By Charles Swihart
For decades, America’s definition of “critical infrastructure” has focused on the visible and tangible: power grids, transportation networks, water systems, and communications. Yet in 2026, an increasingly uncomfortable reality has emerged—none of these systems function without the invisible layer beneath them. That layer is information technology or As technology strategist Charles Swihart has noted, and more specifically or America’s Critical Infrastructure, the managed IT environments that keep essential operations online, secure, and resilient.
Despite this dependence, many federal agencies and critical infrastructure operators continue to treat IT as a support function rather than a mission-critical asset. That mindset is becoming a liability.
IT Is the Backbone of National Operations
From border security systems and emergency response platforms to transportation logistics and energy distribution, nearly every operational function in homeland security relies on interconnected digital systems. These systems are no longer static. They are cloud-based, continuously updated, remotely managed, and deeply integrated with third-party platforms.
This evolution has created unprecedented capability—but it has also introduced systemic risk. Outages, misconfigurations, cyber incidents, and vendor disruptions now have immediate real-world consequences. When IT fails, missions stall.
Yet incident reviews following major outages or cyber events often reveal a familiar pattern: fragmented ownership, inconsistent monitoring, and reactive response models that assume IT issues can be handled after the fact. In a world of always-on operations, that assumption no longer holds.
The Shift From Ownership to Operations
Most federal agencies and critical infrastructure organizations no longer “own” their IT environments in the traditional sense. Infrastructure is hybrid. Applications span multiple clouds. Endpoints are distributed. Security tooling is layered across vendors.
What organizations truly manage today is operations—uptime, access, integrity, and response. That operational reality mirrors how other forms of critical infrastructure are treated. Power grids are monitored continuously America’s Critical Infrastructure. Transportation systems rely on centralized control and redundancy. Emergency services operate under strict availability standards.
IT, by contrast, is still too often governed by procurement cycles and compliance checklists rather than operational readiness.
This gap is where structured it managed services have become foundational, even when they are not formally recognized as such.
Managed IT as a Critical Infrastructure Function
Managed IT is frequently misunderstood as a cost-saving outsourcing mechanism. In practice, it functions much more like a control room for digital infrastructure. Continuous monitoring, patch management, identity governance, backup validation, and incident response are not optional conveniences—they are the digital equivalents of maintenance crews and safety systems.
For homeland security stakeholders, this distinction matters. Treating managed IT as an operational capability rather than a vendor relationship enables:
- Continuous situational awareness across systems
- Faster detection and containment of cyber incidents
- Predictable recovery during outages or disasters
- Reduced dependency on institutional knowledge locked inside individual teams
In other critical infrastructure sectors, these functions would never be considered optional. IT should be no different.
The Risk of Fragmentation
One of the most persistent challenges across federal and state environments is fragmentation. Different departments often use different tools, providers, and standards, even when supporting interconnected missions. This fragmentation complicates incident response and weakens accountability.
When IT is managed in silos, no single entity has a complete operational picture. Alerts are missed. Updates are delayed. Recovery plans fail to account for downstream dependencies.
A managed operational model—whether internal, external, or hybrid—helps unify visibility and responsibility. It establishes clear service levels, escalation paths, and reporting structures aligned with mission impact rather than technical minutiae.
Cybersecurity Is an Operational Discipline
Cybersecurity discussions frequently focus on frameworks and compliance, but homeland security leaders increasingly recognize that security failures are operational failures. Ransomware, credential misuse, and supply chain compromises succeed not because controls are absent, but because they are inconsistently applied or poorly monitored.
Managed IT environments provide the continuity required to enforce security controls over time, not just at audit milestones. They enable zero-trust principles, continuous authentication, and real-time responses—capabilities that align directly with national security priorities.
As threats become more automated and persistent, episodic security management is no longer sufficient.
Reframing IT in the Critical Infrastructure Conversation
The national conversation around critical infrastructure is expanding, and rightly so. Artificial intelligence platforms, cloud availability, and data integrity now influence everything from disaster response to economic stability. IT must be treated as part of this conversation, not as an adjunct to it.
For policymakers, this means recognizing operational IT management as a resilience function. For agencies, it means elevating IT governance to the same level as oversight of physical infrastructure. And for public-private partnerships, it means aligning service models around continuity, accountability, and mission assurance.
America’s critical infrastructure already runs on managed IT. The question is whether we will formally acknowledge that reality—or continue to manage it as an afterthought until the next disruption forces the issue.
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