State of Play. Across the United States, military installations, the defense industrial base, and surrounding defense communities rely almost exclusively on a civilian electric grid that is increasingly under strain from historic demand growth, data centers, onshoring, and persistent underinvestment.
The Risk. Power disruptions threaten mission assurance, force readiness, and national security objectives. No single actor is clearly responsible for ensuring installations get the power their missions require.
The Way Ahead. This Homeland Security Project Policy Brief, “The Hidden Security Challenge,” published in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, draws on semi-structured interviews with defense, energy, and government stakeholders to examine how the Department of War (DoW) and state policymakers can better coordinate on energy security and resilience.
The Team. Authored by Nicolette Santos. Edited by Juliette Kayyem, Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at Harvard Kennedy School and former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Wilson Rickerson, co-founder of Converge Strategies.
Go Deeper. Explore the full report “The Hidden Security Challenge: Responding to Grid Capacity Constraints and Their Impacts on Military Installations” (June 2026), prepared for Converge Strategies.