central America or Mexico, the value of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-sinaloa-cartel-global-cocaine-trade" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that kilo increases considerably</a>, typically to between $10,000 and $20,000.</span><span></span></p><p><span>In the US, the wholesale value of that kilo rises again, up to $25,000 or more. Once broken down and diluted with sometimes dangerous additives for retail sale, a kilo can end up being sold for a total in the low six figures.</span></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">"So you have the cartels that are manufacturing the cocaine sending their cocaine to the United States, because they're getting a bigger bang for their dollar," Fajardo Orshan said. "That's how it comes up here and that's how we intercept it."</span></span></p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-capturing-more-drug-smuggling-narco-subs-2018-10">The Coast Guard is catching more drug-running subs, but most 'very stealthy' narco subs are probably going undetected</a></em></strong></p><p><span>In other markets, like Australia or Europe, prices can be much higher, but established smuggling routes from South America and consistent demand in the US appeal to traffickers, Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Shultz said Thursday.</span></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">"It's the distribution. It's the time-space-distance. That's what we're dealing with out here," Shultz said, speaking in front of the cocaine seized in the Pacific Ocean by the cutter James and other Coast Guard ships.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-weight: 400;">"We're dealing with proven pathways that have existed for a long time [and] sophisticated smuggling organizations," Schultz added. "It's an adversary that's always changing their tactics, and we've got to stay ahead of that."</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-bust-1-billion-worth-cocaine-2017-3">Here's what $1 billion worth of cocaine looks like</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ot6bkK0T-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

