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It is increasingly clear that continental United States (CONUS)-based installations no longer provide sanctuary to U.S. military forces prior to their deployment. The global reach of hostile powers with cyber, space and physical capabilities can contest friendly rear areas as well as forward deployed forces. 

The expanding battlespace includes CONUS-based command posts, critical supercomputing operations, intelligence, fusion and cyber assets used by a global force and the joint logistics and sustainment functions required to support multi-domain operations—all of which emanate from installations in the Strategic Support Area (SSA). From an energy perspective, this blurs the distinction between installation energy and operational energy, suggesting that approaches to energy security at the tactical edge may be relevant to installations within the SSA.

Modernizing how the Department of Defense (DoD) generates, manages and consumes power impacts how the Army sustains operations from its installations and facilities in CONUS to the forward edge of distant battlefields. The U.S. Army—and the rest of DoD—needs to maintain focus on the issue of energy resilience to be a ready, lethal and modernized force.

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