Sea Control - Sea Control 592: The US Coast Guard in the Aleutian Islands with Steven Hulse

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Links1. “Bases on the Aleutians Islands Would Project Power Across the Pacific,” by Steven Hulse, Proceedings, January 2025. 

Welcome aboard the Sea Control Podcast from the Center for International Maritime Security. I'm your host, Walker Mills, and today my guest is Commander Steve Hulse, a cutterman in the U.S. Coast Guard. We're going to discuss a recent article that he wrote for US&I Proceedings, Bases on the Aleutian Islands would Project Power Across the Pacific. Another reminder to the listeners, all the opinions here are our own and not reflective of any institution which we are associated. Steve, welcome aboard. Can you start just by introducing yourself a bit to the listeners and telling us more about yourself? Yeah, Walker, thanks for having me aboard today for this podcast. Really appreciate it. Like you said, career Coast Guard officer, career cutterman, served on four different cutters, and I've deployed around the world. I've been to the Caribbean, South America, the Western Pacific, Bering Sea, Arctic, and the Middle East.

So that's really my operational career. And I currently serve as the senior defense official at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados. And I'm accredited in seven island nations of the Eastern Caribbean. So we stay quite busy with a lot of travel and a lot of work in the region. That's awesome. And like we were talking about before, I've got a soft spot for Coast Guardsmen down in the Caribbean, having worked with some when I was in Columbia. But we're going to talk a little bit more about colder weather and colder climes today. Your article focuses on the Aleutian Islands, which I hope folks know where they are hanging off of Alaska.

but do you mind giving us kind of like a leveler where are they what's the history there uh and and and why are they important today yeah if it's if it's all right with you i'm gonna kind of give my own personal history real quick with the illusions and how that ties into my research into uh illusion islands history and you know i i was stationed in alaska for five years and and two of those were aboard the coast guard cutter alex haley and um sometime around 2016 um i read an article that was um written by general mattis and he basically said in the article it was it was a somewhat famous article and he said that um you know if you're a military officer and you're not reading hundreds of books you're functionally illiterate and he went on in

the article to explain about all the books he read you know based on places where he would deploy and and um and areas where he had to operate so i started looking for books about the illusion Islands since I was stationed there and about to do a Bering Sea Patrol. And I came across a book called The Thousand Mile War. And that really opened my eyes because it was about the U.S. and Japanese battles that occurred in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. And it was interesting, as I read the book, how many parallels there were to operating in the Aleutian Islands today. A lot of the challenges remain. So I kind of tied that into some Coast Guard history and the Coast Guard started patrolling the Aleutian Islands 150 years ago,

not long after the U.S. purchased that territory from Russia. So even to this day, the Aleutian Islands are so remote that some of the small villages that still populate the Aleutian Islands and then up into the Arctic as well on the mainland, the only interaction they have with the U.S. government is the occasional Coast Guard cutter that'll come in, you know, maybe once a year, maybe less. So that was really interesting for me to operate in that region, to learn about its history, and to understand the challenges that I would face, both with the logistics, the weather, and really the tyranny of distance as the Aleutian Islands are over a thousand miles from end to end, extending across the Pacific. Why do we think that these islands are particularly

important today? I mean, obviously they played a role in the Second World War, and like you said, the Coast Guard's been patrolling them for over 150 years. Why are we thinking about them now? During World War II, the Japanese saw the Aleutian Islands as their biggest threat because it was really a lily pad, a stepping stone across the Pacific for the Allied forces. If the, you know, if the United States wanted to invade Japan, that's where they thought was the most logical. And that's why the Japanese actually launched an offensive against the Aleutian Islands and ultimately bombed Dutch Harbor and also invaded the islands of Attu and Kiska. So and there were some pretty, you know, relative not known well to history, but some pretty intense battles that took place in the region, naval aerial battles and even even battles on Kiska and Attu during that war. And today, when we're looking at the Aleutian Islands and we're looking at projecting power across the Pacific, the geography still works.

So it still stretches a thousand miles in the westernmost Aleutian Islands that are part of Alaska, part of the United States homeland, are actually some of the closest territory that we have to the Pacific, to Taiwan, to PRC, and some of the other areas there, North Korea. So when we're looking at it geographically, it really is still strategic to this day. I'd like to ask about these Coast Guard patrols up there that you said you were part of on the cutter, the Alex Healy. When the Coast Guard is patrolling in the Bering Sea and in the Aleutian Islands, what kinds of things are y'all actually doing? Like, what is the day-to-day operations look like in that region? Yeah, so that particular region, a lot of what the Coast Guard is doing is search and rescue presence, right? So just by being out there and having an embarked helicopter, that gives us a lot of search and rescue capability going out pretty far out the chain. And then also fisheries enforcement, both domestic and then also international.

