Naval Coastal Warfare (United States)

The Naval Coastal Warfare Community is a component of the United States Navy, part of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC). The Navy's Maritime Expeditionary Security Force (MESF) is the main combat unit assigned to Naval Coastal Warfare (NCW).

The NCW mission is to protect strategic port facilities and strategic commercial shipping and naval ships in harbor approaches, at anchorages and in ports, from bare beach to sophisticated port facilities, in order to ensure the uninterrupted flow of cargo and personnel to the combatant commander. NCW operations protect these assets from waterborne threats. These operations occur in coastal areas outside the continental United States (OCONUS), in support of national policy, and are referred to as NCW expeditionary operations, and within the United States (US) as part of this nation’s homeland security (HLS) and homeland defense (HLD).

The modern naval coastal warfare community was created in the early 2000's due to the bombing of the USS Cole and was under the Maritime Force Protection Command as Naval Coastal Warfare Groups. The Navy created the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command placing Naval Coastal Warfare Groups under it in 2006, also in 2006 the Navy stood up a Riverine Group. In 2012 the Navy merged Naval Coastal Warfare Groups and the Navy Riverine Group calling them the Coastal Riverine Force (CRF). In 2020 NCW underwent a major overhaul and transitioned units to the Maritime Expeditionary Security Force (MESF) as the Navy had dropped riverine operations, turning that mission over to the US Marine Corps. The units that were affected by this change ranged from Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Units to Inshore Boat Units.