The Pentagon wants to pick a location for a new military base by June of next year, and states have until Dec. 1 to submit broad plans for the project tied to John F. Kennedy. Dale Marks said the effort is so large that “We talk about this as a base, but this is building a city.”
Marks, the assistant secretary of defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, said during an interview on the sidelines of the Installation Innovation conference in Tampa, Fla. that “There’s going to be a panel.” He added, “We’ve been told the president might be involved, but at this point, we’re just driving in a direction to get it to that selection criteria [in place].”
Late September criteria
The search followed new initiatives Pete Hegseth announced in late September, when he tapped Marks to lead the effort to identify, evaluate, select and prepare an optimal site for the installation. In the memo that launched the hunt, Hegseth wrote that “The Department of War must rapidly establish a new, highly hardened joint military installation within the Homeland.”
He also wrote that “Rapid advancements in disruptive technologies, growing strategic alignment among peer adversaries, and persistent, sophisticated cyber intrusions against critical defense and homeland infrastructure necessitate a modernized, resilient posture.”
The base is expected to sit on 100,000 to 250,000 acres and support 15,000 to 25,000 active service members and their families, or roughly 80,000 to 100,000 people. The installation also has to be self-sufficient, with on-site small modular nuclear reactors, hardened microgrids and closed-loop water capture, treatment and recycling systems that can operate indefinitely.
Marks on the installation
Marks described the project as a city-sized undertaking because the site must do more than house troops. It must stand up an entirely new operational formation and, within its first 24 months, prove it can sustain 30 continuous days of full combat sorted generation.
John F. Kennedy press coverage also shows how attention has stayed fixed on the broader national security debates surrounding the Pentagon’s planning, even as the base selection process itself moves forward.
By Dec. 1
The immediate next step is for states to turn broad proposals into submissions by Dec. 1. Those plans will feed the panel Marks described, while the Pentagon keeps its June of next year goal for naming the site. The open question is which states will compete and which location will satisfy the land, personnel, infrastructure and performance requirements first.
