The Pentagon is rolling out an initiative large enough to rival Cold War era planning. Known as FORTRESS America, short for Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability, the program was formally established on September 30. Its purpose is straightforward but enormous: keep U.S. forces operating if a major conflict disrupts domestic power grids and manufacturing supply chains.

The plan marks a shift from how the Defense Department has stored supplies in recent decades. During the Cold War, the military kept huge stockpiles overseas, close to anticipated battlefields in Europe and Asia. FORTRESS instead focuses on building reserves inside the United States, reflecting a growing fear that American factories and infrastructure could themselves become targets.

Critical minerals are the weakest link

The minerals portion of the plan may be the hardest to solve. The United States produces less than 1 percent of the most common type of rare earth magnet it uses, leaving the defense industry heavily dependent on foreign suppliers. China dominates the processing of many critical minerals and has repeatedly tightened export controls, even in peacetime.

In 2025, the U.S. imported about $60 billion worth of critical minerals outside of rare earths, including nickel, lithium, cobalt, graphite, and tungsten, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The gap in rare earth magnets is especially stark. Domestic demand reached roughly 48,000 metric tons last year, while U.S. sources supplied only about 300 metric tons, according to data reported by Reuters. American companies are on track to add capacity for about 5,000 metric tons by the end of this year, still only about a tenth of last year’s demand.

The shortage is already affecting American industry. Ford idled its Chicago Explorer plant for a week in May 2025 when rare earth supplies ran short, a sign that the Pentagon would not be the only buyer competing for limited domestic supply.

A $2 billion tungsten deal shows the timeline problem

Tungsten illustrates why writing contracts is easier than filling stockpiles. The U.S. has not commercially mined tungsten since 2015, when cheaper imports undercut domestic production, and its net import reliance for the metal exceeded 50 percent in 2025, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In September, tungsten manufacturer The Elmet Group won a Defense Logistics Agency contract worth up to $2 billion to supply tungsten ores, concentrates, and sodium tungstate to the National Defense Stockpile. Only $150 million of that amount is guaranteed. The Pentagon also committed $450 million to Elmet, including about $150 million to restart the Springer tungsten complex in Nevada.

Yet Elmet has said it will not begin deliveries until additional supply becomes available. To avoid diverting existing tungsten from American manufacturers, the company plans to wait until new production comes online from investments in Nevada, Australia, and Spain. The delay means the Pentagon’s signature tungsten contract may not put material into government reserves for years.

Price tag and political deadlines

The cost of FORTRESS remains uncertain. A senior defense official told reporters in late October that officials are still assessing costs, and one defense publication estimated the broader initiative could cost scores of billions of dollars, if not hundreds of billions. The Pentagon is exploring public-private partnerships to help cover the bill.

Analysts warn that supply chain independence cannot be rushed. Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fortune that the Pentagon is unlikely to meet its goals in the near term because of the structural difficulty of rapidly stockpiling both finished weapons and raw minerals. Industry analyst Chris Berry told Reuters it will take many more years to build the infrastructure needed to compete with China's dominant supply chain.

The first major test arrives on January 1, 2027, when federal rules require defense contractors to stop buying rare earths, magnets, and tungsten from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Washington has repeatedly granted waivers because domestic supply falls short, and those waivers are likely to remain necessary until mines and processing plants inside the U.S. or among allied countries can scale up.

Why the stockpile matters now

The FORTRESS initiative is built around a specific worry: that China could disrupt American industrial production through cyber operations, drones, electromagnetic warfare, or attacks carried out by people inside the country. U.S. agencies have already warned that Chinese state-sponsored hackers have positioned themselves inside American critical infrastructure.

A recent episode in Europe showed what such an attack could look like. On December 29, 2025, cyberattacks hit about 30 renewable energy sites, a manufacturing company, and a heat and power plant serving nearly 500,000 customers in Poland. Polish officials linked the attacks to Russia's Federal Security Service and said the attackers tried to destroy industrial systems.

For the Pentagon, the challenge is no longer just buying weapons. It is making sure the raw materials, components, and energy needed to build and sustain those weapons are available even during a conflict. Building those reserves will take years, cost vast sums, and require allies and private companies to move faster than they have in decades.