The Untapped Arsenal: How Underutilized Military Bases Could Revitalize American Industry

The Department of Defense owns roughly 26.3 million acres of land across nearly 500 military installations around the United States. While the majority of the land on military installations is used to provide training areas for soldiers, depots to store equipment, or buildings to house military families, a significant portion of the land is perennially underutilized. A report from 2016 stated that 30% of DoD infrastructure was unutilized. More recently, the DoD’s 2023 Real Property Utilization and Disposal report listed over 40,000 excess buildings in the DoD’s care. Although the Government Accountability Office has criticized the DoD’s internal tracking system as unreliable, there is a significant excess of unused buildings or underutilized facilities on military installations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. defense industrial base has serious problems with domestic manufacturing for defense articles and dual-use technologies (e.g., autonomous systems). This deficit has various causes, ranging from increased costs of raw materials and labor, to market shifts resulting from trade agreements, to societal views around desired careers. In addition to these, some industries are hamstrung by the availability to lease or own sufficient industrial space, challenges navigating legal and regulatory regimes, security concerns, and having low overhead to purchase machinery or labor.

Since 2000, America has lost 6.7 million manufacturing jobs. Such a significant loss of American industrial output is a terrifying prospect given our inability to produce enough munitions to satisfy the minimum requirements of our military. Likewise, our adversaries in Russia and China have made significant increases in industrial output during this same period. When coupled together, the prospect of how long it takes for capital, raw materials, facilities, and labor to harmonize into production is daunting.

America’s manufacturing shortcomings could be reversed by an unexpected partner who ironically is also the end-user: the U.S. military.

The U.S. Government has an extremely rare opportunity to play matchmaker for the perfect couple; the government could allow U.S. companies to manufacture for free – or a nominal sum – on military bases by using the underutilized buildings on military installations sprinkled across America. This would provide cost savings for businesses, maximize costs for taxpayers, decrease the threat of  industrial and supply chain security espionage, and improve domestic manufacturing outputs. Businesses would benefit from this arrangement because they could select a site that suits their business needs, leading to a reduction in capital expenditures, additional security for their facilities, and the ability to quickly and affordably deliver products for either testing or usage to the end-user. This configuration would remove burdensome state-level regulatory hurdles for businesses, expedite innovation and production cycles, and address the underutilization problem that seems to have no remedy in sight. Companies that opt for this program could also receive additional tax incentives, federal dollars for workforce development, grants and loans from the DoD to lease or purchase advanced machinery or AI-enabled tools, and preferential points when competing for contracts with the DoD.

The election of President Trump revived the business-minded leader at the helm of our government in Washington. This type of public-private alignment not only supports his government efficiency efforts, but also advances his employment targets and domestic manufacturing goals. Although different, using military installations to support domestic manufacturing for the defense industrial base largely mirrors his idea of having critical mineral and rare earth element processing facilities use federal lands, for many of the same reasons as mentioned above.

Ultimately, this type of program could serve as a catalyst to supercharge investment into domestic manufacturing, push investors into defense manufacturing and technologies, and create the most incentive-rich public-private partnership that has existed in American history. Such a program would help usher in America’s golden age in manufacturing and enhance competitiveness and resilience in American manufacturing.

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The Buffer is the Strategy

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Andy Baker

Managing Director, American Global Strategies; Fmr. WH Deputy National Security Advisor

Andy Baker is a Managing Director at American Global Strategies, where he advises clients on national security, foreign policy, geopolitical strategy, and the implications of a rapidly changing international environment for business and investment decisions. Prior to joining American Global Strategies, Dr. Baker served in the second Trump administration as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump and National Security Advisor to Vice President JD Vance. He is the only U.S. official to have served concurrently in both positions and was closely involved in the development and execution of U.S. national security and foreign policy, including the administration’s National Security Strategy and major diplomatic and security initiatives around the world. Before entering the White House, Dr. Baker served as National Security Advisor to then-Senator JD Vance beginning in 2023, advising him on foreign and national security policy in the Senate and during the 2024 presidential campaign. Earlier in his career, Dr. Baker spent more than a decade as a career Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State. His assignments included service in Afghanistan and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, with work spanning diplomacy, strategy, and national security. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Dr. Baker lectured at Oxford University and published Constructing a Post-war Order: The Rise of US Hegemony and the Origins of the Cold War, based on his doctoral research. Dr. Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy in international relations from the University of Oxford. He is proficient in Russian, Bulgarian, and Persian.