So as you push out towards the Western Aleutians and then north into the Bering Sea, we have our line with Russia. And obviously, we want to make sure that Russian fishing vessels and other fishing vessels from other countries that might try and work their way in up there are staying out of the U.S. exclusive economic zone. So it's a lot of fisheries, a lot of search and rescue, and also just projecting power, projecting presence in the region. I think it was in 2023 or 2022, there was a joint patrol of PRC and Russian warships that sailed through the Aleutian Islands. And part of the Coast Guard presence is to maintain U.S. presence on our far-flung territories as well. What steps do you think that the U.S. government or the Coast Guard or the U.S. military or other U.S. agencies should take to kind of capitalize on the strategic geography of the Aleutians or perhaps reinvest in our presence or in the region? And when you look at where it exists in the world, I think people don't realize as well sometimes that the southernmost Aleutian Islands are only roughly 51, 52 degrees north, which is similar in latitude to, say, London. So it's actually some of the southernmost parts of Alaska as it dips down across.

And what that means is that cargo ships traveling from California and Seattle up to across the ocean to Japan, to China, to Asia, they're passing either through the Aleutian chain, actually traveling north of it, or they're passing just south of the Aleutian chain. So from a strategic standpoint of global shipping, a lot of goods that travel from the United States to Asia are traveling either through the Aleutians or within a few hundred miles. so there's a vested interest there the other interest is as the North Sea route opens and traffic goes through basically the Arctic shipping route what we're going to see is more traffic coming south through the Bering Strait and then through the Aleutians as well so it kind of creates a crossroads there and if we have the crossroads of global trade that makes sense to have a naval base there and in ADAC we had a naval base until the mid-90s and I've actually had the chance to visit it more recently and uh anyone who's uh you know the few coasties who've

been out to adak before can attest that it looks a little bit like a zombie apocalypse movie now you have an old navy base big buildings hangars um old base housing and a lot of it is um completely uninhabited except for a small portion by a by a village that's there so um yeah there's a lot of old buildings. And it's kind of a shame that in the mid 90s, we decided to let that base go and not use it anymore. But strategically, it offers a deep water port that's well protected from the weather. It still has an operational runway there and 737 Alaska Airlines flight goes into the island once a week or so to bring supplies and for the few folks that travel in and out. So it still is capable to have a base there, they would just have to go in and rebuild it. And I

I think that's really the first step is having a naval base, an ADAC, and that would allow the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard to continue to project power throughout the Aleutian Islands. Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. I think, you know, just kind of looking at the geography on the map, it looks like a strategic area. And then like to your point about once you start overlaying sea traffic, sea lanes, and then also air traffic, right? I think if you fly the Great Circle route from a lot of places in Asia to the West Coast, you fly over the Aleutian Islands, though I'm a little cautious about suggesting too strongly that we need to reinvest in that base because it's probably one of the loneliest places you could get stationed. I mean, you spoke about it a little bit, but how long were you there, just stopping for fuel or food or something? Yeah, so we did a couple of port calls there, stopped for fuel. It's kind of a tough plate. You can't really get food there unless you pre-position it. So you fly it in ahead of time. Otherwise, you know, your stores, otherwise, you know, there's no, there's no supermarket there. So there is some logistical planning that has to go into that particular port call. But yeah, we were there for just a few days at a time during a patrol, getting out into the Western Aleutian Islands.

We also go to Dutch Harbor a lot in the Eastern Aleutians. And that has a lot more infrastructure there because there's a large fishing fleet based out of Dutch Harbor. And to a smaller extent, there's some commercial traffic that passes very close to Dutch Harbor because Unimac Pass is where commercial traffic going from Northern California and Seattle enters the Bering Sea. That's right next to Dutch Harbor as well. Obviously, that was made pretty famous and deadly as catch, that town, but there is some more infrastructure there. There's some pretty well-made piers there that the Coast Guard uses regularly, so that's usually the go-to stop. But sometimes we push west out to ADAC to either expand our search and rescue coverage or just to go out there and see what's going on. Sometimes you need to do that in the Aleutians. And then the furthest west islands, they're really remote, Attu, but there's still an airfield there that was built during World War II. And that was used successfully during World War II to actually, they had, bombers had enough range in World War II to bomb the Kuril Islands, very northern part of Japan.

