Energy Security: A New Prerequisite for National Security

Breaking Paradigms to Explore New Dimensions of Energy Security

America is vulnerable to attack. While the federal government transitions towards more isolationist policies, America’s domestic critical infrastructure may be more vulnerable than ever. A growing array of affordable and capable threat systems including cyber and drones pose outsized risk to domestic infrastructure that was previously considered secure. Russia’s recent “Pearl Harbor moment” reveals an example: Ukrainian forces smuggled truckloads of small offensive drones deep into Russia, as far as 3,000 miles from Kyiv, and then conducted a coordinated attack against several Russian air bases, destroying up to 20 long-range bombers and warplanes worth over $100 million and weakening Russia’s strategic attack capabilities. It’s not difficult to imagination the potentially catastrophic consequences of such an attack against America’s domestic base, and these types of threats cannot be covered by a Golden Dome. Expanding vulnerabilities in the U.S. defense base and domestic infrastructure pose increasing risk to America’s national security interests. As a relatively unprotected node in North American infrastructure, the energy sector is particularly vulnerable. At the same time, extreme weather events are becoming more common, frequently disrupting essential services and causing severe infrastructure damage. Amid this backdrop, the federal government seeks to establish America’s “Energy Dominance” by curtailing climate regulations, expanding resources, and increasing energy options to build critical infrastructure.

But while the White House prioritizes energy dominance, establishing energy security is the real strategic imperative. Energy security underpins America’s national security as a key nexus between the domestic base, Washington’s diplomatic options, and U.S. military power. However, American energy security is far from assured; extreme weather events and malign actors represent increasingly acute threats to energy infrastructure, endangering U.S. national security interests. Moving forward, America’s national security will be increasingly tied to emerging dimensions of energy security, underscoring the energy sector’s charge to establish sufficient energy capacity to meet extensive domestic requirements, mitigate threats to energy infrastructure, and reduce energy costs to support Washington’s goals. To meet America’s rising national security challenges, energy sector stakeholders must work aggressively to bolster national energy security by building domestic energy capacity, diversity, and resilience to reinforce critical foundations of American security.

Breaking Old Paradigms: Emerging Threats to Energy Security

Establishing energy security is an increasingly complex goal. Conventionally, American energy security narrowly implied sufficient energy capacity to support domestic requirements and power the economy while preserving energy independence, allowing Washington to make foreign policy decisions unhindered by domestic energy constraints. Lasting Middle East entanglement in support of America’s domestic oil requirements illustrates a period of extreme energy dependence, where foreign policy decisions were significantly influenced by energy interests, often to the detriment of other national security considerations. To be sure, recent increases in domestic oil and gas production have helped promote U.S. energy capacity and independence. However, increases in domestic energy capacity alone are not enough. The emerging security environment demands an expanded concept of energy security.

Threats associated with extreme weather events and disruptive attacks by hostile actors introduce new dimensions of energy security which necessitate energy diversity and resilience. Contemporary energy security implies two fundamental elements:

• Sufficient access to energy resources that are isolated from global shocks to provide enduring and reliable energy to support the U.S. population, fuel the economy, and meet federal energy goals

• A resilient domestic energy base from which Washington can advance U.S. national security interests at home and abroad

Emerging threats introduce new risks to U.S. energy security. Ukraine’s recent drone attack against Russia’s strategic bombing infrastructure certainly caught Russia by surprise, but this novel attack was not the first indication of a looming threat. In his February 2025 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Air Force General Gregory M. Guillot, Commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, emphasized the small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) threat: “Small, uncrewed aircraft systems…pose a growing threat to safety and security,” citing 350 UAS detections over 100 different U.S. military installations in the past year. A 2024 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) study identified small UAS as a threat to critical infrastructure, “Given the sUAS market’s rise in sales and increase in capabilities, they have become a security concern due to the ease with which they can aid in intelligence gathering and/or can be used as a malicious delivery platform.”

Threats to America’s defense base and domestic infrastructure aren’t limited to drones. Indeed, adversaries view America’s exposed domestic infrastructure as a vulnerability they can exploit using cyberattacks to achieve their geopolitical objectives without escalating to a higher scale of conflict. CISA summarized the threat in a 2024 cyberthreat advisory:

We are deeply concerned that the PRC is seeking the ability to disrupt the critical services that support the American people in the event of a geopolitical crisis or conflict, marking an alarming evolution in their tactics… These threats are not theoretical…CISA teams have found and eradicated Chinese intrusions into critical infrastructure across multiple sectors, including aviation, energy, water and telecommunications.

