"Defense Industrial Base and Electricity: There's No Better Defense than a Good DIB."
In the first edition of this blog, I noted that “the electric sector underpins every other essential industry sector, and it also relies on many of them. I…think of the overlaps like the Olympic rings – all interlinked, with some overlapping more than others.”
For the next several editions, I’ll continue to focus on each critical infrastructure sector in relation to the electric sector because electricity – which began to be deployed as a service close to 150 years ago – has enabled the progress, convenience and abundance that are hallmarks of modern life. Thereafter, I’ll get into the overlapping policy issues in more detail.
In this edition, I’ll discuss the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and how it interacts with the electric sector. The best way to think about this sector is as the civilian/private sector support of the military, excepting critical services such as electricity, communications, transportation – in short, the 15 other critical infrastructure sectors. As the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency notes “the sector provides products and services that are essential to mobilize, deploy, and sustain military operations.” Of course, as we’ve already learned in the previous Essentials blogs, these products and services cannot function without the services provided by the other critical infrastructure sectors.
The timing of this blog is not an accident. As those who’ve read previous blogs know, I am a student of history and the daughter of a Marine Corps officer. I also lived through 9/11 in D.C. As such, I know terrorism when I see it. Terrorist groups, some of which come to control entire governments such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, just to name a few in the last century – there are many more – are aptly named to incite terror. They attract support by focusing on a cause – to elevate the working class or to regain lost territory, but their solution is a zero-sum game, to eliminate their perceived opponents in order to gain power or victory.
The pattern continues repeatedly throughout history, with many examples in the last 100 years seemingly undermining the idea that we have progressed as a human race. For example, in the 1970s, the communist Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, put to death between 1.5 and two million of their own fellow Cambodians in three-and-a-half years – about 25 percent of the population. The Khmer Rouge emphasized the racial purity of the Khmer people and, as such, exterminated racial minorities and any real or perceived political opponents. Their target list was long: Buddhists, Thais, Chinese, Muslims, Christians, Vietnamese, Chams, business leaders, lawyers, students, doctors, and the previous regime’s military and political leadership. The Khmer Rouge were funded almost exclusively by China.
However, the atrocities committed in the killing fields of Cambodia pale in comparison to what was done to the Jews in the Holocaust. Just like with the Khmer Rouge, the Nazis eventually expanded their extermination policies to all political opponents, dissidents, resisters, gypsies (now known as Romani people), homosexuals, etc., etc. But the focus of the Nazis’ hatred was reserved for the Jewish people. Unfortunately, Hamas’s recent terrorist attack on Israeli Jews and others of all faiths living in Israel contained some of the horrific hallmarks of the terror inflicted by the Nazis. This situation demonstrates once again why all free countries must maintain a robust defense, including the manufacturing, contractors, infrastructure and support functions that underpin the military, which has evolved into a permanent sector in the U.S., known as the defense industrial base – DIB.
The U.S.’s modern industrial-military complex is foundational to the operational success of our military. Our military’s success is defined by its ability to maintain our way of life and defend the freedoms embodied in our Constitution -- which inspires hundreds of thousands of political refugees and immigrants to make their way to our shores on an annual basis. The Constitution also establishes a framework for our military to exist without being in charge. Brilliant. According to the Congressional Research Service:
The designers of the Constitution were deeply skeptical of a standing army, as such a military instrument could also overthrow the government it professed to serve, much like Oliver Cromwell demonstrated in 1653 when he used his army to disband the English Parliament. Consternation regarding British deployment of its military to the American colonies without the consent of local governing officials was among the key grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence. In the context of a new, experimental, and democratic Republic, the Founding Fathers believed that subordination of the military to the authority of civil masters was critically important to prevent the emergence of a new form of tyranny or dictatorship. The principle of civilian control of the military places ultimate authority over U.S. armed services in the hands of civilian leadership, with civilian responsibility and control of the military balanced between the executive and legislative branches of the government. In some ways, the relationship between the military and the civil society it serves is a paradox: the military, by its very nature, has coercive power that could threaten civil society. Yet without a sufficiently strong and capable military, civil society becomes vulnerable to attack, and the former might not be able to defend the latter.
I’ll now briefly touch on a few key historical data points and then summarize the modern DIB and how it overlaps with the electric sector.
Crude stone-crafted weapons were found in what is now South Africa dating to about 64,000 years ago. Such prehistoric weapons were used to defend against animal predators, kill animals for food, and defend against human aggressors, whether organized groups or individuals intent on using violence for selfish reasons. The ancient battles to secure resources and power continue to this day. The first evidence of bows and arrows date to around the same time, also in South Africa. But just like with other critical infrastructure sectors, weaponry improved significantly beginning about 6,000 years ago with the advent of focused mining practices which enabled first copper, then bronze, then, eventually, iron, to improve weaponry. The domestication of horses was game-changing in the evolution of warfare, and also began about 6,000 years ago.
