Critical Infrastructure Risk and Resource Allocation: Balancing Quality of Life, Readiness, and Resilience

Managing risk to defense-critical infrastructure is a key homeland defense mission. As the military prepares for great power competition, competitors increasingly seek to undermine, degrade, or attack U.S. critical infrastructure. What dependencies do military installations have on non-DoW-owned critical infrastructure, and what military assets will be required to recover from potential disruptions? To mitigate the likelihood and severity of these threats, the Joint Force needs new approaches and decision support tools to guide senior-leader decision making across time.

Given the Army’s and Joint Force's finite budgets for facilities, how should military leaders comprehensively assess risk to objectively balance investments in energy resilience against other critical infrastructure priorities, such as unaccompanied housing, child development centers, and mission-essential training facilities? This research should propose a framework or conceptual model that quantifies the operational readiness impact of infrastructure deficits in both areas. Ultimately, how can this framework allow senior leaders to make data-driven, defensible decisions on resource allocation that clarify trade-offs and balance immediate quality-of-life needs with the long-term strategic imperative of ensuring mission continuity during a catastrophic utility failure?

• Beitz, LT. Col. Kristin A., "Accelerate Change or Lose the Right Leaders: Childcare as a Readiness and Retention Tool," AF Fellows, 2021.
  • This study provides the empirical justification for balancing facilities budgets by demonstrating how Quality of Life (QoL) infrastructure deficits directly degrade operational readiness. The author presents data showing that a lack of adequate family support infrastructure, such as Child Development Centers, directly drives military readiness and retention deficits. Specifically, when installations lack the resources to provide flexible or 24/7 care options, it directly compromises operational performance, limits career progression, and undermines overall mission success. This data-driven framework establishes that QoL infrastructure deficits are not secondary concerns but are directly linked to the degradation of combat readiness, providing senior leaders with the defensible metrics needed to balance QoL investments against hardware-centric resilience.
• Bresil, Fabrizia, "Welfare or Warfare? Reassessing MWR Divestments and Military Effectiveness," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Answers the question by offering a strategic framework to balance immediate quality-of-life needs with the long-term operational readiness of installations. The study explores how divesting from non-mission-essential facilities (such as Category C recreational programs) to save short-term costs directly degrades troop morale, retention, and community cohesion. To mitigate these risks within finite facilities budgets, Bresil advocates for scenario-based planning and the adoption of resilience-based evaluation metrics. Rather than prioritizing projects based solely on revenue or direct cost, the framework quantifies the operational impact of facility deficits using indicators like behavioral health referrals, first-term airmen retention, and fatigue risk.  Furthermore, to bridge quality-of-life and strategic imperatives, the paper proposes investing in dual-use infrastructure—such as designing recreational parks and community spaces that can double as disaster shelters or environmental buffers during a catastrophic utility failure.
• Canfield, Capt. Michael E., "Contingency Basing for Great Power Competition," SOS AUAR, 2020.
  • This paper provides a conceptual framework for installation layout and resource allocation under tight facilities budgets, arguing that military planners must proactively trade efficiency for survivability and operational capacity. Rather than continuing to fund centralized, expensive installations that present enticing targets to peer competitors, the author advocates for transitioning to distributed, joint base campus layouts that integrate functional areas. Ultimately, the framework suggests that accepting lower contingency construction standards across a wider, resilient network of bases is a more fiscally sustainable and operationally relevant way to secure mission continuity and complicate enemy targeting during a conflict.
• Davis, Maj. Donald A., "Emerging Fronts: A Systematic Approach to Identifying and Addressing Homeland Defense Vulnerabilities," AFGC thesis, 2023.
  • This research examines homeland defense risk assessment, citing General Glen VanHerck's (Commander of USNORTHCOM and NORAD) statement to Congress that military leaders must make clear policy determinations on exactly which critical infrastructure to defend, and from what threats, given the advancing capabilities of peer competitors. To prioritize capital and resources systematically, the paper proposes utilizing Colonel John Warden III's Five-Ring Model to analyze the homeland as an organic system composed of nested subsystems (such as infrastructure, organic essentials, and leadership). This systematic framework allows planners to mathematically map how physical or cyber-attacks on civilian infrastructure propagate cascading, indirect effects onto fielded military operations, providing senior leaders with a structured methodology to allocate capital and innovate defense processes before a crisis occurs.
