DEFENSE CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Actions Needed to Improve the Identificaiton and Management of Electrical Power Risks and Vulnerabilities to DOD Critical Assets
Abstract
The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on a global network of defense critical infrastructure so essential that the incapacitation, exploitation, or destruction of an asset within this network could severely affect DOD's ability to deploy, support, and sustain its forces and operations worldwide and to implement its core missions, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its homeland defense and strategic missions. In October 2008, DOD identified its 341 most critical assets in this network? assets of such extraordinary importance to DOD operations that according to DOD, their incapacitation or destruction would have a very serious, debilitating effect on the ability of the department to fulfill its missions. Located both within the United States and abroad, DOD?s most critical assets include both DOD- and non-DOD-owned assets. DOD relies overwhelmingly on commercial electrical power grids2 for secure, uninterrupted electrical power supplies to support its critical assets. DOD is the single largest consumer of energy in the United States, as we have noted in previous work.3 According to a 2008 report by the Defense Science Board Task Force on DOD's Energy Strategy,4 DOD has traditionally assumed that commercial electrical power grids are highly reliable and subject to only infrequent (generally weather-related), short-term disruptions. For backup supplies of electricity, DOD has depended primarily on diesel generators with short-term fuel supplies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA508124
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office