As discussed in the third edition of this blog, transportation evolved significantly around this time as well. Warfare was conducted on both land and sea, with vehicles specifically made for warfare, such as the horse-drawn chariot, combining with carts and wagons to transport the supplies needed to enable success on the battlefield. The Greeks demonstrated the benefits of both strategic alliances and the intense study of tactical warfare, with city-states such as Athens and Sparta working together to defeat larger armies. And then the Romans came along and perfected weapons like catapults, helpful for siege warfare, by applying their engineering prowess. While archaeological records show that the Muslin Caliphates could have developed gunpowder in parallel with the Chinese, the world recognizes the Chinese as the primary developers of this technology in the 900s A.D.
But guns viable for warfare took many more centuries to develop – it was not until the 1700s that bayonets were used for muskets to give them more optionality and then cartridges were invented to enable seamless firing. Rockets were developed by a South Indian kingdom and incorporated by the British and others during the early 1800s. While the idea of submarines had been around for centuries, the evolution of engineering and technology enabled their initial deployment in the 1700s.
Like with other critical infrastructure sectors, military technology rapidly evolved beginning in the latter half of the 1800s, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern communications networks and electric grids. While the American Civil War previewed the era of weapons of mass destruction and almost unfathomable casualties, the reality of the fundamental change in warfare did not hit the world until World War I. At that point, airplanes had come on the scene, but tanks were not yet sophisticated enough to overcome trenches. The loss of life and bleak impasse resulting from that trench warfare caused a psychological toll on survivors that lingered until the next huge conflict, World War II. The deployment of nuclear weapons in 1945, recently overviewed in the critically acclaimed movie, “Oppenheimer,” means we are all figuratively living under the Sword of Damocles. These weapons of mass destruction haven’t prevented wars and atrocities since that time, unfortunately, but some would argue they may have staved off the next world war.
The digital revolution initiated in the 1980s, with the widespread adoption of the Internet stemming from work done by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has brought warfare into our homes and businesses by enabling disruption of digital systems—the resulting defensive techniques spurring an entirely new workforce of cybersecurity experts.
Which takes us to the modern Defense Industrial Base. Prior to the 1950s, the merchants and blacksmiths and factory workers (and the list goes on) needed to support U.S. wartime military campaigns would expand with a war and contract post-war. Even after WWII, the defense industry contracted. But the more widespread adoption of nuclear weapons by our adversaries in the 1950s shepherded in a new era of vigilance that has greatly expanded the ongoing need for services previously only needed during active wartime. A variety of private industrial manufacturers, weapons makers, clothiers, armorers, and others, large and small, now contract with the military on an ongoing basis to support our defense capabilities. Today, more than 100,000 DIB contractors and subcontractors work with the military to ensure readiness.
Like with everything else, electricity is integral to the DIB. Large manufacturing facilities require equally large amounts of reliable power. To deliver such reliable power, electric grids themselves must be impervious to physical and cyber-attack and capable of restoring rapidly after serious weather-related events.
These reliability and resilience challenges mean that, not only does the electric sector imbed redundant systems into its planning and operations, but it must work with military facilities to understand how to best support their needs, possibly with further back-ups and redundancies, as needed. In addition, the manufacturing facilities supporting the DIB are identified as critical in utilities’ planning and may also require elevated levels of redundancy. In the last 20 years, the electric sector has also focused on ensuring cybersecurity – both to resist attack and to respond in a resilient way to any such future attack resulting in an operational impact (to date, the U.S. electric sector has not been subject to such an attack). Electric reliability and affordability will continue to be key to a successful U.S. DIB. Here are some other ways the sectors overlap:
Reliance on transportation. DIB products must be transported to the military, sometimes with heightened security in place. Electric utilities transport coal, but also must ensure deliveries of critical grid components, bucket trucks, copper wire, poles, and the list goes on…
Reliance on critical manufacturing such as steel, chemical products, etc.
Environmental regulation/climate change. The military has factored in climactic changes in its readiness planning, which means that the DIB must help in this analysis and preparedness. DIB companies are also interested in reducing their emissions profiles, and some already work with electric utilities to do so.
The use of natural gas. Natural gas comprises approximately 40% of domestic electricity generation. Natural gas is a key component of chemical processes and products used by the DIB. Natural gas continues to be scrutinized because of its impact as a greenhouse gas when burned, a fact that both industries must address.
Reliance on water. Water is used for cooling in a variety of DIB manufacturing processes. Electric utilities also use traditional hydropower and new water-power technologies to produce emissions-free electricity. They also use water to cool nuclear and fossil-fuel fired power plants. But the resource can be constrained in drought conditions, especially out West.
Workforce challenges and the knowledge drain that has resulted from retirements in recent years impact both industries’ regular operations. Both the DIB and electric utilities must also train their workforces for future challenges such as AI deployment and other technological innovations.
Supply chain constraints that impact every aspect of infrastructure deployment and maintenance.
How to best use technology to create efficiencies and minimize expenses.
How to manage the cybersecurity risk that comes with those technology deployments. Both industries are acutely focused on this and could work even more collaboratively in the future.
These crucial companies and the military they serve, supported by the electric sector and other critical services, are essential to maintaining freedom in the U.S. and deterring terrorism throughout the world.