Admiral Thad Allen on the Tyranny of the Present

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen gave a stirring breakfast keynote on what he termed "The Tyranny the of Present" -- all of the decisions that we make in the pressure of the moment that have serious, long-term consequences. Admiral Allen said that government needs to operate with "strategic intent," where short-term decisions are evaluated for the long term consequences. As he pointed out, the absence of a deliberate strategy is still a de facto strategy.

Here are some additional highlights from Admiral Allen's keynote:

Strategy is often the way federal leaders operationalize laws and mandates. Too often, goals and strategies are created after the budget resources are figured it out—it should be other way around.

We are entering a new era of fiscal restraint and, in an environment of scarcity, strategy becomes even more important.

To define your strategy you need to focus on your mission – for the Coast Guard, it is to help save lives, interdict drugs, and protect ports. On the Coast Guard’s mission:

- There are more than 95,000 miles of navigable waterways for which the Coast Guard is responsible. There are 360 commercial ports. Ports are valuable, and ports are vulnerable. We cannot protect the entire shoreline, so the Coast Guard’s strategy is to develop a layered defense to deal with problems as far from the border as possible. For example, if there’s a problem with a container, you want to deal with it at the origin country.
- Our goal is to be a model maritime security regime for water-bound states.

On leadership: A leader’s role is linking vision to action. It is not planning. Plans have dates, and once you put a date on a plan it becomes shelfware.

More: Transparency of information breeds self-correcting behavior.

For the Coast Guard’s managers, mission execution and risk management present the most compelling demand. The elements of risk are threat, vulnerability, and consequence, and the Coast Guard uses a model to evaluate proposals, resources, etc.

Allen stated that the container problem will eventually be solved through technology.

In Q & A, Allen addressed the question of integration at the Department of Homeland Security. He identified two critical macro issues:
- Functional integration of business processes (e.g. human capital, financial management), managed by the CXOs of the agency—the Chief Financial Officers, Chief Information Officers, etc. CFO, CPO (CXO). After the initial pains of the start-up, this is now moving at a brisker pace.
- Mission integration: how the different units integrate their individual missions can be a more difficult challenge. DHS has a joint staff that is hammering out procedures to operate together.

On the Coast Guard’s relationship with the Navy:
- The Coast Guard-Navy relationship has never been better. We are developing the national fleet concept, looking at the entirety of the Navy and CG capabilities for commonalities. For example, we have cutters with same deck gun.
- The goal is not for Coast Guard to be the world’s second best Navy. We have the world’s best Navy and the world’s best Coast Guard.

On Coast Guard recruitment:
- The Coast Guard is having no trouble making absolute recruiting numbers.
- Last year set post-WWII retention record, and attrition is at a 20-year low.
- Big challenge is to increase diversity.
- Diversity is also an operational readiness issue.