An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

My Coast Guard

Subscribe to receive MyCG updates

Commentary | Aug. 5, 2025

How the Coast Guard is planning for the 2040s and beyond

By Zach Shapiro, MyCG Staff

The Coast Guard is making new strides in its efforts to prepare for the uncertainty of the future through the 2040s. Project Evergreen, the Service’s strategic foresight program, has released new reports and infographics of their findings in four areas of strategic risk for the Coast Guard: Space, Antarctica, Gray Zone Competition, and Seabed Safety and Security.  
 
Evergreen is chartered to highlight long-term risks and opportunities across many plausible futures using workshops, wargames, and strategic reports. These products and exercises help the Service challenge assumptions, think beyond conventional wisdom, and avoid failures of imagination. 
 
In 2024, Project Evergreen, led by the Office of Emerging Policy and Strategic Foresight (DCO-X), convened over 120 Coast Guard and interagency experts for a series of workshops, exploring multiple future scenarios set in the 2040s based on previous Evergreen research. This is what they found. 
 
Space
While the Coast Guard has supported U.S. space operations since the 1950s, recent technological advances have ushered in a new era of space domain exploitation opportunities. The forecasted growth in commercial and industrial activities like asteroid mining, on-orbit pharmaceutical manufacturing, orbital power generation, automated manufacturing, tourism, space-related search and rescue (SAR), and military operations will place new demands on the Coast Guard.  
 
This increase will also bring new threats that will impact launch and landing sites and essential space-based capabilities for Coast Guard and maritime industry operations. Evergreen experts assess that this new operational environment will force changes to space-related norms and governance. With more stakeholders at the table due to increased commercial and recreational uses of space, the Coast Guard may need to apply its maritime domain governance expertise to help meet U.S. national security needs in space. 
 
Antarctica
Looking to earth-bound challenges, Evergreen’s experts noted that partners and competitors are increasing their presence in the Antarctic region. This increased foothold—coupled with growing Antarctic tourism, scientific activity, and exploitation of Antarctic marine resources—will require additional investments in Coast Guard capabilities before the 2040s. Specifically, the Evergreen team assessed that the Service should build its capabilities in various areas in the meantime, including large-scale search and rescue (SAR), emergency logistics, medical evacuations, law enforcement, and domain governance. 
 
Gray Zone Competition
Also known as the spectrum of behavior between war and peace, gray zone competition can include aggressive vessel maneuvers, sabotage, electronic warfare, blockades, and other actions and methods. Evergreen’s experts foresee that by the 2040s, hostile activity in and near allied and U.S. waters, along with increased use of electronic warfare, cyberattacks, uncrewed systems, and non-lethal weapons would become more routine. The Evergreen team identified three key gaps in the Coast Guard’s ability to deal with these potential threats and challenges: lack of coordinated strategic communications and operational concepts that specifically address gray zone activities, insufficient maritime domain awareness in key areas, and inadequate cyber capabilities to address the evolving threats. 
 
Seabed Safety and Security
Undersea infrastructure and resources facilitate the world economy and the modern way of life—and will be a strategically competitive domain for intelligence gathering, digital monitoring, and gray zone tactics. To meet the growing demands of the global economy, potential exploitation of seabed mineral resources raises security concerns for critical infrastructure like cables and pipelines. These concerns include rapid developments in uncrewed underwater vehicles, which are increasingly capable of both inflicting damage to critical infrastructure and providing intelligence gathering opportunities for our adversaries. To mitigate these emerging threats and ensure seabed security, the Coast Guard will need refined authorities and capabilities. 
 
What’s Next 
This August, DCO-X will brief Coast Guard senior leaders on these findings and plausible threats—and what can be done. “We are creating conversations about what only the Coast Guard can and must do,” says Zachary Schulman, director of strategic foresight for the Coast Guard. “We’re going to confront these challenges, whether we like it or not.” 
 
In September, DCO-X in conjunction with the RAND Corporation, will issue final reports on each of the four strategic risk areas. These reports will define the risk areas and recommend courses of action for the Service to address these risks. DCO-X will also host follow on webinars to discuss these findings with interested members and stakeholders.  
 
Finally, starting in October, Project Evergreen will begin converting these studies into the first USCG operational concepts campaign as part of the Force Design 2028 team. Additional strategic games and reports will also be developed in preparation for the kickoff of Project Evergreen VII in October 2027, which will re-start the strategic planning cycle to scan for new future risks and opportunities in the 2050s.  
 
To register your interest in attending the upcoming webinars or participation in other Evergreen events, please contact DCO-X at strategy@uscg.mil

-USCG- 

 

Resources:  

In the News: