U.S. Coast Guard deploys fast-response cutters to Pacific

FORUM Staff

Reassigning six United States Coast Guard fast-response cutters to the Western Pacific enhances the service’s posture in a vast maritime region illegally and aggressively claimed by China.

The Sentinel-class ships were based in the Middle East for more than 20 years, providing security, protecting infrastructure, and intercepting arms and drug shipments. Now collectively designated the service’s Expeditionary Cutter Squadron, they operate out of Singapore and the Philippines, by invitation of the host countries, and within the U.S. Pacific Command’s area of operations, conducting cooperative maritime activities such as enforcing fishing regulations, executing drug interdictions, inspecting vessels’ seaworthiness and enhancing interoperability with Allies and Partners.

The ships will remain in the region at least through September 2026, the U.S. Navy reported. The Coast Guard plans to deploy the squadron as needed to global hot spots.

“Coast Guard forces have always adapted to meet urgent national needs,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard commandant. “The Expeditionary Cutter Squadron enhances the Coast Guard’s ability to deploy our forces in support of combatant commanders and national security objectives,” he said, highlighting the service’s “uniquely capable maritime assets.”

The squadron will complement a fleet of three — and soon to be five — Sentinel-class cutters based in the U.S. territory of Guam. The squadron’s arrival enables the Coast Guard to conduct engagements in the wider Indo-Pacific, where one or two larger cutters previously were stationed annually.

China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea, a vital international trade route, despite an international tribunal’s ruling in 2016 that invalidated Beijing’s expansive assertion. In a case brought by the Philippines, the panel found no legal basis supporting China’s contention of historic entitlement to the sea.

Beijing has increased its coast guard presence to press its arbitrary claims. Its ships have rammed, blocked and fired water cannons at other nations’ government and fishing vessels operating lawfully in their internationally recognized exclusive economic zones (EEZ). The China Coast Guard increasingly integrates with Beijing’s naval forces and its maritime militia of fishing boats that perform missions falling short of direct military action.

Tensions surged in the South China Sea in July 2026 when Manila accused the China Coast Guard of firing water cannons at Philippine vessels delivering fuel and provisions to fishermen near Scarborough Reef, within the Philippines’ EEZ. During a confrontation days earlier at Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, also within the EEZ, a Philippine service member sustained a head injury after being struck with a baton by a China Coast Guard member.

The Scarborough Reef incident occurred while Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. conducted a Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity in Philippine waters.

The U.S. Coast Guard will coordinate the Expeditionary Cutter Squadron’s command and logistics from Singapore and rotate vessels through Subic Bay, on the Philippines’ Luzon island, the defense analysis firm Janes reported. The squadron’s fast-response ships include the Robert Goldman, Glen Harris, Charles Moulthrope, John Scheuerman, Clarence Sutphin Jr. and Emlen Tunnell.

The squadron’s assignment marks the first time the Coast Guard’s 46.9-meter cutters have operated out of Subic Bay, The Wall Street Journal reported. Deploying the squadron to the Pacific allows the U.S. to operate “on a broader spectrum than would be the case if it was only using the U.S. Navy,” Euan Graham, a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, told the newspaper.

Since arriving in the Indo-Pacific, the ships have enhanced interoperability, strengthened strategic partnerships and advanced shared security objectives, the Coast Guard stated. The Emlen Tunnell conducted a live-fire exercise in the South China Sea in June 2026 before joining the Charles Moulthrope and Philippine Coast Guard and Navy vessels for sea drills that month. The cutters and their crews engaged in July with the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Thai Navy at the Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training exercise in Sattahip, Thailand, and the Gulf of Thailand.

“These operations reflect a long-standing commitment to a free and open Pacific and support a region where all nations, large and small, can operate freely, safely, and lawfully at sea,” the Coast Guard stated.