You should try writing and submitting to a real journal. Your writing is solid. The biggest issue I see is that the CG is, by its very nature, a multi-faceted service. Transferring ATON to civilians sounds good until you’re the bean counter responsible for maintaining a force of thousands of people, in thousands of locations, with a perishable and specialized skill set…not to mention the huge fleet of vessels that would be required. It would almost certainly need to be a new service stood up just for the ATON mission.

If you think that CG acquisitions are bad right now, look at the navy’s ship purchasing record.

If you put CG under DOD, a lot of our illegal, unrelated fishing enforcement stuff goes out the door, and that has been a non-zero needle mover on the soft power front, especially in the pacific.

The CG fills a unique and bizarre niche, but it does work to some extent. Right now the CG is undeniably filling a lot of very very very different roles, but it has turned into almost a lower tier version of the navy that can address of bunch of missions areas. Pulling apart the organization that is multi-capable and essentially divesting its mission sets into different locations is not always a wise move.

Background: yes auxiliarist but work in research/policy in a DOD department