Iranian strikes damaged Amazon Web Services data centers and infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in March, disrupting cloud services and complicating recovery. In April, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps publicly claimed it had targeted an Amazon cloud-computing facility in Bahrain. The opinion article argues that these attacks put privately owned digital infrastructure at the center of national-security policy, even when it sits outside U.S. territory.
A Strategic Asset Beyond U.S. Borders
Reuters reported that damage to AWS infrastructure contributed to service disruptions and an extended recovery process. This wasn't a commercial facility merely caught in crossfire: Iran had publicly identified American commercial computing infrastructure as a target.
Traditional national defense has focused on territory, borders, military installations and forces stationed abroad. The article argues that this framework must now account for data centers, cloud-computing systems, telecommunications networks and other digital infrastructure, including privately owned assets thousands of miles from the United States.
The exposure extends far beyond technology companies. The military relies on commercial technology and cloud computing, while financial institutions use digital infrastructure for transactions and operations. Hospitals, communications networks, logistics companies and energy providers also depend on interconnected systems. Artificial intelligence, increasingly important to the economy and national defense, requires substantial computing capacity and data.
Federal law broadly defines critical infrastructure as physical or virtual systems and assets whose incapacity or destruction could have a debilitating effect on national security, national economic security, public health or safety. A data center supporting military logistics, financial markets, telecommunications or advanced AI could carry consequences comparable to those of a traditional defense facility.
The Proposed Designation
The Trump administration has recognized how important data-center infrastructure is to the internet, cloud computing, AI, and U.S. economic and national security. The article proposes that Congress create a narrow designation for exceptionally important American-owned or American-controlled digital infrastructure.
Under this framework, the government would identify a relatively small number of facilities whose destruction or prolonged incapacitation could seriously threaten U.S. national or economic security. These might support military operations, financial markets, critical communications, government systems or strategically important AI capabilities.
The article calls for rigorous standards governing ownership and control, cybersecurity, physical security, supply-chain integrity, redundancy and cooperation with U.S. national-security agencies. Companies operating designated facilities would also have to meet high standards for cybersecurity, physical security, redundancy and resilience. They can't treat the designation as a label alone.
Deterrence Without Automatic Escalation
A designated facility wouldn't become U.S. territory. The article specifically says a data center in Bahrain wouldn't become sovereign American territory because of a protected-strategic-asset designation. Instead, a clear policy could establish consequences for deliberate attacks and help deter them.
Potential responses include sanctions, asset freezes, diplomatic measures, defensive cyber operations and, depending on the circumstances and attribution, additional measures authorized by Congress. The goal shouldn't be automatic escalation to military conflict. It should be consequences clear enough to discourage attacks.
The article cites President Donald Trump's June 2026 National Security Presidential Memorandum on artificial intelligence, which directed the national-security enterprise to accelerate AI adoption and strengthen partnerships with private industry. Yet an adversary could attack the data center where AI computing occurs, disrupt its electricity, compromise communications infrastructure or target its supply chain.
Russia has shown a willingness to use cyber operations and infrastructure attacks as instruments of state power. China has invested heavily in cyber capabilities and studied vulnerabilities created by U.S. reliance on interconnected systems. Iran, too, has shown willingness to use cyber and other asymmetric capabilities against U.S. interests. The article urges Congress to define which attacks on digital infrastructure warrant a significant U.S. response, and urges the administration to work with allies on reciprocal protections for strategically important infrastructure overseas. Kate Monroe is identified as a Marine Corps veteran, CEO of Vetcomm and author of "The Race to Save America."