• DeMaio, Col. Douglas, "Electromagnetic Defense Task Force," Air University, 2018.
  • Comprehensively map the severe dependencies military installations have on non-DoD-owned civilian utility infrastructure (such as vulnerable commercial electric grids and custom-built power transformers that suffer from 18-month replacement lead times). To mitigate and recover from catastrophic utility failures, the task force introduces the Base Support Team (BST) concept, which provides installations with an immediate, low-cost, and low-manpower interim "first-responder" capability to sustain command post communications. Strategically, the reports recommend that the military institute mandatory, non-tradable EMP hardening standards for critical equipment, fund base-wide "black start" capabilities and codify "golden hour" standards and drills to optimize civil-military recovery operations post-event. This framework requires installation commanders to actively catalog and report all local civilian critical infrastructure dependencies, providing senior leaders with a clear picture of off-installation vulnerabilities to guide national-level resilience investments.
• Dombrowski, Lt. Col. Michael et al, "Lights Out: DoD's Role in Defending the Electric Power Grid from Cyber-Attack," AF Fellows (Kennedy School), 2014.
  • This study quantifies the military's extreme vulnerability to commercial utilities, revealing that the DOD draws 99 percent of its electricity directly from the civilian, privately owned electric power grid. The authors analyze the severe coverage gaps in domestic critical infrastructure protection and argue that the National Guard is the optimal military asset to defend and recover the grid during an emergency because Guardsmen possess the necessary local relationships, State Title 32 authorities, and civilian-acquired technical expertise to quickly transition from day-to-day security to active grid defense. Furthermore, to assist with recovery from worst-case utility disruptions, the paper recommends coordinating with Consequence Management Advisory Teams (CMATs) from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to leverage their deployable, task-organized technical expertise and hazard predictions.
• Dorsey-Spitz, Jenni S., "Safe from Stuxnet: Leveraging Air Force Cyber Expertise to Secure Industrial Control Systems and Critical Infrastructure," AFGC thesis, 2019.
  • This paper details the specific physical dependencies military installations have on non-DoD owned infrastructure, noting that bases rely on industrial control systems (ICS) for electricity, drinking water distribution, and the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units required to cool mission-essential data centers and server rooms. Highlighting a warning from Lucian Niemeyer, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, that the energy grids supporting military installations are unacceptably vulnerable, the paper argues that Civil Engineer (CE) squadrons currently lack the organic IT and cybersecurity (2210) expertise required to protect these critical systems. The author proposes a framework to balance and secure these installations by permanently embedding 2210 civilian cyber professionals within local CE units, establishing a hybrid manpower model that provides continuous monitoring and rapid, organic recovery capabilities rather than relying on delayed external support.
• Evans, Lt. Col. Joshua M., "Unrealized Risk: Why a True JADC2 Technical Environment Requires a Relearned Culture to Understand Cascading Interdependencies," AF Fellows (Idaho National Laboratory), 2021.
  • This paper addresses base vulnerabilities by highlighting how local climate crises—such as Winter Storm Uri—spotlight severe gaps in military base preparedness and expose the Department of Defense's (DOD) absolute dependency on non-DoD owned infrastructure to launch and operate platforms. To provide senior leaders with data-driven decision tools, the author outlines two powerful methodologies: Consequence-driven Cyber-informed Engineering (CCE), which trains personnel to think like adversaries and identify potential physical consequences of sabotage (such as physically breaking a 27-ton generator with a cyber effect); and Decomposition of Energy Assurance and Electrical Power Resilience (DEEPR) modeling, which maps critical hardware nodes directly to essential mission threads. Ultimately, the study recommends moving away from paperwork-heavy compliance checklists in favor of executing realistic, disruptive "black-start" utility outage exercises to expose hidden dependencies and teach operators realized risk. It warns that overinvesting in platforms while underinvesting in baseline infrastructure and the training of tactical personnel is a losing strategy.