So they actually ran some raids out of there. Once they retook Attu from the Japanese, they used it for raids. I think, you know, I'm not a, certainly not an aviator and I don't, can't speak too much on Air Force capabilities. But looking at the longest ranges of some of our strategic bombers and some of our, you know, B-52 and B-2, they could get pretty close to certain key spots in Asia from that base. And it's much closer than, say, Hawaii. Obviously, Guam's the closest, but if you look at some of the wargaming, you know, the kind of the published wargames for, you know, a Taiwan Strait scenario, they all show Guam getting bombed pretty early on in the campaign, as well as possibly bases in Japan and some

of our bases that are much closer to the engagement area. The Aleutian Islands, on the other hand, are considered part of the U.S. homeland and may not factor into that strategic calculus of what ends up getting attacked for fear of further escalation so there is that as well and uh and that ends up being the closest u.s homeland you know the actual state a u.s state that's the closest to asia is uh at two island and if the u.s government was going to kind of reprioritize the the illusions and uh invest in that strategic maritime terrain, if we want to call it that, what would roll with the Coast Guard play? I mean, do you imagine also a larger Coast Guard presence or a new Coast Guard station out

there or what, you know, we're talking some about like Department of Defense stuff. How would the Coast Guard fit, do you think, with the increased presence out there? Right. I think with the Coast Guard's role you know the biggest base that the Coast Guard has is actually in Kodiak Alaska which is a few hundred miles east of the start of the Aleutian chain right so Kodiak is pretty strategically placed southern Alaska but doesn't really project out the Coast Guard also has forward operating bases in Cold Bay which is very close to the start of the Aleutian so it's much further west than Kodiak. And they routinely will, you know, they keep, they maintain a hangar in Dutch Harbor. They maintain a hangar in the Pribilof Islands, which are actually north

of the Aleutian chain, working their way up towards the Arctic. And then they occasionally will fly as far west as Adak. And that's really to maintain search and rescue coverage. So if you're looking at rebuilding, you know, I think you would see maybe more infrastructure put in the dutch harbor kind of being a more of a forward operating base than it currently is if we had some kind of footprint there where it could operate a little bit more like kodiak you know that's a possibility you'd also need more ships more ship deployments to the region so typically they maintain one large ship in the bering sea at any given time and if you're really trying to um i guess turn the illusions into a way to project power and maintain it i think you would

see uh increased u.s coast guard carter patrols more frequent patrols out to the uh western tip out to add to out to kiska um they don't always make it that far because the search and rescue calculus not as many fishing boats are that far west so on its current mission they're really focused on search and rescue. If we were looking at it more strategically, if you had extra assets up there, you could keep one in the eastern Aleutians near the fishing fleets near Dutch Harbor, and then you could push one further west to really project power and keep an eye on what's going on out closer to the borders with, you know, with Russia and closer out to where some of our adversaries might try and operate. I would have to add, too, that the Coast Guard, I think, would

But also, if there was an increased DOD presence, I think you'd see the Coast Guard really act as a subject matter expert because they've been operating in the Aleutians for 150 years. They know the spots to hide from weather. The pilots out there have just been, I mean, their skill flying through these mountain passes in the Aleutians with icing, fog, is just tremendous. So I think there'd be a lot to learn from the Coast Guard, specifically in the Aleutian Islands. I know the Air Force works extensively on mainland Alaska. There's large bases there, but the Aleutians are kind of a much trickier and a much different climate. So I think that's another big role that the Coast Guard would play. yeah absolutely i mean i think the the navy has had some uh kind of episodic uh uh operations up there but you totally uh you're correct that the coast guard is much more of the enduring and and kind of permanent presence uh when we're talking about the bering sea and the illusions um i also want to ask about the challenges and obstacles out there i think we've kind of

uh mentioned a couple you know we've talked about fog and and the in the poor weather uh in the logistical remoteness um but i was wondering if you could kind of elaborate on on some of the challenges and obstacles to an increased presence up there um i'm wondering is is uh sea ice an issue uh or are we too far south for that is the is the poor weather seasonal or is it just bad weather, uh, all the time, uh, kind of things like that. What, what would prevent, uh, prevent us from increasing our operations up there? Yeah. I mean, you guessed it. The weather up there generally is awful. I mean, there's, there's really no getting around it. So, um, in the summer it warms up a little bit, but fog is the big problem, right? So in the summer, the sea

state might be down a bit. Um, you get the occasional sunny day, but at any given time, There's a fog bank lingering around somewhere in the Aleutians, and it's only a matter of time until it rolls over you. And then, you know, as you know, that can really affect operations, especially air operations. The winter can bring incredibly violent storms. We used to, you know, always joke around. We'd see these storms come in 60, 70, 80 mile per hour winds. And we joke around, you know, in the lower 48, this would be a named storm. And here it's just Wednesday.

