The purpose of this project is to develop methods that measure worst-case disruptions across interdependent infrastructure systems on US Department of Defense (DoD) military installations and to create models that support DoD infrastructure planning and management. The extensive damages experienced in the wake of disasters like Hurricane Florence at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune revealed two important deficiencies in DoD infrastructure planning and recovery: (1) military installations lack models to measure losses resulting from interdependent failures across infrastructure (e.g., water and electricity), and (2) military leadership lacks methods to incorporate compound threats into infrastructure investment plans. These deficiencies forced the installation Commanding Officer (CO) to improvise protection activities prior to Hurricane Florence and left decision-makers in the installation command challenged to prioritize investments to recover failed infrastructure.

This project addresses deficiencies in infrastructure planning and recovery by applying modeling methods used to identify worst-case losses in national infrastructure systems (e.g., the US power grid) to interdependent systems on military installations. Specifically, this project centers on advancing established operations research models for worst-case disruptions called “attacker-defender” models. Research activities include the development of modeling architectures for interdependent infrastructure systems and novel attack scenarios to identify worst-case disruptions to compound threats. Modeling architectures and methods will be used to design a new mission dependency index that embeds the interruptibility, relocateability, and replaceability of interdependent assets. Finally, we will develop case studies that identify vulnerabilities and optimal protection capabilities for military installations and inform long-term investment and planning. Taken together, the research team will produce a novel framework for assessing compound threats to interdependent infrastructure systems and link this framework to inform infrastructure readiness.

Deliverables and milestones for this project will benefit both scientific and DoD communities. There is no standard way to model infrastructure interdependencies and/or method to measure compound threats in the research literature. This project will result in a generic framework for identifying infrastructure vulnerabilities across interdependent systems that advances the state-of-the-art in resilience analysis. Moreover, the research team will advance a new mission dependency index (MDI) for military decision-making and establish proof-of-concept for proposed methods via case studies for military installations. Research tasks will be led by DoD civilians and conducted by military officer students to benefit education and training within the DoD. Moreover, research products will be shared with stakeholders at installations and DoD headquarters to support current operations. Thus, all research conducted for this project will advance DoD doctrine, provide immediate decision-support for improving the resilience of military installations, and act as a force multiplier for future military operations.