Drug cartels make billions in the US, but somebody else is doing the selling

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bc5fc1bdee789117d1f5843-1400/3350395.jpg" border="0" alt="US Navy P-8 Poseidon Keflavik Iceland" data-mce-source="US Navy/Lt. j.g. Grade Matthew Skoglund" data-mce-caption="A P-8A Poseidon aircraft assigned to Patrol Squadron 16 in Keflavik, Iceland, for anti-submarine warfare training, April 28, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>US Navy/Lt. j.g. Grade Matthew Skoglund</span></p><p class="caption">A P-8A Poseidon aircraft in Keflavik, Iceland, for anti-submarine warfare training, April 28, 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The US military is shifting its focus from fighting insurgents to a potential conflict with a powerful adversary like Russia or China that has a professional military.</strong></li><li><strong>That reorientation has led to more emphasis on Arctic operations, including the region around Alaska.</strong></li><li><strong>The Navy secretary said this month that the service's advanced sub-hunters may return there to keep an eye on China and Russia.</strong></li></ul><p>The US Navy is looking at a number of ways to increase its presence in the Arctic around Alaska, including deployments of the service's advanced maritime patrol aircraft, the P-8A Poseidon, the Navy's top civilian official said last week.</p><p>Asked by Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan about the US presence in that part of the world, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/18-12-05-united-states-navy-and-marine-corps-readiness" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 12 that the Navy was present under the sea and in the air and "looking at how we can get up there" in other capacities.</p><p><span>"If I had a blank check for everything, it'd be terrific, to ice-harden ships, but with the demand that we have right now, it is unaffordable," Spencer said, adding that it would be possible to send assets up there seasonally as sea ice melts.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c17f667519b154ac46242d6-1600/ap97020101796.jpg" border="0" alt="Adak Island navy base Alaska" data-mce-source="(AP Photo/Al Grillo)" data-mce-caption="Hundreds of houses that over 6,000 military personnel and dependents called home, along with schools, warehouses, hangars, and other structures, sit empty at Naval Air Station Adak on Adak Island, in February 1997, as the US Navy gets ready to leave the Aleutian Island outpost on March 31." /><p class="source"><span>(AP Photo/Al Grillo)</span></p><p class="caption">Hundreds of houses that over 6,000 military personnel and dependents called home, along with schools, warehouses, hangars, and other structures, sit empty at Naval Air Station Adak on Adak Island, in February 1997, as the US Navy gets ready to leave the Aleutian Island outpost on March 31.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>"You and I did go look on the coast up there for a potential strategic port," Spencer told Sullivan. </span><span>"I think the Coast Guard, in concert with the Navy, we should definitely flesh out what could possibly be done." </span></p><p><span>"When it comes to using Alaska in the Arctic area for training, the commandant and I have talked about this - plans to go look at doing something this summer, possibly on Adak, for training," Spencer added, referring Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, who was also at the hearing.</span></p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marines-alaska-cold-weather-training-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Marines are preparing for a potential 'big-ass fight,' and they may soon be spending more time in Alaska</a></em></strong></p><p><span>Spencer said he and Navy Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran "have talked about possible P-8 [deployments] up to Adak. There are definite training uses, and there's definite ability to affect the National <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">Defense</keyword> Strategy with Arctic activity."<br /></span></p><p>The Navy and Marine Corps presence in Alaska is currently small, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marines-alaska-cold-weather-training-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">some sailors and Marines</a> stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, the latter personnel there as part of a reserve unit.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c17fa92e04d625219345795-803/screen shot 2018-12-17 at 23433 pm.png" border="0" alt="Navy Adak Island Alaska Arctic Ocean" data-mce-source="Google Maps" data-mce-caption="Adak Island hosted a Navy base until its closure in 2006. It now is the site of a commercial airport." /><p class="source"><span>Google Maps</span></p><p class="caption">Adak Island hosted a Navy base until its closure in 2006. It now is the site of a commercial airport.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>But as the military reorients itself toward a potential great-power conflict, focus has shifted to the Arctic, where Russian and Chinese <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tillerson-arctic-late-to-the-game-china-russia-2017-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activity has concerned US officials</a>.</p><p>Marines have been deployed to Norway on a rotational basis since the beginning of 2017, and Oslo recently said that it would ask the US to increase their numbers and move them farther north, closer to that country's border with Russia.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-nato-navies-in-arctic-circle-in-harsh-weather-for-trident-juncture-2018-11" data-analytics-position="5">The US Navy is pushing north, closer to Russia in freezing conditions - and it's planning on hanging around up there</a></em></strong></p><p>The Navy has also made moves toward higher latitudes, sending an aircraft carrier above the Arctic Circle for the first time since the early 1990s as part of NATO's exercise Trident Juncture, which took place in October and November. Navy officials have stressed that they intend to be more active in the Arctic going forward.</p><p>Neller has emphasized that his command is focusing on training for harsh conditions.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5ab2771fe2a73e18008b4621-1400/4208980.jpg" border="0" alt="US Marines Army Chinook helicopter winter snow Alaska Arctic Edge" data-mce-source="US Marine Corps/Sgt. Brianna Gaudi" data-mce-caption="Marines with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment disembark an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter after a simulated raid on Indian Mountain radar system as part of Exercise Arctic Edge 18 at Fort Greely, Alaska, March 12, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Marine Corps/Sgt. Brianna Gaudi</span></p><p class="caption">Marines with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment disembark an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter after a simulated raid on Indian Mountain radar system as part of Exercise Arctic Edge 18 at Fort Greely, Alaska, March 12, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In March, Marines joined soldiers, sailors, and airmen in Alaska for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-arctic-edge-18-us-military-preparing-war-extreme-cold-2018-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arctic Edge 2018</a>, where they trained "to fight and win in the Arctic," the head of Alaskan Command, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ken Wilsbach, said at the time.