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed the alarm: “CCP-sponsored cyber actors ‘pre-positioned’ themselves to potentially mount cyber offenses against American energy companies…targeting 23 different pipeline operators…the fact is, the PRC’s targeting of our critical infrastructure is broad and unrelenting…the CCP also wants to prevent the United States from being able to get in the way of a potential future crisis between China and Taiwan by 2027.”

In addition to hostile threats, natural threats like extreme weather events present a significant threat to American energy infrastructure. According to the U.S. Federal Government’s 2023 National Climate Assessment, domestic energy disruptions resulting from severe weather are on the rise. Major power outages (exceeding 50,000 customers) due to extreme weather events increased by roughly 64% during 2011–2021 from the previous decade. 2023 saw a new record with 28 climate and weather disasters which totaled $93 billion in infrastructure damages in the United States. The impacts in 2024 were worse: $182.7 billion in damage resulted from 27 weather and climate disasters. Opportunistic actors may see natural disasters and significant civil disruption in America as catalyst to initiate acts of aggression against U.S. partners and allies.

The rising threat to America’s energy infrastructure poses risk to U.S. national security at home and abroad. Historically, American energy security (or lack thereof) influenced whether Washington chose to use military power. Moving forward, U.S. energy security may determine if America is able to use military power. Adversaries plan to disrupt key domestic infrastructure, particularly the energy and transportation sectors, to delay the U.S. military from moving forces from “fort to port” out of America and into necessary theaters in time to support U.S. allies. Disruptions to U.S. military power projection may enable adversaries to achieve their regional military objectives, redraw global boundaries, and reset international norms before Washington can act to support America’s national security interests abroad.

Who’s in Charge?

Establishing U.S. energy security implies proactive risk mitigation across the sector’s widely distributed state, local, and private nodes. The Department of Energy (DoE) is a logical starting point to examine U.S. energy security responsibilities. DoE works through multiple lanes to promote secure and reliable energy, including managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and providing “technical expertise to help ensure the reliability, resiliency, and security of energy systems in partnership with the private sector, state, and local communities across the country.” However, the private sector owns over 80 percent of U.S. energy infrastructure, which elevates the challenge of building resilience. The Port of Beaumont in Texas is a prime example.

The Port of Beaumont is the fifth busiest port in the United States and America’s busiest military port, serving as the primary Sea Port of Embarkation for roughly 35 percent of U.S. Army and Marine Corps power projection installations. Beaumont is a public-private partnership between the Port of Beaumont Navigation District and Jefferson Energy, a publicly-traded Gulf Coast oil company. In terms of electricity, Beaumont falls under the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), one of three national Regional Balancing Authorities who ensure safe and reliable operation during routine supply and demand and in response to contingency events and interruptions. Given its strategic importance and public-private sector relationship, who’s in charge of protecting Beaumont?

Although the U.S. military relies heavily on Beaumont for global power projection, DoD lacks the authorities to protect this critical port. Posse Comitatus broadly limits the military to protecting federal property and personnel in the DoD’s Homeland Defense role. Alternatively, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the lead federal agency for Homeland Security, which includes securing cyberspace and domestic critical infrastructure. Within DHS, CISA serves as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience. “CISA provides guidance to support state, local, and industry partners in identifying critical infrastructure needed to maintain the functions Americans depend on daily.” Upon request, CISA can provide threat assessment, risk analysis, and exercise support to harden public and private infrastructure against existing and emerging threats for 16 different critical sectors. Within the energy sector, the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) is DoE’s primary arm for promoting national energy security.

[CESER] leads day-to-day Federal interface for U.S. energy systems, conducts sector specific risk management and resilience activities, and leads the policy, preparedness, risk analysis, technical assistance, research and development, operational collaboration and emergency response activities for the U.S. energy sector. In collaboration with regulatory bodies, such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), SLTTs [State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial], and international partners, DOE supports the critical infrastructure protection programs by analyzing vulnerabilities and recommending preventative measures.