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Omer Rafiq

Vice President, CGCI

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Benedetta Berti

Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly

Dr Benedetta Berti

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Dr. Stephen Tankel

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Andrew J. Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto

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Dr. CHRISTOS A. MAKRIDIS

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Director, Harvard Belfer Center Intelligence Project

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Stephen Rubley

Fmr. President, Government Division, Thomson Reuters; CEO, TRSS LLC

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Kevin McAleenan

CEO, BearBig.ai; Operating Partner, AE Industrial Partners; Former Acting Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

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Michael Montelongo

President and CEO of GRC Advisory Services, LLC

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Lorraine Wilson

Senior Advisor, CGCI

As Lorraine is an expert in methodology and framework development. She leverages her extensive financial services and technology background to excel in research and coalition building. Lorraine is a senior advisor to the Council on Global Competition and Innovation. Lorraine founded Blue Horizon Economy, a business advisory firm in Washington, D.C. Prior to founding Blue Horizon, she was head of methodology and a member of the executive leadership team at a Microsoft-backed data management platform for the private markets. Lorraine’s early career included roles at the Department of Justice and Council on Foreign Relations. Her financial services experience includes roles in investment management in New York at Bank of America Merrill, Third Avenue Management, and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

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Philip Root

CTO, GRVTY
Former Director (STO), DARPA

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Dame Fiona Murray

Associate Dean of Innovation, MIT
Chair, NATO Innovation Fund

Dame Fiona Murray is the Associate Dean of Innovation at the MIT School of Management and the William Porter (1967) Professor of Entrepreneurship. She is the Faculty Director of MIT’s Office of Innovation and also Faculty Director of The MIT Kuo Sharper Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship. Fiona is an associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received her BA ’89 and MA ‘90 from the University of Oxford in chemistry. She subsequently moved to the United States and earned an AM ’92 and PhD ’96 from Harvard University in applied sciences.

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Dawn Meyerriecks

Corporate Board Member, Advisor, Speaker, Technologist
Former Deputy Director of Science and Technology, CIA

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Graham “Gray” Chynoweth

Founder, The Next Offset
Former Director of Global Activities, Office of Strategic Capital at the U.S. Department of War

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In parallel with his civilian career, Graham has served as a Naval officer, leading multiple innovation initiatives. He was Deputy Director of NavalX, the U.S. Navy’s innovation cell; Director of Global Technology Scouting and Co-Investments at the Office of Strategic Capital within the Office of the Secretary of War; and a technology scout with Task Force 59 under the U.S. Navy’s Central Command.

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He holds a B.A. in Political Science with High Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy; a J.D. from Duke University School of Law; and a Certificate in Transnational Law from Duke and the University of Geneva Faculty of Law.

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Jesús Mantas

Jesús Mantas

Former Global Managing Partner, IBM
Board Director, Biogen, IFF, and National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)

Jesús Mantas is the former Global Managing Partner responsible for Business Transformation Services in IBM. Prior to this, he led IBM Business Consulting, IBM Global Process Services, and IBM GBS Latin America. Before IBM, he was a Partner in the High Technology practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, and worked at Procter & Gamble in Spain.

He serves as the Chair of Compensation and Management Development of the Board of Director of Biogen Inc.(NASDAQ: BIIB), as well as a Board Director of IFF (NYSE: IFF) and NACD. He was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council and serves on the Boards of HITEC and NACME, non-profits focused on leadership development of diversity in technology. He is the emeritus chair of IBM’s Hispanic Diversity Council.

Jesús holds degrees in Telecommunications, Software Engineering, and Business Administration, was a professor at University of California, Irvine Graduate School of Management, and served as an officer in the Air Force of Spain.