</p><p>A few weeks after that exercise, Neller told Sullivan during a Senate hearing that the Marines "have gotten back into the cold-weather business." In August, while traveling through Alaska with Spencer, Sullivan said that the Marine Corps was "looking at spending a lot more time in Alaska."</p><p>Adak Island is at the western edge of the Aleutian Islands. The naval facility, which was on the northern side of the island, took up more than <a href="https://dec.alaska.gov/spar/csp/sites/adak.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">76,000 acres</a> and was an important base for submarine surveillance during the Cold War.</p><p>The airstrip there has been in commercial use since the Navy shut down military operations in 1997.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c17f6683224ed4a6b602036-1400/4655751.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard Karl Schultz Navy Richard Spencer Dan Sullivan Nome Alaska" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Jetta Disco" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz, left, meets with Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, right, in Nome to discuss the construction of deep-draft ports in western Alaska, August 13, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Jetta Disco</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz, left, meets with Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, right, in Nome to discuss the construction of deep-draft ports in western Alaska, August 13, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Navy is currently grappling with operational and maintenance challenges brought on by more than two decades of continuous operations around the world - a situation that has been complicated by discussions of expansion and by uncertainty about its budget in the future as it builds new supercarriers and designs a new generation of ballistic missile subs that will carry nuclear warheads.</p><p>The Navy has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-p8a-poseidon-sub-hunting-aircraft-features-sales-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">already started returning P-8A Poseidons to Keflavik</a> in Iceland, where it had a base from the early 1960s until 2006, when it was shuttered.</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-p8a-poseidon-sub-hunting-aircraft-features-sales-2018-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Submarines are increasingly lurking in seas around the world, and the US Navy's high-tech Poseidon is there to hunt them</a></em></strong></p><p>The planes have been rotating through Iceland and aren't there permanently, though they were flying about <a href="https://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_811a3cb43409832a2d26c1f45173b8ff" target="_blank" rel="noopener">every other day</a> over the waters around Greenland, Iceland, and the UK - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-active-in-north-atlantic-but-russia-sub-activity-may-be-in-arctic-2018-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an important chokepoint for submarines</a> in the Atlantic during the Cold War.</p><p>Returning to Alaska would present an array challenges, according to Jeffrey Barker, a deputy branch head for policy and posture on the chief of naval operation's staff.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a256d68f914c35a018b7a77-1240/boeing p-8 poseidon .jpg" border="0" alt="Boeing P 8 Poseidon " data-mce-source="US Navy" data-mce-caption="US Navy crew members on board a P-8A Poseidon assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 man their workstations while assisting in search and rescue operations for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 March 16, 2014 in the Indian Ocean." /><p class="source"><span>US Navy</span></p><p class="caption">US Navy crew members on board a P-8A Poseidon assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 16 man their workstations while assisting in search and rescue operations for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 March 16, 2014 in the Indian Ocean.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"We want to be agile, but sustainability is key," Barker said at the beginning of December during <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-arctic-and-us-national-security" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a Wilson Center event</a> focused on the Arctic. "We don't really want to do anything if we can't sustain it, so that's a huge part of that, and the infrastructure to that."</p><p>"When Secretary Spencer went around Alaska, he was asked a lot of questions, and he asked us a lot of questions about how much would it cost to go back to Adak," Barker said. "He was shocked - gobsmacked is what he said - when the report that we gave him said $1.3 billion."</p><p><strong><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/s-korea-new-zealand-poised-to-buy-us-p-8-poseidon-sub-hunting-plane-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2 more US allies are buying the world's most advanced sub-hunting airplane, and that should concern China</a></em></strong></p><p>Barker said that Spencer clarified that he only wanted to use the facility "for a couple of weeks here and there," and when asked about the plan after the hearing on December 12, Spencer said the base was up to that task.</p><p><span>"The airstrip is in great shape," he <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2018/12/navy-looking-to-fly-p-8s-from-cold-war-era-base-in-alaska" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Breaking Defense</a>, which first reported his comments about a potential P-8 deployment. </span>Spencer added that the Navy may have to pay to clean up one of the hangars.</p><p><span>But the airport, he said, "has a fuel farm up there that Air Alaska is using to fuel its planes. It has de-icing platforms that we could use for fresh water washdowns for the P-8. They have lodging up there that is supposedly coming forward to us on a rental availability, so it really isn't a big bill."</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/isolated-towns-planet-alaska-egypt-norway-antartica-peru-australia-travel-2017-3">The most isolated towns on the planet</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/BHSGjo0h-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

The US Navy is thinking about sending advanced sub-hunting planes to Alaska to keep a closer eye on Russia and China

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c45fe712bdd7f2799347952-1400/4577745.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard cutter Bertholf Linda Fagan crew" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class David Weydert" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commanding officer of US Coast Guard Pacific Area, addresses the crew of Coast Guard cutter Bertholf, the Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team-West, and sailors assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Command 4 aboard the Bertholf in the Pacific Ocean, July 20, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class David Weydert</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commanding officer of US Coast Guard Pacific Area, addresses the crew and sailors aboard the cutter Bertholf in the Pacific Ocean, July 20, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The US Coast Guard has already missed one paycheck during the now 31-day-long government shutdown.</strong></li><li><strong>Amid the lapse in pay, the service is still operating, including a deployment to the Pacific for one cutter.</strong></li><li><strong>Around the country, Coast Guard families are trying to figure out how to pay for food, housing, and other expenses.</strong></li></ul><p>US Coast Guard cutter Bertholf left California on January 20 for a months-long mission in the Pacific to support US Indo-Pacific Command, the largest of the US military's geographic combatant commands.</p><p>Coast Guardsmen aboard the Bertholf left Alameda on the 30th day of what is now <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-government-shutdowns-in-congress-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the longest government shutdown in US history</a>. They left a few days after not getting their first paycheck since that shutdown started and without knowing when the next will come.</p><p><em>Read more: <span style="color: #000000;"></span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-families-feel-strain-with-1st-missed-paycheck-of-shutdown-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Red Cross is getting involved after the Coast Guard became the first military branch to miss a paycheck because of the government shutdown</a></em></p><p>"We're going to live up to the name national-security cutter. We're going to be doing a national-security mission." Capt. John Driscoll, the Bertholf's commanding officer, said in <a href="https://twitter.com/comdtuscg/status/1087190396663447553?s=21" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a video release</a>. "When we get underway, we're going to be working for the United States Indo-Pacific Command combatant commander, and we're going to be executing national-security operations throughout the Pacific."</p><p>Like other US military branches, the Coast Guard <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-families-feel-strain-with-1st-missed-paycheck-of-shutdown-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has continued operations</a> during the shutdown that began December 21. Some 41,000 active-duty Coast Guard personnel and about 1,300 civilian employees are still working.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c45fe022bdd7f281a782892-1400/4551732.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard cutter Bertholf crew captain" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class David Weydert" data-mce-caption="Capt. John Driscoll, commanding officer of the USCGC Bertholf, holds a navigational brief with his crew, July 10, 2018" /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class David Weydert</span></p><p class="caption">Capt. John Driscoll, commanding officer of the USCGC Bertholf, holds a navigational brief with his crew, July 10, 2018</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Unlike other military branches, which are part of the fully funded <keyword id="6354810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="defense">Defense</keyword> Department, the Coast Guard is part of the Homeland Security Department, funding for which was not approved before the shutdown, which was prompted by a dispute between President Donald Trump and Congress over money Trump wants for a wall on the US-Mexico border.</p><p>Many operations related to live-saving or national security, like the Bertholf's deployment, have continued, but other activities - routine patrols, safety boardings, issuance and renewal of licenses - have been curtailed.</p><p>The service <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/i-see-people-panicking-in-a-coast-guard-town-hardship-and-resolveamid-the-shutdown/2019/01/18/32706d5a-1b3a-11e9-8813-cb9dec761e73_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">didn't have funds</a> to send its latest boot-camp graduates, who graduated January 18, to their new assignments.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-caught-more-migrants-in-2018-but-now-working-without-pay-2019-1" data-analytics-position="6">After catching 5 times as many migrants off the West Coast in 2018, Coast Guard crews are working without pay - and retirees may be next</a></em></p><p>The Coast Guard and Homeland Security officials were able to move money around to ensure personnel were paid on December 31, but they are unable to repeat that maneuver, and the January 15 payday passed without a check for Coast Guard personnel.</p><p>"To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in our nation's history that servicemembers in a US armed force have not been paid during a lapse in government appropriations," Coast Guard commandant Adm. Karl Schultz said in a January 15 letter to service members.</p><p>If the shutdown lasts into late January, some 50,000 retired Coast Guard members and civilians will likely go unpaid.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c45fe022bdd7f25455cfd4a-1400/4701069.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard crew cutter Bertholf Alameda California" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Matthew S. Masaschi" data-mce-caption="Family and friends on Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf's flight deck to reunite with crew members after the cutter's return to homeport in Alameda, California, after a 90-day deployment, September 4, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Matthew S. Masaschi</span></p><p class="caption">Family and friends reunite with crew members on Coast Guard Cutter Bertholf's flight deck after the cutter's return to homeport in Alameda, California, from a 90-day deployment, September 4, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>Base pay for the more than 14,000 junior members of the Coast Guard who make up about one-third of the active-duty force is at or just below the poverty level, three retired Coast Guard master chief petty officers wrote in <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/01/18/retired-coast-guard-master-chiefs-washington-failing-our-service.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a January 18 op-ed</a>. "Most of these members do not have the resources to go without pay over any extended period of time."</span></p><p>Efforts to help and <a href="https://taskandpurpose.com/boat-captain-coast-guard-radio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expressions</a> of support for Coast Guard members and their families have sprung up all over the country.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-about-to-go-without-pay-due-to-government-shutdown-2019-1" data-analytics-position="8">The Coast Guard is about to miss a paycheck because of the government shutdown, but its members are still doing missions</a></em></p><p>In New London, Connecticut, home to the US Coast Guard Academy and <a href="https://www.apnews.com/5b79b0d25e8e4dfb9046f03623236ea5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">officially designated</a> as a Coast Guard City, residents have set up food pantries and spread information about other kinds of support. Local businesses have offered discounts, and utilities have waived late fees.