A pair of Center for Homeland Defense and Security Master’s Program alums spent more than two years taking on a kind of modern-day equivalent of the Pirates of the Caribbean.
U.S. Coast Guard officers Joshua Gilbert (Master’s cohort 1801/1802) and Scott Troutman (Master’s cohort 1103/1104) were chosen to work on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security joint task force charged with degrading transnational crime in the Caribbean basin, especially drug and human trafficking, as well as humanitarian efforts such as irregular migration by “integrating and aligning activities to detect, deter, and defeat” maritime threats and emerging national security threats to the U.S. using a comprehensive approach acknowledging the interconnectedness of port, regional, and national security.
While serving for more than two years on Joint Task Force-East starting in 2022, Gilbert and Troutman participated in an effort that bound together interagency and Caribbean-area international partners from Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, and others to engage in a series of successful operations to interdict illicit firearms and ammunition trafficking, drug smuggling, and illegal migration (see photos).
In September 2023, DHS components including the joint task force in partnership with Caribbean law enforcement partners initiated Operation Hammerhead, which at last count had reviewed more than 910,000 Caribbean-bound U.S. exports, referring more than 5,400 with some level of risk, and supported 34 firearms trafficking investigations, seizing 339 firearms, 40 magazines, and 26,495 rounds of ammunition.
In addition, the joint task force participated in Operation Sentinel Watch, which resulted in the seizure at last count of more than 25,000 kilograms of cocaine valued at $768 million, and the interdiction of 249 people attempting to illegally migrate to the U.S. by sea.
For its efforts, the joint task force received a unit award earlier this year.
Gilbert credited his CHDS education for “playing an important part” in preparing him to serve on DHS Joint Task Force-East, and for helping inform his efforts regarding creation of a Maritime Mass Migration Risk Assessment Model and advancing the Eastern Caribbean Regional Campaign Plan by “leveraging my CHDS-developed skill sets.”
Noting that most U.S. Coast Guard personnel assigned to the task force “are in a payback tour” for attending a joint U.S. Department of Defense, Command and Staff College, Gilbert said he “firmly believes that the education and skills I gained at CHDS prepared me to work across various DHS components and international partners, potentially better than a DOD program might have” while assigned to the task force.
“It is a DHS joint task force after all, and I continually advocate for CHDS every chance I get,” Gilbert said.
Meanwhile, Gilbert said his CHDS education also provided him with knowledge, gained from the critical infrastructure and emerging technologies courses, to develop the Maritime Mass Migration Risk Assessment Model. This model examined multiple key factors that would signal an unsustainable increase in maritime migration activity, necessitating a DHS response shift.
And he said the Eastern Caribbean Campaign Plan benefited from another CHDS concept. The mission model canvas—the ability to quickly pivot when receiving stakeholder feedback—to “pivot from surge operations to an enduring campaign approach,” and “from a command-and-control support model during surge operations to focusing efforts on building an unclassified information-sharing process and platform to support an enduring coalition.”
Gilbert called the Eastern Caribbean coalition a “team of teams,” which he said is a concept and term widely used by the joint task force and which he was first introduced to at CHDS through a book titled Team of Teams by Gen. Stanley McCrystal. He said McCrystal’s approach to building a coalition to counter Middle East terrorism was similar to the approach the joint task force used to counter transnational criminal organizations across the Eastern Caribbean.
Gilbert said he feels indebted to CHDS for the opportunities he’s had and the skills he’s brought to bear.
“CHDS is one of best things I’ve ever done and I’m an incredibly strong advocate for the program, for getting people through that education and how that education can pay dividends back into the homeland security enterprise,” he said.
Gilbert has since moved on to serve as the Operations Department Head for U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Force Protection Unit – Kings Bay in Georgia, which supports the U.S. Navy’s efforts to provide anti-terrorism and force protection for Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, while Troutman continues to serves as the Joint Task Force’s Deputy Intel Section Chief.
Finally, Gilbert noted that Congress just recently approved S.4698, the DHS Joint Task Forces Reauthorization Act of 2024, which reauthorizes the DHS Secretary’s authority to establish and operate joint task forces.