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Glen Dodson

Glen Dodson

Job Title, Cyberistics

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David Ulevitch

General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

David Ulevitch is an entrepreneur and investor. As a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he leads the firm’s American Dynamism practice, which focuses on investing in companies advancing American interests — including supporting builders in areas such as defense, national security, public safety, nuclear and aerospace. David sits on the boards of Alloy Automation, Anduril, AnyRoad, Charthop, Firstbase, Flock Safety, Orderful, Rewatch, Skydio, Superhuman, Supermove, Vitally, and WorkBoard. David has written extensively on the role of technology in advancing American interests, including how nuclear technology can untether our military, the future of public safety and how the U.S. can rewire the Pentagon for a new era. David was previously the founder and CEO of OpenDNS, a cloud-delivered security service that was acquired by Cisco in 2015 for $635 million. While at Cisco, David was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security — a $2.4 billion annual revenue business with more than 5,000 team members — where he oversaw the company’s global cybersecurity strategy, product portfolio, and business. Prior to OpenDNS, David founded EveryDNS, an authoritative DNS service, and grew it into the world’s largest free DNS service. He sold it to Dyn (now Oracle) in 2010.

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John M. B. O'Connor

John M. B. O’Connor

Chairman and CEO, J.H. Whitney Investment Management

John M. B. O’Connor is CEO of J.H. Whitney Investment Management, LLC. Previously, Mr. O’Connor was Chairman of JP Morgan Alternative Asset Management. Mr. O’Connor is also CEO of Whitney Strategic Services and Whitney Data Services. Mr. O’Connor serves on the Board of Directors of numerous companies including Oceus Networks, LLC., Sequoia Holdings, Inc., and Boon Logic, Inc.

Mr. O’Connor is a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he lectures on the Economics of National Security. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of War Business Board from 2005 to 2021 and as a Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army for New York from 2014 to 2019. He is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Air Force Distinguished Public Service Award and the Department of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award. Mr. O’Connor earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tulane University and a Master’s in Business Administration degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

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Sherif Nahas

Sherif Nahas

Director of Private Equity, Ford Foundation

Sherif works at The Ford Foundation, where he manages approximately $7 billion in private investments, including venture capital, private equity, real estate, and natural resources. He previously managed private investments for the University of Virginia endowment, and before that worked at BankBoston and Sand Hill Capital. Sherif started his career as an engineer and product strategist at The Ford Motor Company. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. and M.E in Aerospace Engineering, and received an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.

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Byron Loflin

Byron Loflin

Global Head of Board Advisory & Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence, Nasdaq

Byron Loflin is the Global Head of Board Advisory at Nasdaq where he leads the governance team in driving board and governance effectiveness. Byron founded the Center for Board Excellence (CBE) in 2010 and was CEO until it was acquired by Nasdaq in 2019.

Prior to CBE, Byron was the CEO and president for two private companies between 1992-2009. Along with speaking on and teaching corporate governance effectiveness, Byron is a graduate of James Madison University (BA) and Harvard Business School (OPM) and several HBS Executive Education Certificates including Havard’s Board Effectiveness program.

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Gen. David Stilwell

General David Stilwell

Ret. General USAF; Fmr Assistant Secretary of State (Asia)

Brig Gen (Ret) David Stilwell is the Fox Fellow for Future Pacing Threats at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Institute for Future Conflict. In this role, he educates cadets and faculty on the growing military threat presented by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including its use of political and information warfare to undermine democracies. His teachings help prepare future officers for the challenges they will face immediately after commissioning. Stilwell most recently served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of EastAsian and Pacific Affairs from 2019 to 2021. Before that, he served in the U.S.Air Force for 35 years. Stilwell enlisted as a Korean linguist in 1980, served as a fighter pilot and commander for 25 years, and was later the Defense Attaché in Beijing. He retired in 2015 as the Asia advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He speaks Korean, Chinese, and some Japanese.
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Adam Segal

Ira A. Lipman Chair in Emerging Technologies and National Security, and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman chair in emerging technologies and national security and director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Segal was the project director for the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force reports Confronting Reality in Cyberspace, Innovation and National Security, Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet, and Chinese Military Power. His book The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age (PublicAffairs, 2016) describes the increasingly contentious geopolitics of cyberspace. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, among others. From April 2023 to June 2024, Segal was a senior advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, where he led the development of the United States International Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Before coming to CFR, Segal was an arms control analyst for the China Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. There, he wrote about missile defense, nuclear weapons, and Asian security issues. He has been a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University. Segal is the author of Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge (W.W. Norton, 2011)
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Nazak Nikakhtar Portrait