</p><p>But city relies on the roughly 1,000 people in the Coast Guard's workforce there and the 1,000 cadets in the academy.</p><p>"The longer it drags on, the harder these impacts are going to be felt," <span>Mayor Michael Passero told <a href="https://www.apnews.com/5b79b0d25e8e4dfb9046f03623236ea5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Associated Press</a></span>. "It's going to start to drain public resources, and it's going to start to take away from our economic base at some point."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c45fe022bdd7f276746cc74-1400/4519001.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard cutter Bertholf Pacific Ocean" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Trees" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard cutter Bertholf on a counterdrug patrol in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, March 11, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Trees</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard cutter Bertholf on a counterdrug patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean, March 11, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In Kodiak, Alaska, residents <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/politics/coast-guard-government-shutdown.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rely on the Coast Guard</a> for economic activity and for support living and working in one of the world's most dangerous waterways, where fishing is a major enterprise.</p><p>Locals have donated fish and game to their neighbors. Some businesses are offering discounts to Coast Guard members and families; others are giving customers i.o.u.s instead of bills, according to The New York Times.</p><p>"I think it's important that the people in the faraway land DC understand what's going on in a small town," Mayor Patricia Branson <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/politics/coast-guard-government-shutdown.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told The Times</a>. "And how people are affected by all this nonsense."</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-arctic-freedom-of-navigation-exercise-polar-star-russia-2018-12" data-analytics-position="2">The Coast Guard turned down a request for an Arctic exercise out of concern the US's only heavy icebreaker would break down and Russia would have to rescue it</a></em></p><p>The Coast Guard itself has been able to offer some support.</p><p>In <a href="https://www.dcms.uscg.mil/Portals/10/2019_budget/CCG_All_Hands_Email_18Jan19.pdf?ver=2019-01-18-164008-340" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a January 18 letter</a>, vice commandant Adm. Charles Ray said Coast Guard Mutual Assistance, an <span>independent nonprofit charitable organization that serves the Coast Guard, had expanded limits for interest-free loans and that</span> all active-duty and civilian employees are now eligible.</p><p>Ray also said Coast Guard child-development centers "have deferred payment and suspended collection on delinquent accounts" for civilian and military members affected by the shutdown.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a6a3246178425e5228b45ed-1400/4095455.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard Juneau Alaska" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Jon-Paul Rios" data-mce-caption="Coast Guard Station Juneau crew members prior to man-overboard training in Alaska, January 24, 2018. Station Juneau conducted the drills in freezing temperatures to get new boat-crew members qualified." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class Jon-Paul Rios</span></p><p class="caption">Coast Guard Station Juneau crew members prior to man-overboard training in Alaska, January 24, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Ray's letter sounded a note of caution about housing, saying the Coast Guard was working with the Defense Department "to notify all privatized government housing sites that Coast Guard [basic allowance for housing] allotments will not be available until funding is restored."</p><p>"However, the government does not have the authority to suspend or delay payments for these privatized contracts," the letter adds. "We recommend providing the 'letter to creditors' available on the [Coast Guard] website to your housing manager that encourages flexibility until this situation is resolved."</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-operations-around-miami-and-in-the-caribbean-2018-12" data-analytics-position="4">We got aboard a Coast Guard chopper to see how they bust smugglers and save boaters in the crowded waters around Miami</a></em></p><p>Some measures have been introduced to Congress that would ensure funding for the Coast Guard despite the shutdown, but those bills still need to pass both houses and be approved by the White House.</p><p>A week before the Bertholf left Alameda, more than 600 service members, including 168 families, gathered there for a giveaway organized by the East Bay Coast Guard Spouses Club, with everything from fresh fruit to diapers.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c4601522bdd7f2bdd440933-1400/2547555.jpg" border="0" alt="Coast Guard Bertholf crew" data-mce-source="US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Loumania Stewart" data-mce-caption="Petty Officer 3rd Class Blake Gwinn, a maritime-enforcement specialist aboard Coast Guard cutter Bertholf, with his son Alex after returning from a 95-day deployment in the eastern Pacific, April 22, 2016." /><p class="source"><span>US Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Loumania Stewart</span></p><p class="caption">Petty Officer 3rd Class Blake Gwinn, a maritime-enforcement specialist aboard Coast Guard cutter Bertholf, with his son Alex after a 95-day deployment in the eastern Pacific, April 22, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>"It's worrisome. I have to put food in my family's belly," Coast Guard mechanic Kyle Turcott, who is working without pay, <a href="https://abc7news.com/society/coast-guard-families-receive-food-donations-during-government-shutdown-/5071519/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> at the Alameda event.<span></span></span></p><p>Alameda is homeport for four of the Coast Guard's 418-foot <a href="https://www.dcms.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/Assistant-Commandant-for-Acquisitions-CG-9/Programs/Surface-Programs/National-Security-Cutter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">national-security cutters</a>, which carry a crew of about 110.</p><p><em>Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-coast-guard-snipers-during-at-sea-drug-busts-2018-11" data-analytics-position="15">These photos show why the US Coast Guard's snipers are some of the best in the business</a></em></p><p>"I know it is hard for these crews to be leaving behind their dependents and spouses. It's a thousand times more so when everyone is wondering when their next paycheck will be and how they can support" family left behind, Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area, said in the video release.</p><p>"There's been an incredible outpouring of support for the families here in the Alameda region. The tension and the anxiety for the crew is real," Fagan said. "We stand by to help support those families that are left behind the same way that we're going to support the crew as they sail for the western Pacific."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coast-guard-boot-camp-military-basic-training-cape-may-new-jersey-2018-12">Inside the Coast Guard's 8-week boot camp where recruits go through extreme physical tests and brutal 'smoke sessions'</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/xyU5PtmA-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

