"In our phased implementation roadmap, this base must demonstrate within its first 24 months that it can sustain 30 continuous days of full combat sorted generation, completely disconnected from the civilian grid and power supplies," Dale Marks told an audience at the Installation Innovation conference in Tampa.
Dale Marks: a "city" sized base and a tight schedule
Dale Marks, the assistant secretary of defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, is leading a Pentagon effort to identify and select a site for a new, highly hardened joint military installation within the United States. Marks described the effort as building "a city" and told Breaking Defense the department expects states to submit broad site plans by Dec. 1. The Pentagon aims to pick a location by June 2027 and begin fleshing out concepts with nominated states thereafter.
Four technical and scale requirements the Pentagon set
Marks and a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have placed four clear pillars at the center of the selection: land area, population capacity, self-sufficiency, and public-private financing. The Pentagon is eyeing parcels roughly in the 100,000 to 250,000 acre range but said it will not rule out "otherwise compelling offers" that are smaller or larger. The installation must be able to house and support 15,000 to 25,000 active service members and their families—roughly 80,000 to 100,000 people in total—and must be able to host future formations built around "autonomous mass" capabilities such as uncrewed strike wings, directed energy and counter-drone brigades, hypersonic maneuvering units, and SI-driven joint operational task forces.
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End the scrambleEnergy resilience: small modular reactors, hardened microgrids, and 30-day independence
Resilience is central to the requirement set. The future base is required to be self-sufficient with on-site small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), hardened microgrids, and closed-loop water capture, treatment, and recycling systems that operate "indefinitely," according to Marks. The explicit benchmark: within 24 months the base must demonstrate it can remain 100 percent operational for 30 continuous days of full combat generation while completely disconnected from the civilian grid and power supplies—prepared, Marks said, for a "catastrophic grid collapse."
Public-private partnerships, the split between mission and commercial roles
Marks asked states to pursue public-private partnerships to help shoulder cost and construction responsibilities. Under the envisioned model, the Defense Department could fund combat mission elements—power projection capabilities, subterranean command shelters, munitions bunkers, and tactical proving grounds—while commercial capital would build and operate supporting digital and community infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, and possibly housing. Marks gave a granular example of how local concepts can vary: "Maybe the fence is a fence. Maybe the fence isn’t a fence," and local partners might choose to build support infrastructure in exchange for DoD presence.
What governors, military planners, and local communities must do
- Governors and adjutants general: States have until Dec. 1 to submit broad site nominations and concepts. Marks' Oct. 22 letter to the nation's governors and adjutants general launches a period in which the Pentagon will discuss and refine those concepts with nominees.
- Military planners and the DoD acquisition/installation teams: Teams led by Marks will evaluate technical feasibility against the four pillars, weigh the tradeoffs of site-specific designs down to details such as perimeter concepts, and prepare for a 2028 budget request that is expected to include a "wedge" to start the project.
- Local communities and commercial partners: Communities that nominate sites may be asked to provide or build supporting infrastructure—schools, hospitals, housing—and to form public-private partnerships that deliver and operate the digital and civic systems the base will rely upon.
Pete Hegseth framed the initiative in a late-September memo as a response to "rapid advancements in disruptive technologies, growing strategic alignment among peer adversaries, and persistent, sophisticated cyber intrusions against critical defense and homeland infrastructure," charging Marks with finding an "optimal site." Hegseth's memo used the phrase "To counter multi-domain threats and maintain strategic deterrence, the Department of War must rapidly establish a new, highly hardened joint military installation within the Homeland."
Marks also said the process will be public and that "there’s going to be a panel," and that "we’ve been told the president might be involved," indicating possible high-level visibility for the ultimate selection. Cost estimates have not been released; Marks told Breaking Defense he did not offer a cost estimate since a site has not been located, but that the 2028 budget request is expected to include an initial funding wedge.
The next concrete milestones are the Dec. 1 deadline for state nominations and the June 2027 window for selecting a location. From that point the Pentagon plans detailed discussions with nominees to turn broad concepts into site-specific plans that meet the four technical pillars and the operational ambitions Marks has outlined—down to choices as small as whether or where a fence will be placed.