• Jones, Steven M., "Guarding the Cyber Seams in Homeland Defense," SAASS thesis, 2024.
  • Addresses the homeland defense mission of protecting critical defense infrastructure, examining the federal and military frameworks used to manage and identify Task Critical Assets. Jones explains that military installations are highly dependent on domestic critical infrastructure, making cybersecurity and physical protection a complex challenge that spans local, state, and federal agencies. The study points to Government Accountability Office (GAO) findings highlighting systemic inconsistencies in how the Department of Defense identifies and maintains its Tier 1 Task Critical Asset List. These limitations underscore the necessity for military leaders to adopt standardized, reliable, and consistent risk-assessment methodologies to accurately identify non-DoD critical infrastructure dependencies and implement coordinated defense plans.
• Kave, Capt. Jacob et al, "Family Readiness," SOS AUAR 2025 slides
  • Kave answers this by proving that quality-of-life deficits are not isolated personal issues but direct operational vulnerabilities that compromise mission success and distract service members from focusing on their duties. He highlights CSAF General David W. Allvin's warning that establishing community connections before a crisis occurs is vital, showing that quality-of-life and family support structures must be integrated into operational readiness planning rather than treated as secondary priorities. By introducing data-driven solutions to mitigate emotional and logistical barriers to care, Kave's work provides military leaders with a clear framework to justify quality-of-life investments, showing they are necessary preventatives to avoid catastrophic readiness failures during periods of intense competition or deployment.
• Kroll, Maj. Steven J., "A Novel Solution to Power Generation on Austere Air Bases," AFGC thesis, 2024.
  • Addresses energy resilience and the long-term strategic imperative of ensuring mission continuity during catastrophic utility or logistical failures. Kroll explains that as near-peer adversaries develop sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities, traditional diesel-based power generation and fuel supply chains represent a critical operational vulnerability for military bases. To mitigate these threats and ensure self-sufficiency at austere or dispersed locations, the study investigates alternative, low-maintenance energy solutions. It proposes a multi-faceted energy strategy that combines immediate renewable solutions—specifically solar and wind power—with battery energy-storage systems and long-term investments in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) alongside pre-planned infrastructure. By implementing these self-sufficient energy solutions, military leaders can reduce the logistical footprint of installations, lower the burden of fuel resupply, and maintain global readiness under the most challenging conditions.
• Lane, Charles, "Optimizing USAF Asset Management," SOS AUAR, 2021.
  • Proposes a data-driven framework that models large-scale military facility sustainment as a constraint optimization problem. The paper explains how the Department of Defense can move away from traditional, subjective project-prioritization practices (such as the "squeaky wheel" or "worst-first" models) which often lead to inefficient overinvestment. By utilizing the existing BUILDER Sustainment Management System (SMS) database, which tracks hundreds of thousands of DoD facilities, an artificial intelligence model can analyze asset Condition Indexes (CI) and Mission Dependency Indexes (MDI) down to the individual component level. This AI-enabled framework can calculate an optimal project scheduling result that maximizes mission capability under strict budget constraints, allowing senior leaders to dynamically adjust priority rules—such as the relative importance of mission essentiality versus physical degradation—on the fly to make highly defensible funding decisions.
• Meadows, Anthony G., "No Magic Bullet: Comparing Cyber and Natural Disaster Disruptions to Critical Infrastructure in the 21st Century," SAASS thesis, 2023.
  • Examines installation dependencies on non-DoD-owned critical infrastructure by analyzing the cascading, interdependent vulnerabilities of civilian utility systems during catastrophic natural disasters and cyberattacks. Meadows uses historical events—including the 2021 Texas electricity grid crisis (Winter Storm Uri) and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack—to demonstrate how a single point of failure in commercial energy or power grids rapidly propagates across other critical sectors. The study explains that civilian critical infrastructures, such as electrical power grids, water networks, and sewer systems, are deeply interconnected and highly vulnerable to disruptions. Because military installations depend directly on these commercial partners for basic utilities, any disruption to civilian networks has a cascading impact that can compromise military operations, highlighting the urgent need for leaders to develop comprehensive, multi-sector risk mitigation and recovery strategies.
