FORTRESS America: Pentagon Seeks Private Money to Harden US Bases
Dale Marks wants public-private deals to fund FORTRESS America: 90-day stockpiles, microreactors and hardened bases. What is funded and what is not.
TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 31, 2026 — The Pentagon wants private investors to help pay for FORTRESS America, its plan to make stateside military bases able to fight through a long cutoff from the civilian grid, supply chains and satellites. “The model that we’re trying to drive on is not me having to go back up on Capitol Hill with my hand out,” Dale Marks, assistant secretary of war for energy, installations and environment, told Breaking Defense at an installations conference in Tampa this week.
Marks said the military services “are working on a prioritization scheme” to find parts of the effort that could draw “commercial offtake.” He did not name projects, a total cost or a deadline for existing bases to comply.
The five pillars
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unveiled FORTRESS America on Sept. 30. In remarks summarized by the Department of War, Marks listed its five pillars: sovereign energy independence, domestic supply-chain resilience, installation hardening and cyber resilience, strategic defense reserves, and space and spectrum resilience. He called the plan “our national insurance policy.”
The details he gave in Tampa are specific:
- Energy: bases able to run “30, 60, or even 90 days without a single watt of outside power,” using microreactors, natural gas or geothermal power depending on the site.
- Hardening: “ultra high-performance concrete protective structures, subterranean command and control vaults, layered short-range air defenses, concealed direct energy counter drone systems,” and air-gapped networks.
- Reserves: “a 90-day sovereign stockpile of critical parts, fuels, propellants, ammunitions on site,” plus additive-manufacturing depots to print spares “inside the wire.”
- Spectrum: ground-based GPS alternatives, inertial reference networks and laser communication lines so commanders can operate if satellites are blinded.
Why the Pentagon says it is needed
Marks gave three reasons. Hostile actors, he said, have “prepositioned malicious access” in US energy, water and communications networks, so an adversary may “simply need to flip a breaker switch.” Cruise missiles and one-way attack drones mean “geography no longer guarantees survival.” And the department moves too slowly: software updates that combatants abroad push out “in matters of weeks” take the Pentagon “months or years,” he said.
These are Marks’ assessments; the department has not published a threat analysis to go with the plan.
The money question
Some of the energy work is already funded. In August, the Army’s Janus Program selected five companies to build, own and operate nuclear microreactors on bases, with up to $2.2 billion over fiscal 2027–2031 and payment only after technical milestones, according to the Army’s announcement. The Army expects more than 20 reactors in total, with private money on top, and is aiming for a first operating reactor by September 2028 under Executive Order 14299. Marks said the plan is not to put a reactor on every base.
The rest is less clear. Public-private deals work where a company can sell something, such as power, fuel or factory output, to customers beyond the base. Concrete vaults, air defenses and on-site ammunition stocks earn no outside revenue, and Marks did not say how those would be paid for.
The prototype base
FORTRESS has a companion project, the Next Great American Base: a new joint installation meant to show every pillar working at once. In an Oct. 22 letter to governors, Marks reported “exceptional” nationwide interest, the department said. The guideline is 100,000 to 250,000 acres for as many as 25,000 service members, though smaller offers will be considered. Governors of top-scoring sites will pitch their proposals next spring. The base is to generate its own power with microgrids and a small reactor and recycle its water, and its lessons are to be exported to older installations.
What it means
Analysis: FORTRESS treats the home base as part of the battlefield rather than a safe rear area. The pillars overlap with existing efforts, including Golden Dome missile defense, the Janus reactors and supply-chain rules on Chinese and Russian minerals, so much of its effect will come from setting priorities among programs that already exist.
The financing model is the real test. If private partners carry the revenue-earning pieces, appropriations can go to hardening and stockpiles. If they do not, FORTRESS competes with ships, aircraft and munitions in the same budget for the same appropriations. Watch for the services’ prioritization lists, the first partnership deals outside Janus, and whether the fiscal 2028 budget request gives FORTRESS its own line.
Sources
- U.S. Department of War: Assistant Secretary says new infrastructure initiatives are a ‘national calling’ (Oct. 2026)
- U.S. Department of War: ‘Exceptional interest’ in the Next Great American Base (Oct. 27, 2026)
- U.S. Army: Army reaches agreement with private industry for nuclear micro-reactors (Aug. 26, 2026)
- Breaking Defense: Pentagon eyes public-private partnerships to fund FORTRESS America (Oct. 30, 2026)
