Strategic Documents
FIR’s threat assessment series and reference documents — sourced exclusively from public intelligence, federal advisories, and peer-reviewed research. Every factual claim is cited to a specific, citable document. Download, verify, and decide for yourself.
Threat Assessment Series
Three volumes analyzing the threat to American critical infrastructure — who is targeting it, how they are doing it, and what communities can do about it. Updated continuously as the threat environment evolves.
Volume 1: The Four-Party Ecosystem
Strategic convergence, structural alignment, and the enduring threat to American infrastructure. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as a cooperative ecosystem — each playing a distinct role, producing compounded effects that exceed any single actor’s capability. Domestic proxy forces, cartel infrastructure, and the deniability architecture that protects the strategic architect. March 2026.
Stephen Volandt | Foundation for Infrastructure Resilience | Open-Source Intelligence Compilation
Volume 2: China as Strategic Architect
China as the dominant architect of the conditions under which the four-party ecosystem produces maximum benefit for Beijing. The Liaowang-1 intelligence harvest, munitions attrition, Taiwan’s LNG vulnerability, the five-step coercive playbook, and summit leverage extraction. Version 5.2, March 2026.
Stephen Volandt | Foundation for Infrastructure Resilience | Open-Source Intelligence Compilation
Volume 3: U.S. Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment
Sector-by-sector vulnerability analysis — water, energy, communications, transportation, healthcare, defense. The combined-arms attack scenario. Cascading failure mechanics. Defensive gap analysis. Operational recommendations aligned with the Diamond Blue three-tier framework. The Hormuz Proof: real-time validation of the BSE planning imperative. March 2026.
Stephen Volandt | Foundation for Infrastructure Resilience | Open-Source Intelligence Compilation
Reference Documents
The operational documents that translate threat analysis into community action.
Critical Infrastructure Reference Architecture v5.6
The master checklist. 16 CI sectors in six dependency tiers, six self-sustaining core domains, 155+ Diamond Blue target items, three-vector scoring framework, and the complete assessment methodology. The document that defines what “ready” looks like.
Available to certified practitioners and assessed communities.
Grading Rubric & Scoring System v2.3
How readiness is measured. Eight assessment categories scored 0–5 per vector. The Balanced Readiness Rule. Phase gate criteria from Bronze through Diamond Blue. The standard against which every community assessment is evaluated.
Available to certified practitioners and assessed communities.
Training & Practitioner Certification v3.2
The complete training program — five tiers, concentric ring progression, fundamentals-first philosophy, certification tracks (CRC, CIRP, CBRA), micro-credentials, and the FATP program. The document that defines who is qualified to assess and how they got there.
Public summary available. Full document available to enrolled students.
FIR Podcast Brief
Source content and custom prompts for generating AI podcast episodes using Google NotebookLM. Designed for community outreach — a 15–20 minute listen is the lowest-friction way to introduce the threat picture to a busy elected official.
Available on the Podcast page.
Published Books
Mary Lasky and Steve Volandt have co-authored (with 23+ contributors) and edited two nationally published books on infrastructure resilience.
Powering Through: From Fragile Infrastructures To Community Resilience
Powering Through: Building Critical Infrastructure Resilience
A Note on Sources
Every factual claim in every FIR document is sourced to a specific, citable public document — CISA advisories, FBI testimony, DOE reports, FERC filings, congressional testimony, published cybersecurity research, and peer-reviewed analysis. FIR does not use or disclose any classified, proprietary, or non-public information. You can verify everything we publish. We encourage you to do so. That is the foundation of source discipline.