A National Guard-Industry Alliance for Ac ce le rated Innovation by ANDRE SLONOPAS, PH.D., JOEL JEAN, PH.D., and PAUL MALONEY
The Virginia National Guard-led annual Cyber Fortress exercise exemplifies a large-scale, com- bined experiment in multidomain infrastructure resilience-testing and defense. The 2025 exercise brought together federal and state agencies, the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) and its Army Research Laboratory (ARL), the U.S. Army National Guard, private-industry partners, and academia. It drew more than 600 participants from more than 45 agencies and organizations across military, utilities, academia, and cyber/energy sectors.
The scale and scope of Cyber For - tress reflect the increasing urgency to better understand how to protect critical infrastructure—power grids, control systems, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), electromagnetic en - vironments, and communications networks—against adversaries who operate across domains (cyber, kinetic, electromagnetic, unmanned).
The exercise provides a live-fire “sandbox” for innovation: testing new technologies under realistic condi - tions, validating coordination proto - cols across the whole-of-government, and giving private-industry innovators early access to Warfighter feedback. By structuring a true public-pri - vate partnership, the exercise breaks down silos: State governors and
utility regulators engage alongside the cyber elements across all mili - tary services, universities bring fresh student researchers into capture-the- flag and training events, and industry fields emerging technical capabilities. Partnership is crucial because no single organization holds the full set of skills, authorities, and assets re -
32 DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE | MAY – JUNE 2026
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