That's the going joke that we would have up there, but it was the reality. So sea state obviously is a major factor. Icing in the winter is real. So if you get the strong north wind and you get colder air pushing in, it can get cold enough that it starts to ice. You get those issues. in those cases ships have to either tuck in behind an island and hide or turn down you know down sea and reduce the amount of sea spray they're getting on board because that obviously creates a lot of challenges with stability and safety for the crew

also another you know really strange obstacles that we have up there are volcanoes so volcanoes are frequently erupting in the Aleutians. There's a few active ones. So that creates challenges for aviation throughout the region. You have volcano eruption, you know, and then also seismic activity. So it's not uncommon to have

powerful earthquakes there. We even had the sortie of the cutter once for a tsunami warning in the Aleutians. I think it was a major, like a 7.9 earthquake just off the coast. And we had to get underway from a bay that we were in and get offshore to make sure luckily that one didn't generate a tsunami but the regions had them before so even seismic activity can be a factor up there and as you

can imagine if you built a brand new runway on one of these islands and you had a large seismic event eight or nine on the richter scale that could cause damage to infrastructure on base and delay operations as well. So there's certainly challenges, but I also think, you know, the Coast Guard's been operating out there for 150 years. We continue to operate out there to this day. We fly sorties regularly for search and rescue. You know, we see Coast Guard pilots rescuing people in the absolute worst weather imaginable up there. So when it comes to war fighting, we can look back to world war ii and see a lot of the same challenges and even with their technology at the time you know radar being in its infancy and not having obviously gps like we

have now those pilots were able to unfortunately with a lot of a lot of learning and loss along the way they were able to eventually operate safely in the region and obviously the japanese were able to attack, basically lead amphibious operations in the Aleutian Islands in the 1940s. They were able to bomb Dutch Harbor. And then the U.S. was also able to launch amphibious operations at that time to dislodge Japanese force from that region. So I do think despite the challenges and the costs. The geography really allows us to project power and to, you know, strengthen those bases would send a strong message to our adversaries that we would be able to fight a prolonged battle in the Pacific. And even if we lost some of our territories and some of our key

bases in Japan and closer to China and closer to North Korea, that we'd still be able to amount of response even from U.S. soil. Yeah, I think that's a really good point that, you know, even when we discuss the challenges, the challenges are not new. And the Coast Guard has, you know, a century and a half of experience operating up there despite the challenges. And then, like you mentioned, in the Second World War, there were fairly large engagements and complicated engagements with amphibious operations on both sides. So to me, you know, that indicates It's pretty clearly that the challenges from poor weather and icing and distance and logistics can be overcome. The benefits are there, and I think we probably agree that they are.

Steve, before we wrap up, I just want to kind of give you an opportunity. Are there any other final thoughts that you want to kind of leave us with as we close out? I think it's really interesting. my time in the Aleutian Islands certainly learned a lot. Operationally, it was very difficult out there, but I do think that operating in that region and dealing with those distance, you know, the logistical challenges, the distances that have to be overcome, the dangers for aviation and how to mitigate those, especially shipboard aviation where we're launching a recovering helicopter from the ship and making sure that despite storms that we're in parameters to get that helicopter back

because they might not have anywhere else to go. I think that really did help me operate in other places in the world. And now that I'm in the Eastern Caribbean in a role, obviously a little different, I'm not on the cutter now, but I'm seeing a lot of similar challenges in the Eastern Caribbean as I saw in the Aleutians. And obviously climate is not one of them, right? So vastly different weather, but the geography is very similar. So we have small volcanic islands that are geographically isolated long distances in between and um and a lot of the same issues that that you would see there are powerful hurricanes that come through this region saying the same way that the Aleutians are affected by strong storms and and also the uh Caribbean kind of forms an arc

around you know from basically from the mainland from Florida all the way to South America the same way that the Aleutian Islands create an arc that goes to the strategic choke point in the Bering Strait to lead to the Arctic. This creates an arc around another strategic choke point, which is the Panama Canal. So anything that's transiting the Panama Canal into the Caribbean Sea has to ultimately pass through the Caribbean Islands to get to its destination. So I think that's another interesting parallel between the two. And for that reason, I think the Caribbean, where I currently work, is also strategically important to U.S. national security, as I think the Aleutians are. Absolutely. Interesting parallels in terms

of the geography there. I think that's about all we've got time for today, but I'd like to thank my guest, Commander Steve Hulse, U.S. Coast Guard, for joining us to talk about the strategic importance of the Aleutian Islands. Steve, where, if anywhere, can the listeners find you online, and is there anything that you're writing about that we might see or look forward to in the future? Yeah, absolutely. So I have LinkedIn, so you can look for me on there as well. And then also for I kind of maybe hinted at it a little bit, but when I get a moment, when I get a breather here with this job and I have a moment to write, I do want to write about the strategic importance of the Eastern Caribbean to the U.S. and U.S. national security. I think

it's an area that's been especially the eastern caribbean has been a little bit overlooked and and i think it's an area where especially as we look at the new secretary of state marco rubio has already focused on america's first agenda and and did one of his first trips to central america and the caribbean going to dominican republic i'm hoping that the the timing for a piece on the eastern caribbean might be might be right so something i'll be working on next and hopefully i can find somebody that's that's willing to publish it awesome we'll look forward to that thanks again for joining us and to the listeners thanks for tuning in we'll see you next time

Thank you. We'll be right back.