You Searched For "Karl Schultz" and got 12 results

Paddlers are so mad Trump's visits to his Virginia golf course keep shutting down the Potomac River that they're suing the administration

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The Coast Guard's 'push-out-the-border strategy' is fighting drugs in the Pacific - and it just brought home $500 million in cocaine

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The Coast Guard is catching more drug-running subs, but most 'very stealthy' narco subs are probably going undetected

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The US military is warning that China's fishing boats are bullies and could start a war on the high seas

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The Coast Guard is catching record amounts of cocaine, and activity is growing around a smuggling hotspot

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Coast Guard members are about to miss their first paycheck due to the government shutdown, and communities around the US are trying to keep them afloat

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The Coast Guard turned down a request for an Arctic exercise out of concern the US's only heavy icebreaker would break down and Russia would have to rescue it

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Coast Guard crews are capturing record amounts of cocaine - here's how they chase down high-seas smugglers

Christopher Woody

Drug cartels make billions in the US, but somebody else is doing the selling

Christopher Woody

The US Navy is thinking about sending advanced sub-hunting planes to Alaska to keep a closer eye on Russia and China

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Unpaid Coast Guard members are deploying for a months-long mission in the Pacific - at home, their bosses are warning about their houses

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THE GLORY DAYS: How Andrew Mason And Groupon Rose To Incredible Heights

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