STRENGTHENING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND EXTREMIST THREATS

Abstract

Domestic violent extremists and state-sponsored actors’ intent on disrupting democratic processes and institutions through targeted attacks on critical infrastructure, including energy, water, communications, and nuclear power plants, are an increasingly diversified and growing threat in the United States. Whilst the number of documented plots targeting infrastructure has increased since 2016, the literature is still divided into sectors of threat-specific, technical and policy studies, without an integrated synthesis that examines how threat intelligence, technical hardening, governance and community-based approaches interact in determining infrastructure resilience outcomes in the United States. This review identified and compiled peer reviewed academic papers and institutional publications from 2020 to 2026 from various databases and was thematized according to four domains; the changing threat landscape and radicalization pathways, cyber-physical security and technical hardening, governance and policy frameworks, and community and communication-based resilience strategies. The review concludes that no single intervention can ensure long-term resilience, but rather a thoughtful combination of technical, governance, and human-based strategies and also, fragmentation among federal, state, private-sector, and community groups is a key vulnerability. A multi-layered approach that includes technical hardening and human-centered prevention, is best coordinated, most defensible, and has a unified evidence base for policy design and future research.