ORGANIZATION

FORCE DESIGN 2028

EMPOWERING THE COAST GUARD TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE HOMELAND

The Coast Guard must be able to conduct its missions and deliver results without being mired in wasteful bureaucracy. Creating a Secretary of the Coast Guard presents an opportunity to reform the Service’s organizational structure to become more efficient, enabling a leaner, more agile, and strategically focused Headquarters. 

FD2028 initiatives will streamline processes, eliminate redundancies, and empower decision-making at all levels. These changes will also restore clear lines of responsibility, authority, and accountability in officials leading operations, support, and other enabling functions. 

Key Initiatives Include: 

  • Design the future Coast Guard force to win
    The Coast Guard requires a force structure, force posture, and operational concepts to field mission-capable, world-wide deployable assets to protect the U.S., and defeat or deny terrorists and criminals that seek to flow illicit drugs, weapons, and aliens across our border and kill the American people. To do so it will embrace strategic planning, foster experimentation, develop new operational concepts, and improve decision-making through the stand-up of a Futures Development and Integration function. 

     

  • Create Program Executive Offices that fully integrate capabilities
    Sharpen readiness by transforming from the current stove-piped and disparate acquisition and sustainment across disconnected capability programs into a systems-focused approach that breaks barriers and ensures integration of capabilities into a far more effective force. Implement a comprehensive lifecycle management approach for all assets through the transformation to five Program Executive Offices (PEOs)—Surface, Air, C5I, and Shore, and a revolutionary Robotics/Autonomous Systems business line that will be the most transformational enhancement of capabilities to the Coast Guard since the inception of aviation.

     

  • Establish a Deployable Specialized Forces command
    Prior efforts began functional alignment of Deployable Specialized Forces under Area commanders but left the work unfinished. The Coast Guard will functionally align Deployable Specialized Forces under the command of a Flag officer that reports to a single Area commander. This ensures full integration under a single operational commander with oversight and advocacy for this critical national capability. This action will improve readiness, mission effectiveness, and interoperability with joint and interagency forces to meet Coast Guard, DHS, and joint military requirements. 

  • Strengthen Coast Guard Cyber Command
    The Coast Guard will restructure and transform Coast Guard Cyber Command to ensure the Coast Guard’s ability to address current and future threats in the cyber and space domains. This aligns with other military services and improves interoperability with the Joint Force. 

  • Transfer operational and service-delivery functions out of Coast Guard Headquarters
    Removing non-headquarters personnel and functions from the St. Elizabeth’s campus to other established locations will enable a more decisive, agile, and effective Coast Guard. 

     

  • Establish a Director of Staff to streamline decision-making
    The Coast Guard will end its practice of peer governance that for too long has been slow, bureaucratic, and indecisive. The Service will establish a Director of Staff who will be responsible for oversight and direction of the executive decision-making process, pushing decisions down and information up and, in coordination with the new Secretariat, ensure integration of key actions and initiatives.