President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan includes a laundry list of things that push the limits of the word, worrying defense and critical infrastructure experts who are concerned the plan will highlight America’s soft points to potential foes.
For decades, the United States has neglected investments in roads, bridges, and ports. Critical infrastructure such as power plants and electrical grids are now targeted by adversaries who have demonstrated elsewhere their capacity to shut off the lights. Where private industry has not invested in the cybersecurity to keep adversaries out, security experts say the government must inject investment for the sake of U.S. national interest. But with just 5% to 7% of the Biden plan reportedly going to traditional and future infrastructure, national security experts worry politics and patronage will surpass national security.
“We consider infrastructure like ports and airports and things like that versus the bigger, broader definition that President Biden is using,” retired Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr of the Heritage Foundation told the Washington Examiner.
During the Obama administration’s effort to pass an infrastructure bill, Spoehr recalls working inside the Pentagon and being asked what Army facilities needed upgrades. He thought of the West Coast Concord Naval Weapon Station, a port that ships Army munitions.
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“Just think of some old, dilapidated docks with a thousand pylons driven in the water, and they were always rotting, and so they were just doing their best to keep it from falling in the water,” he said.
It was the kind of investment the Pentagon could not afford to make, and even less in an era of great power competition, Spoehr underscored.
“The Pentagon’s under a lot of financial pressure right now,” he said. “This is not the kind of thing that would attract a lot of money right now because they’re more interested in preserving their modernization programs, preserving the force structure. So, when you get to port improvements or airfield improvements, those don’t rank very highly.”
Spoehr listed a host of commercial ports used by the military that could benefit from investment, including in Beaumont, Texas, San Diego, Charleston, Savannah, and Wilmington.
In effect, an investment in commercial ports would benefit military readiness, he argued.
China’s ‘new infrastructure’
Jonathan Hillman, an economics fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the government plays a role in infrastructure when it comes to national security.
“I do see a need there for more government action,” he said. “When you broaden the aperture, and you do consider China, I think you realize the stakes are higher.”
Xi Jinping talks about “new infrastructure” as a catchphrase for digital infrastructure, 5G, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, Hillman explained.
“They’re making these investments to position themselves to be the leader in these areas of the future,” he said. “If we don’t make those investments, that’s going to have a set of adverse consequences.”
To be sure, Biden plans investments in roads and bridges, but some defense experts say he’s squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity by devoting an outsize share of his plan to social programs.
“There’s some national security things they could do, and they’re more along the lines of traditional things,” Spoehr said.
A particular concern to experts in national security and critical infrastructure is the vulnerability of the aging power grid.
Hillman tells the story of when China turned out the lights on an adversary.
China and India had experienced border skirmishes in the summer of 2020 that led to dozens of deaths, hostages taken, and rising tensions before cooler heads prevailed at the disputed line of actual control high along their shared mountain border.
Months later, the lights went out in Mumbai. Later investigations found the fingerprints of Chinese malware.
“That’s a capability that they have,” Hillman said.
“Beijing thinks the United States is in decline,” he added. “There’s, I think, a chance to not only correct that narrative but to actually make investments that are worthwhile domestically, but also, there’s a signal that could be sent.”
Adversaries ‘going to school’
Resiliency is a buzzword used by many infrastructure experts. It means creating alternate paths to assure uninterrupted service. Whether it is improving evacuation methods on traditional roads and bridges by making them “smarter” or having secondary pathways that keep water and electricity flowing in the event of a severe weather event or targeted attack by an adversary.
They could be one and the same, said CSIS homeland security and critical infrastructure expert Suzanne Spaulding, referring to the blackouts across Texas this winter.
“I would be surprised if our adversaries are not going to school on that event,” she told the Washington Examiner.
Spaulding believes America’s enemies have been assessing the breaking point when facilities would go offline to understand exactly what is necessary to cause a major disruption.
“Those are the kinds of things that, if you will, battle planners would want to know,” she said. “The question has to be answered across both physical and virtual security concerns with regard to infrastructure.”
Spaulding said she most worries about America’s response capabilities when thinking of how an adversary can cause a serious disruption. The Russian SolarWinds breach was a sign adversaries aren’t just snooping around, she said, but learning private sector systems so they cause lasting damage.
But the private sector may not see the cost-benefit of investing in cybersecurity to the level that would protect against state-sponsored cyberterrorism, experts say.
“There’s now more recognition that that is not just a commercial area of concern, but one with broader national security applications,” said Hillman, noting a convergence of bipartisan support for making investments to compete with and defend against China.
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Spaulding said roads, bridges, and tunnels are important when it comes to an emergency evacuation. If all physical infrastructure is sound and Interstate highways could be automated to direct traffic one way, a cascading series of harmful events could be prevented.
“Whether it’s nation-states or non-state actors, the more fragile our infrastructure, the greater opportunities to cause disruption,” she said. “I’m confident that we can improve our posture if we make it a priority.”