But the devil is in the details. CISA, DOE and CESER can only recommend that private sector energy providers take preventative measures. Although the DoD’s ability to project power is reliant on critical infrastructure and essential services provided by state, local, and private sector entities, the federal government lacks the authorities to compel all those institutions to take necessary precautions and meet the high standards required to establish domestic energy security. America’s national security interests hang in the balance. Establishing energy security in an increasingly complex environment with emerging threats to domestic critical infrastructure and limited federal authorities will require a coalition of the willing, incorporating extensive collaboration across all energy sector stakeholders.

Reinforcing New Dimensions of Energy Security

Energy security will always be a moving target, but deliberate action now to build energy security is imperative. Preparedness, resilience, and energy diversity are key priorities for energy security. Preparedness requires stakeholders to understand and anticipate emerging adversarial and natural threats and to mitigate risks to national energy infrastructure. Cultivating key interagency partnerships across DoE, DHS, DoD, the National Intelligence Community, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and formalizing those partnerships through recurring threat and vulnerability assessment working groups will be central to preparedness.

Understanding the threats, stakeholders must engage in a concerted effort to promote energy infrastructure resilience to secure American energy supplies. The sector must ramp-up resilience investments to diversify and introduce new capabilities like microgrid technologies. Further, integrated planning, training, and exercises across the sector’s Regional Balancing Authorities, supported by local governments, DoE, DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), are critical. Purposeful integrated planning workshops and collaborative regional exercises will be essential to promote and assess energy reliability and resilience.

Finally, the sector must work to increase America’s energy capacity and resource diversity to meet federal energy priorities, hedge against global shocks, and ensure foreign policy options aren’t constrained by domestic energy shortfalls. Diversifying the energy portfolio across a broad range of resources including renewables, nuclear, and hydrocarbons will be essential to isolate the sector from extreme weather events, global shocks, and hostile aggression which can endanger America’s enduring access to energy. Advancing partnerships across DoE’s National Laboratories, industry, and academia while increasing public and private investment in new and emerging technologies will be crucial to increase energy resource diversity and shore capacity.

Ultimately, the U.S. energy sector must leverage key partnerships and integrated activities to secure a resilient energy infrastructure, which is able to blunt natural and malign threats and international shocks, provide enduring reliable domestic energy access for the American population, and solidify a firm foundation to advance national security interests. But domestic energy security alone will not be sufficient to achieve America’s national security interests.

Beyond domestic energy security risks, international vulnerabilities could inhibit Washington’s ability to fully flex its muscles in support of America’s allies in the face of aggression. Adversaries plan to exploit global bottlenecks and U.S. allies’ energy dependencies to fragment international partnerships, as Russia attempted to do during the onset of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine by constraining oil and gas exports to Europe. Although Western European nations quickly pivoted from Russian hydrocarbons to blunt Moscow’s attempt at energy blackmail, not all NATO allies parried so seamlessly. Ankara continues a precarious balancing act between opposing Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine to show cohesion with NATO, and its increasing dependence on Russian oil and gas to power the Turkish economy. Russia’s attempts at energy coercion against transatlantic allies foreshadow a key vulnerability in America’s security partnerships. The U.S. energy sector must work to increase America’s exportable energy capacity to support international partners with critical energy dependencies to hedge against energy blackmail.

National security requires a firm foundation of energy security to support America’s domestic population, fuel the economy, and project power to support global partners. Establishing energy security will require extensive collaboration across federal, state, local governments, industry and academia. As a matter of policy, Washington should provide sufficient resources along with clear guidance and authorities across the federal agencies charged with protecting domestic critical infrastructure. But America’s energy security efforts must transcend the federal government. Although federal energy priorities and policy changes may affect government subsidies, heavy private sector investment in renewables and other alternatives is crucial to diversify America’s energy resources, while partnership throughout state and local governments, industry, and academia is vital to promote America’s energy resilience. Energy sector stakeholders have a powerful opportunity to posture American energy security to shape national security for generations to come. Delays or insufficient action will only elevate the challenge.

Scott Chadsey is a retired USAF Colonel who served 22-years active-duty as an A-10 attack pilot, Weapons School Instructor, and Squadron Commander. In his most recent assignment, Scott served as the NORAD Future Operations Division Chief and the lead Homeland Defense Campaign Planner for NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, organizing operations and activities to deter aggression against North American defense and critical infrastructure, and collaborating with interagency partners to mitigate risks in U.S. domestic infrastructure including the energy and transportation sectors.