The Pentagon has ordered major military installations in the continental United States to be capable of operating for at least 90 days without outside electricity, water, fuel or supplies. The requirement is set out in internal documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.
It forms part of FORTRESS America, short for Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply and Survivability. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the programme on September 30 in his State of the Force address.
Planners assume a major war would knock out civilian power grids, break global supply chains and put critical infrastructure on American soil at risk. The standard is meant to keep bases running anyway.
The plan envisages portable nuclear reactors, large-scale battery storage and microgrids able to disconnect installations from the national grid. It also calls for strategic reserves of munitions, fuel, critical minerals, electronics, spare parts and medical supplies.
Each critical item would need at least two qualified supply or production routes to avoid a single point of failure. A Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network would prepare civilian factories to switch to defence production.
“Power is combat now,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said, arguing that a loss of electricity would take communications, water, logistics and command structures with it. Hegseth said he created the initiative because the US could “no longer rely on two oceans to protect us”.
A senior defence official told the Defense Writers Group on October 20 that the department was still assessing energy needs across about 500 installations. No overall budget or completion date has been published.
Europe’s own civil preparedness rests on a far shorter horizon. The European Commission’s Preparedness Union Strategy, presented in March 2025, asks households across the European Union to hold enough food, water and medicine to last 72 hours.
The stockpiling strategy that followed in July 2025 came with no dedicated funding attached.
European governments are being asked to carry more of their own defence at the same time. Hegseth ordered a six-month review of American force posture in Europe on June 18, part of the NATO 3.0 division of labour under which European allies would take primary responsibility for the continent’s conventional defence.
The Pentagon told allied planners in June it was shrinking the capabilities available to Europe in a crisis, with B-52 bombers and submarines among the assets being pulled back. Allies agreed at The Hague in June 2025 to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035.
The drawdown is under way while the Ukraine war continues and European capitals report repeated drone incursions. The Pentagon has yet to say whether American bases abroad, including those in Europe, will be held to the same 90-day standard.
