Beyond the Fence Line: Operationalizing Civil-Military Cyber Coordination at U.S. Military Installations

Abstract

U.S. military power projection increasingly depends on civilian critical infrastructure outside Department of War (DoW) control. Recent cyber campaigns—including China’s Volt Typhoon pre-positioning in energy grids, water systems, and transportation networks—have systematically targeted the “civil-military seam” where DoW authority ends but operational dependencies continue. Federal-state-local coordination architecture is inadequate to defend this seam. Military installations often depend on state-regulated utilities, locally-managed water systems, and privately-operated transportation networks, yet lack formalized coordination mechanisms with these entities. Resource constraints at state and local levels, jurisdictional fragmentation, and classification barriers preventing information sharing leave installations vulnerable to disruption of surrounding civilian infrastructure. DoW’s December 2024 directive requiring installations to coordinate “beyond the fence line” with state and local governments acknowledges this challenge but lacks an implementation framework. This article proposes operationalizing military installations as regional cyber resilience coordination nodes, or “seeds,” from which federal-state-local partnerships develop.