America’s Next National Security Challenge Is Not a Missile. It Is Infrastructure.

For decades, Americans have thought about national security in familiar terms. Troops, weapons systems, foreign conflicts, and traditional battlefields shaped how we understood global competition. Those concerns still matter, but they no longer tell the whole story. Today, national security is increasingly determined by infrastructure. How we produce energy, manage water, secure data, and maintain reliable systems at scale now plays a central role in whether the United States remains safe, competitive, and resilient in a rapidly changing world. Artificial intelligence illustrates this shift clearly. AI is often discussed as software or innovation, but in reality it is deeply physical. AI depends on data centers. Data centers require enormous amounts of reliable electricity and water. As demand grows, grid reliability becomes a national security concern, not just an engineering challenge. Energy policy, technology policy, and security policy are now inseparable. This reality is unfolding in the context of an active global competition. The United States is engaged in an arms race with adversarial nations, particularly China, to build the most advanced and sophisticated artificial intelligence systems. That competition is not theoretical. It is already shaping military planning, economic power, and geopolitical influence. At the same time, artificial intelligence presents a challenge unlike any previous technology. Its speed, scale, and capacity for autonomous decision making raise profound questions about control, accountability, and safety. Winning this race cannot simply mean building faster or more powerful systems. It must also mean developing policies and legislation that protect humanity from unintended consequences. Innovation without guardrails is not leadership. Balancing progress with responsibility is one of the defining challenges of this century. Recent history shows how costly institutional unpreparedness can be. Congress struggled for years to understand the implications of social media, often reacting only after problems had already become widespread. Public hearings revealed not just policy disagreements, but a fundamental gap in technical understanding. Artificial intelligence is far more complex and far more consequential. Approaching it with the same reactive posture would carry far greater risks. These pressures flow directly into the question of energy. Reliable power at scale is no longer optional. Nuclear energy, long treated as a niche or controversial topic, is increasingly central to serious discussions about baseload reliability, resilience, and long term planning. If the United States wants to remain competitive in advanced technology while maintaining grid stability, nuclear must be part of a disciplined and realistic strategy. Water presents an equally important challenge. Population growth, agriculture, energy production, and advanced technology all depend on secure and sustainable water supplies. In many parts of the country, including Texas, water constraints are no longer hypothetical. Treating water as a purely local or environmental issue misses its strategic importance. Water availability affects economic development, military readiness, and long term stability. Even space is no longer a distant or abstract concern. Satellites underpin communications, navigation, data transmission, and grid management. As global competition intensifies, space has become a contested domain tied directly to everyday infrastructure. Disruptions in space can ripple through energy systems, financial markets, emergency response capabilities, and national defense. Taken together, these realities point to a simple conclusion. Infrastructure is now national security. For Texas, and Central Texas in particular, this moment carries added significance. Our community is at a critical point in its history. Texas is developing at an extraordinary pace. People are moving here from across the country. Businesses are investing. Communities are expanding. Central Texas has earned a reputation for being pro business, pro growth, and open to development. Managing that growth is, in many ways, the responsibility of local leadership. Cities, counties, and regional authorities play a critical role in land use, zoning, transportation, and water planning. These decisions shape the character, affordability, and livability of our communities. But local leadership alone is not enough. The forces driving this growth are national and global in scope. Data centers do not exist without federal energy policy. Grid reliability depends on national infrastructure decisions. Water security intersects with federal permitting, environmental policy, and long term investment. Artificial intelligence governance, space security, and technology competition are fundamentally federal responsibilities. That means Central Texas does not just need strong local leadership. It needs federal leadership that understands how these systems interact and how national decisions shape local outcomes. Too often, public policy still treats these challenges in isolation. Energy debates are separated from water planning. Technology policy is discussed without regard to grid reliability. Infrastructure investments are made without a coherent view of long term security implications. This fragmented approach reflects an outdated way of thinking about governance. The world no longer operates in silos, and effective leadership cannot either. Serious leadership in this environment requires a different approach. It demands long term planning rather than short term fixes. It requires coordination across sectors, agencies, and levels of government. It calls for bipartisan cooperation where necessary and firm decision making where clarity is required. Above all, it requires the discipline to think beyond the next election cycle and focus on the systems that will define the next generation. Texas has always succeeded by preparing for the future rather than reacting to crisis. That tradition of foresight helped make the state strong and resilient. As our communities grow and global competition intensifies, we should expect the same level of seriousness from those shaping national policy. Infrastructure is no longer just about roads and pipes. It is about resilience, security, and national strength. Recognizing that reality is the first step toward governing effectively in a new era of competition.