May 23, 2025: Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. Coast Guard has ceased arming its larger cutter type ships with missiles. In the 21 ^st Century the growing threat of the Chinese navy and merchant marine found the American Coast Guard unable to deal with Chinese warships and the majority of large commercial ships built in China and operated by Chinese firms. The U.S. Coast Guard will have to deal with the Chinese ships in the Pacific as they had to deal with Iranian threats in the Persian Gulf for the last three decades.

Meanwhile the Chinese Coast Guard has received larger and more heavily armed ships than its American counterpart. Over the last decade the Chinese Coast Guard has received over a dozen new patrol ships. These are vessels of 1,000-3,000 tons displacement with relatively small crews but lots of storage space and not many weapons. Coast guard ships are not usually heavily armed but the Chinese ships are increasingly being seen equipped with water cannons, extra searchlights and equipment for grappling with other ships. These tools are used to interfere with foreign fishing ships and transports that go to parts of the South China Sea that China has declared Chinese territory, even though other nations have a stronger legal claim. Using water cannons, bright searchlights to blind the crews of other ships and aggressive maneuvering to include grappling with smaller foreign ships and forcibly moving them the foreign ships are persuaded to back off. The Chinese coast guard vessels also use these tactics against foreign warships and if the foreigners shoot back the Chinese can declare themselves the victims of an unprovoked attack and call in more fire power.

Current American Coast Guard ships are limited to 57mm guns and half a dozen or so 7.62 and 12.7mm machine-guns. Two decades ago the Coast Guard's National Security Cutters were armed with a 57mm gun not used by the navy. The Swedish designed EX-57 Mk 3 was already in use by the Canadian Navy and 14 other countries. The Mk 3 has been in use since 1998, but the Mk 1 first entered service in 1966. The Coast Guard uses the 57mm gun for warning shots, and stopping or destroying small boats. For a long time, Coast Guard cutters carried a 76mm gun. But this proved to be too large for the targets typically encountered.

That was then, but in the Pacific a 76mm gun and a few anti-ship missiles are needed to persuade the Chinese to behave or at least reconsider their current misbehavior towards foreign ships. Currently it is mainly Filipino ships seeking to bar Chinese ships from regions of the South China Sea that, by law, are controlled by the Philippines. Over the last century the U.S. Coast Guard sent its ships overseas to provide port and coastal security in war zones that were leaning towards conflict. That describes the Western Pacific today.

Once China has driven the Filipinos out of the South China Sea, they plan to extend their control from their coast all the way to the Persian Gulf. Nearly half the world’s maritime trade passes through these waters and major trading nations look to the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard for protection. The American navy can do its job but the U.S. Coast Guard is under equipped for the task. Actually, the navy has problems with a shortage of ships and adequate ship maintenance. South Korea and Japan are rapidly expanding their naval forces, but that won’t be enough to dissuade the Chinese, who will soon have the largest navy on the planet.