• Neate, Joshua, "A Method for Allocating Cyber Resources to Defend Critical Civilian Infrastructure," AWC SSP, 2019.
  • Provides a mathematically rigorous decision-support tool that senior leaders can use to objectively balance finite budgets across diverse critical infrastructure priorities. To solve the problem of allocating limited resources across competing systems, Neate proposes a framework utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to map and rank-order critical assets based on likely threat actor goals and the potential consequences of disruption. Planners can plot disparate infrastructure systems on an "Efficient Frontier" matrix—comparing the cost of active defense measures against key metrics like projected monetary damage or potential casualties. By utilizing this quantitative model, military leaders can make defensible, data-driven decisions on resource allocation, clarifying the exact trade-offs between different infrastructure investments to maximize the overall efficiency of homeland defense
• O'Connor, Maj. Jesse D., "Great Power Competition Demands Great Power Production: Bolstering DAF Energy Security for the Age of Electronic Warfare," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Directly addresses the strategic imperative of ensuring mission continuity during catastrophic utility failures by proposing a conceptual shift in energy assurance. It highlights that critical, electricity-dependent defense missions require a level of reliability that commercial, non-DoD-owned utility grids simply cannot guarantee. To guide senior-leader decision-making across time, O'Connor recommends utilizing the "5 Rs" of the Installation Energy Strategy—robustness, redundance, resourcefulness, response, and recovery—to systematically prioritize lethality and readiness over cost and environmental friendliness. This framework provides a clear operational justification for divesting from vulnerable commercial grids and instead allocating capital toward independent installation microgrids powered by Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and flow batteries, which ensure 24/7 mission survivability with a vastly reduced logistical resupply footprint.
• Schmitz, Samuel J., "Infrastructure Sustainment Warfare: Technology Integration to Keep Established Infrastructure in the Fight," AFGC thesis, 2024.
  • Addresses how military leaders can proactively manage risk and prioritize investments within finite budgets by arguing that military installations and their built infrastructure must be treated as critical weapon systems. Schmitz identifies significant gaps in current data management practices, noting that civil engineering units often use fragmented, unconnected information systems that prevent standardized decision-making. To enable defensible, data-driven resource allocation, the study recommends standardizing data collection and integrating advanced technologies to support proactive maintenance and risk-based decision-making. By utilizing these technology tools to systematically evaluate requirements, planners can establish a risk-based decision-making process that balances accepted risk against mission criticality. The paper also highlights RAND's research on competing analytical approaches designed to articulate the specific effects of infrastructure resourcing on military missions to inform the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process.
• Twyford, Cameron S., "Bridging the Gap: Innovative Approaches to Air Force Real Property Sustainment Project Execution," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Addresses the facility budget crisis by proposing a conceptual predictive analytics framework to manage the $200 billion DOD-wide deferred maintenance backlog and close the gap between infrastructure sustainment needs and execution capacity. To enable more agile, data-driven decision-making, Twyford advocates for the integration of Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and explainable AI (xAI) tools into civil engineering workflows. By repurposing existing project data and unstructured documentation, the proposed framework predicts construction schedule delays, identifies root causes, and optimizes resource allocation. This predictive approach directly supports strategic objectives by shifting civil engineering from reactive to proactive project management. Ultimately, this framework provides early warning signals at the planning stage, allowing senior leaders to make data-driven, defensible decisions on resource allocation that ensure mission continuity.
• VanDelist. Brian, "Improving Air Force Installation Resiliency for Great Power Competition: A Case Study of Vandenberg Space Force Base," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Examines installation resilience and underscores how critical utilities and civil engineering infrastructure directly enable military readiness and power projection capabilities during catastrophic failures. Drawing on the Air Force Infrastructure Investment Strategy (I2S), the paper emphasizes the strategic mandate to modernize, right-size, and realign aging facilities to ensure they function as secure power projection platforms. VanDelist highlights historical catastrophic disruptions, such as major wildfires, that severely damaged local power, sewer, and water systems, thereby threatening the continuity of mission-essential operations. The study argues that proactively addressing these utility vulnerabilities and prioritizing operational energy resilience is a decisive strategic factor—often acting as the "margin of victory" in great-power competition.