The Honorable Nazak Nikakhtar

Partner and National Security Chair, Wiley Rein LLP
Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce

The Honorable Nazak Nikakhtar brings over two decades of experience in international trade and national security to help clients succeed in the domestic and global marketplace. Through leadership roles in the U.S. government and private sector, Nazak has leveraged her valuable insights into the expansive range of U.S. and international laws, regulatory and policy processes, and federal agency resources to achieve clients’ business objectives. 

 

From 2018 to 2021, with unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Nazak served as the Department of Commerce’s Assistant Secretary for Industry & Analysis at the International Trade Administration (ITA). Nazak also served the duties of the Under Secretary for Industry and Security at Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). In these roles, Nazak was the agency’s primary liaison with U.S. industry and trade associations, and she shaped major initiatives to strengthen U.S. industry competitiveness, promote innovation, and accelerate economic and job growth.

 

As one of the key national security experts in the U.S. government, she developed and implemented innovative laws, regulations, and policies to safeguard strategically important technologies, strengthen the U.S. industrial base, and protect the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. As the Department’s lead on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), she played a key role in shaping U.S. investment policy. As the head of the agency’s trade policy office, she advised the U.S. government on legal and economic issues impacting critical technologies, advanced manufacturing, financial services, e-commerce, data privacy, cybersecurity, critical minerals/rare earths, and energy competition. Finally, as the federal agency’s lead on supply chain assessments, Nazak spearheaded the United States’ first-ever whole-of-government initiative to evaluate and strengthen supply chains across all strategic sectors of the economy.

 

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R.P. Eddy

R.P. Eddy

CEO, Ergo

R.P. Eddy is the CEO of Ergo, a geopolitical and economic intelligence firm known for forecasting critical world events. Leaders of allied governments and the world’s most consequential global businesses rely on Ergo to navigate what the firm calls “The Fastest Year in History”—with each year faster still.

Previously, R.P. served as a Director at the White House National Security Council and as a senior U.S. and UN diplomat. He has represented the U.S. in peace negotiations, played a role in the (flawed) creation of the International Criminal Court, and led attempts to recover American hostages. He was an initial architect of the Global Fund, which has since been credited with saving over 50 million lives; the UN team was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize. Recognized by Foreign Policy magazine as one of “America’s most respected national security experts,” R.P. was also named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum.

R.P. co-authored the award-winning bestseller Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes (HarperCollins). His advocacy work spans leading counterterrorism programs for the NYPD and LAPD, promoting Western industrial competitiveness with DARPA, advocating for safe social media, and supporting the responsible development of AI. He has testified before Congress, spoken at the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Prize Summit, and is a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

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Christina Alfonso

Executive Director, CGCI

Christina Alfonso is a senior advisor to leaders across government and industry, specializing in national security, economic competitiveness, and emerging technology policy. As the Executive Director of the Council on Global Competition and Innovation (CGCI), she leads an initiative championed by the U.S. Department of War and private sector executives to advance resilient, market-driven security investments and foster strategic growth. As a Senior Advisor at DARPA, Christina prioritized developing public-private partnerships and advised on strategies to strengthen the U.S. defense innovation ecosystem.

Previously, as co-founder/CFO of Novata, a Microsoft and S&P-backed technology platform, Christina enhanced private market transparency through non-financial data reporting. As co-founder/CEO of Madeira Global (2012-2020), she pioneered values-based investment solutions for the private equity and credit sectors.

She is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executives in National and International Security program. Christina holds an M.B.A. from ESADE Business School (Spain) and a B.S. in Finance and Economics from Fordham University. Christina is a trustee and treasurer of the RWJBH Monmouth Medical Center Foundation and has served on the advisory boards of the Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle, PathNorth, and the Women’s Society for the Economy and Society. She has extensive international experience, most recently in São Paulo, and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.