Audrey Oxendine, Fort Liberty’s energy and utilities branch chief, shows the base’s floating microgrid to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Vereen on July 28, 2023. U.S. ARMY
MERLE WEIDT
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is adapting to improve critical infrastructure resilience in an increasingly challenging threat landscape that includes a rapidly changing climate and enhanced adversary cyber capabilities.
Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), routinely emphasizes the capabilities of strategic competitors to attack U.S. infrastructure, particularly the People’s Republic of China’s growing cyber capabilities.
Also, climate change has significantly altered the 2022 Arctic Strategy to recognize the threats posed by environmental changes to military infrastructure. Responding to this changing threat environment, the DOD has significantly increased its critical infrastructure resilience efforts.
To protect North America, USNORTHCOM is prioritizing the resilience of critical infrastructure and critical defense installations. Critical infrastructure, such as power grids, communication lines and highways are vital to military missions, because their disruption could have a debilitating effect on national security, national economic security, or national health. Enhancing resilience — the ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies — is a pillar of the U.S. national security strategy.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is enforcing the strategic goal to improve infrastructure resilience by providing national guidelines and coordinating cross-agency efforts. While civilian critical infrastructure is managed by the DHS and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the DOD oversees defense critical infrastructure such as military base energy grids and military communications. The policies of NORAD and USNORTHCOM support DOD’s efforts to improve critical infrastructure resilience.
Hardening infrastructure
The U.S. government is taking significant efforts to modernize and enhance the resilience of civilian and defense critical infrastructure. One year into the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. has announced over $185 billion to fund 6,900 projects that will modernize and harden civilian infrastructure. According to the 2024 defense budget, the strategic shift to improve critical infrastructure resilience is reflected in planned spending of $39.5 billion to improve critical operational infrastructure and an additional $5.1 billion to increase resilience of military bases.
As outlined in their 2022 Strategy, NORAD and USNORTHCOM are aiming to “outpace our competitors” through innovative concepts and technology. Microgrids are a prime example. These small energy grids that supply a succinct geographic footprint can run independently from the centralized grid, reducing the impact of kinetic attacks or natural disaster. Recognizing the new technology’s resilience, the U.S Army will install microgrids on all Army bases by 2035, as formulated in their 2022 Climate Strategy.
Strengthening partnerships
Critical infrastructure is complex and includes 16 interdependent sectors whose governance and ownership are distributed among local, state, federal and tribal governments, as well as the private sector. At a roundtable discussion on August 22, 2023, at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, co-hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and USNORTHCOM, VanHerck emphasized the importance of partnerships, explaining that “the vast majority of U.S. critical infrastructure resides beyond DOD and other federal agencies … it resides with our local, state and commercial partners, which is why collaboration and information sharing is key.” As such, USNORTHCOM enforces a whole-of-government response that includes coordination with all levels of government but also strengthens private sector and community partnerships to provide a rapid and efficient response to disruptions in critical infrastructure.
Merle Weidt is a graduate student in International Security at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.