While Europe is showing its first signs of concern — exemplified by the United Kingdom, which has advised its citizens to prepare a 72-hour survival kit to deal with possible national emergencies or external threats — the United States is making an unprecedented strategic leap. The Pentagon has developed a classified plan called Fortress ("Fortress"), designed to ensure that military installations in the continental United States can continue to fight and operate for at least 90 days in total isolation.
The U.S. plan: overcoming the “myth” of the two oceans
Today, energy is synonymous with combat.Without electricity, communications, water, logistics, assembly lines, and even basic command functions are lost.»To eliminate this dependence, the U.S. plan calls for three technological and operational pillars:
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Advanced energy autonomy: Deployment of portable nuclear reactors (mini-SMR), large-scale energy storage and microgrids that can be disconnected from municipal grids on command.
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Strategic stocks for 3 months: Large-scale stockpiling of ammunition, fuel, medical supplies, spare parts, and critical minerals based on wartime consumption rates.
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Redundancy and industrial conversion: A requirement for at least two separate supply channels for every critical component, as well as preliminary agreements to convert civilian factories to military production during a prolonged crisis.
Implications for Italy: a strategic cautionary reflection
The American plan highlights a factor that applies to the entire Western bloc: a country’s defense does not begin at its external front lines, but with the resilience of its critical domestic networks.
From this perspective, the lesson of the Fortress project provides a clear cautionary lesson for Italy as well:
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Geography and dependencies: Unlike the United States, Italy has no protective geographic barriers and is heavily dependent on foreign energy and manufacturing imports.
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The vulnerability of the national system: The continuity of essential Italian services (health care, transportation, communications) rests on interconnected power grids that a prolonged disruption of supply chains or a major event could severely strain.
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Local resilience: Although its resources and priorities differ from those of the American superpower, adopting advanced energy and water self-sufficiency standards for critical national nodes (Defense facilities, Protezione Civile response centers, major hospitals) is a fundamental step toward the stability and security of the entire country in the event of international shocks.
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