Waesche was commissioned in 2010, the second ship in the Legend Class, the Coast Guard's largest offshore maritime cutters at 418 feet long. It can hold a crew of nearly 150 and is used for maritime fisheries patrols, migrant and drug interdiction, search-and-rescue operations, and law enforcement.

The South China Sea is the linchpin of modern Indo-Pacific relations. As the United States and China remain locked in a Great Power Competition, regional autonomy in the South China Sea has become a s