The Pentagon is developing a sweeping contingency plan to keep American military bases operational for at least 90 days without outside support, as fears grow that a major conflict could cripple power grids, disrupt supply chains and paralyse critical infrastructure.
The US Department of Defense is preparing for a scenario in which American forces must sustain military operations even as the civilian systems underpinning national defence begin to fail.
Under an initiative known as FORTRESS, the Pentagon intends to reduce military installations’ dependence on external electricity, water, fuel and communications, according to a report by Fox News. The plan reflects growing concern that a major war could expose vulnerabilities far beyond the battlefield, threatening the infrastructure needed to maintain military readiness.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said relying on civilian utilities represented an unacceptable risk.
“We don’t want to rely on standard civilian municipal infrastructure to run our national defence. We just simply can’t. It’s an intolerable risk,” he told Fox News Digital.
The proposed 90-day self-sufficiency requirement would apply to every major military installation in the continental US. Bases would need to maintain essential operations even if civilian power networks failed or external supply chains were severely disrupted.
Electricity is a central concern. Military installations depend on civilian grids for communications, logistics and weapons production, leaving defence operations potentially vulnerable to infrastructure failures during a prolonged conflict.
“Power is combat now. Without electricity, you lose communications, water, logistics, assembly lines and just basic military command structures,” Parnell said.
FORTRESS envisages a combination of portable nuclear reactors, large-scale battery storage and microgrids that could disconnect military facilities from civilian electricity networks. The aim is to allow installations to continue operating through prolonged outages rather than depend on the rapid restoration of external supplies.
The initiative extends beyond energy security. The Pentagon is also laying the groundwork for civilian factories to switch to defence production during a crisis, potentially helping sustain the manufacture of military equipment if conventional supply chains are disrupted.
The plans reflect a reassessment of assumptions about the security of the American homeland. Parnell said US defence planning had long relied on the protection offered by geography.
“I realized that a lot of the way we think about homeland defence was built around the antiquated assumption that two oceans would protect us,” he said.
“President Trump understands that world is gone, and he’s already paved the way for new thinking: Golden Dome, a renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere, Greenland, Panama.”
The initiative comes as Washington navigates multiple international conflicts and confronts the possibility that a future war could place simultaneous pressure on military operations, domestic infrastructure and industrial capacity.
FORTRESS is intended to provide what Parnell described as an insurance policy for the homeland: a means of keeping forces operational when the civilian systems on which they normally depend are unavailable.
“You don’t want to be making these decisions in the middle of a global multi-front conflict. We have to have a plan,” he said.
The challenge will be turning that ambition into resilient infrastructure across the US military’s extensive network of installations. The underlying premise is stark: in a major conflict, maintaining military power may depend as much on keeping the lights on at home as on defeating an adversary abroad.
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