Homeland Defense Concepts

Managing risk to defense-critical infrastructure is a key homeland defense mission. Recognizing that competitors and adversaries seek to undermine, degrade, or attack U.S. critical infrastructure, key questions include: How can adversaries hold U.S. critical infrastructure at risk? What warnings and indicators are associated with potential attacks on critical infrastructure? What capabilities can the Joint Force employ to make critical assets more resilient? What dependencies do military installations and defense critical infrastructure have on non-DoD-owned critical infrastructure? What capabilities can the Joint Force employ to protect non­ DoD owned critical infrastructure? What military assets will be required to recover from potential disruptions to critical infrastructure that enables military operations? These should propose affordable approaches to mitigating the likelihood or severity of potential threats.

• Arbuckle, Lt. Col. Alissa, "Access to America through the Southern Border: A Foothold in the Great Power Competition," AF Global College thesis, 2025, 40 pgs. 
• Bond, Maj. Cash, "Redefining the Cyber Edge: Operational Technology Should be Foundational to Cyber Training Pipelines," AF Fellows, 2025.
  • Bond addresses this by emphasizing that the DoD is heavily reliant on commercial civilian utilities—such as public water, gas pipelines, and electrical grids—that are currently under constant attack by adversary nations exploiting weak, interconnected OT networks. He points to the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack as a prime example of how an IT breach can shut down OT physical processes, effectively crippling critical supply lines. To manage this dependency risk, Bond asserts that the military must align with national strategies like CISA's 2025 National Infrastructure Risk Management Plan, proactively share technical information with commercial utility providers, and build unified incident response plans that treat IT and OT as converged, interdependent domains.
• Cody, Maj. Andrew, "Fire the Duty! The Efficiency Imperative for Improving the Marine Corps' Interior Guard Program," AFGC thesis, 2024, 37 pgs. 
• Farmer, Lt. Col. Christopher M., "What Benefits, If Any, Are Accomplished with the Air National Guard under the Primary Control of the Department of Homeland Security?" GCPME Thesis, 2020, 37 pgs. 
• Feldhausen, Maj. Lee R., "Constitutional War Powers: 18th Century Framework for 21st Century Warfare," AFGC thesis, 2024, 58 pgs. 
• Hulshizer, Lt. Col. Eric D., "Every Wallet A Target: Fusing Financial and Military Targeting in Strategy for the Decisive Decade," SAASS thesis, 2024, 115 pgs. 
• Jones, Steven M., "Guarding the Cyber Seams in Homeland Defense," SAASS thesis, 2024, 97 pgs. 
• Kearns, Maj. Catherine A., "Pay Now or Pay Later: Defending US Critical Infrastructure from Russian Cyber Attacks," GCPME thesis, 2022, 33 pgs. 
• Lowrie, Lt. Col. Jacob, "Defending the Gate: Exploring the U.S. Military's Role in Homeland Defense," SAASS thesis, 2024, 94 pgs. 
• Meadows, Anthony G., "No Magic Bullet: Comparing Cyber and Natural Disaster Disruptions in Critical Infrastructure in the 21st Century," SAASS thesis, 2023, 76 pgs.
• Musselwhite, Kenneth O., "Army CONUS Installations: Protected, but Still at Risk," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 28 pgs.
• Neate, Joshua, "A Method for Allocating Cyber Resources to Defend Critical Civilian Infrastructure," AWC Strategic Studies paper, 2019, 30 pgs. 
• 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.
  • What dependencies do military installations and defense critical infrastructure have on non-DoD-owned critical infrastructure? What capabilities can the Joint Force employ to make critical assets more resilient? O'Connor addresses the vulnerability of military installations by highlighting their dangerous overreliance on the commercial power grid, a non-DoD-owned critical infrastructure. He notes that commercial utility providers cannot guarantee the continuous reliability required for modern "no-fail" defense and space missions, and the current reliance on short-lived Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems and fuel-hungry backup generators is insufficient and costly to maintain. To make critical assets more resilient to kinetic or cyberattacks, O'Connor recommends transitioning to military-owned microgrids powered by Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and aqueous redox flow batteries. These technologies would allow installations to operate independently from the civilian grid for years without refueling, completely mitigating the risk of commercial power outages while simultaneously providing the capability to supply excess carbon-free energy back to local communities during natural disasters.
• Schmitz, Samuel J., "Infrastructure Sustainment Warfare: Technology Integration to Keep Established Infrastructure in the Fight," AF Global College thesis, 2024, 44 pgs. 
• Smith, Stephen D., "Getting on Board with Operational Contract Support," AWC Strategic Studies paper, 2017, 27 pgs. 
• Turley, Maj. Heath, "Use of Intermediate Force Capabilities in Defending Airbases in teh 21st Century," ACSC elective paper (Intermediate Force Capabilities), 2024, 12 pgs. 
• Wyche II, Lt. Col. Gilbert S. "Policing in the Department of the Air Force," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2025, 27 pgs.