The purpose of this project was to develop methods that measure worst-case disruptions across interdependent infrastructure systems on Department of War (DoW) military installations and to create models that support DoW infrastructure planning and management. This project was motivated by disasters that impacted installation readiness, such as Hurricane Florence at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in 2018. Events like Hurricane Florence revealed two important deficiencies in DoW infrastructure planning and recovery: (1) military installations lack models to measure losses resulting from interdependent failures across infrastructure, and (2) military leadership lacks methods to incorporate compound threats into infrastructure planning. These deficiencies motivated the following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: Existing frameworks for interdependent infrastructure systems do not yet serve military needs.
• Hypothesis 2: Operator models for interdependent infrastructure on military installations will reveal new compound threats.
• Hypothesis 3: Mission Dependency Index, a key metric guiding DoW infrastructure decisions, can be calculated, and improved with infrastructure operator models.

This project conducted hypothesis-driven research by applying modeling methods primarily used to identify vulnerabilities in civilian infrastructure systems and applied them to military installations and surrounding communities. Associated research efforts focused on assessing vulnerabilities inside the fence line (directly supporting missions) and outside the fence line (in communities that can impact installation readiness). Research focused inside the fence line included the development of modeling architectures for interdependent infrastructure systems at military installations and linking these techniques to established DoW infrastructure protection and investment practices. Research focused outside the fence line included case studies on how military installations and their surrounding communities can work together to improve mission assurance. Case studies were developed for two military installations: Naval Station Newport on Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island, and Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Oahu, Hawaii.

The research outputs addressing the project hypotheses are models and methods to identify disruptions to infrastructure systems on military installations, case studies on installation vulnerability and emergency decision-making, and linking assessments to infrastructure investment. Results from this project include models and methods to identify disruptions to infrastructure systems on military installations, case studies on installation vulnerability and emergency decision-making, and linking assessments to infrastructure investment. These methods and models led to technical advances already being used by other researchers and experts. For example, the combo-model techniques developed to integrate and study interdependent multilayer network models has been utilized by other researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories to study fuel, electric power, and transportation vulnerabilities.

Several important conclusions are drawn from results that provide more detail on the vulnerability of military installation infrastructure and the civilian systems in which they are embedded. Results show that there is a growing need for greater integration of military and civilian vulnerability analysis. Importantly, the vulnerability of installation infrastructure systems is tied to the vulnerability of civilian systems. For example, the capability to evacuate Newport Naval Station is dependent on decisions and operations by surrounding municipalities. The resilience of Marine Corps Base Hawaii depends on access to critical resources like food and fuel that may only be available outside the fence line.

A special feature of this project is that all studies were completed with the support of active-duty military officers from U.S. and foreign services. Hence, all work supports transitions to the DoW and allies by means of training and education. (Project Completion - 2024)