USCG Project Evergreen V: Compilation of Activities and Summary of Results

Abstract

This report documents support by RAND Corporation's Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) to the U.S. Coast Guard's Evergreen strategic foresight activity from July 2018 to July 2022. The report is a compilation of both Coast Guard and HSOAC activities, products, and jointly developed reports. The Evergreen Project has been a team effort consisting of staff from the Coast Guard Office of Emerging Policy (DCO-X), a core group of Coast Guard subject-matter experts (SMEs), and HSOAC researchers. The objective was to help the Coast Guard identify relevant topics, issues, areas of opportunity, and potential challenges that the service will likely face in the coming decades and to provide those to the transition team for the next commandant for consideration, thus posturing senior leadership to better bridge the gap between future challenges and near-term plans, which typically focus on the urgent needs of the present.HSOAC analysts reviewed prior Evergreen activities, examined Coast Guard strategy-making and planning processes; adapted an approach for developing scenarios; narrated a set of exemplar global planning scenarios; supported workshops targeting diverse sets of SMEs; assisted with planning, facilitating, and capturing outputs from ideation exercises with target cohorts of service participants; published short documents on notable topics of interest identified during workshops; and aided the service in developing requirements and planning for a series of strategic games 1 to test new concepts of operations, set in specific future global scenarios. The series of focused workshops in the third year emerged from program engagements with the service's senior leadership, who provided the subject material and helped guide the team. 2 This research was sponsored by DCO-X and conducted within the Strategy, Policy, and Operations Program of the HSOAC federally funded research and development center (FFRDC). About the Homeland Security Operational Analysis CenterThe Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Section 305 of Public Law 107-296, as codified at 6 U.S.C. AO 185) authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, to establish one or more FFRDCs to provide independent analysis of homeland security issues. RAND operates HSOAC as an FFRDC for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under contract HSHQDC-16-D-00007. The HSOAC FFRDC provides the government with independent and objective analyses and advice in core areas 1 A serious game is one used for training or analysis, not entertainment, whereas a wargame is often focused on conflict. 2 The team consisted of USCG DCO-X staff, RAND/HSOAC researchers, diverse select cohorts of Coast Guard active-duty and civilian SMEs, and select senior leadership from the service's flag corps who helped guide the team. iv important to the department in support of policy development, decisionmaking, alternative approaches, and new ideas on issues of significance. The HSOAC FFRDC also works with and supports oth...