Key Takeaways
- Private infrastructure—AI labs, telecom networks, and critical‑mineral supply chains—now drives national‑security outcomes, yet the U.S. government still relies on ad‑hoc, relationship‑based contacts.
- Existing mechanisms (informal CEO calls, trade associations, narrow cyber‑only bodies) are episodic, one‑sided, and lack the breadth to address emerging technology, supply‑chain, and mineral threats.
- Advisory bodies created by executive order are vulnerable to dissolution; durability requires congressional authorization and stable funding.
- A standing public‑private national‑security forum—legally established, jointly funded, and balanced in leadership—can provide regular dialogue, crisis readiness, and trust‑building across sectors.
- The forum must be shielded from FACA open‑meeting rules, antitrust constraints, and liability exposure through targeted legal protections, similar to aviation safety‑reporting safe harbors.
- Beyond crisis response, the forum could host joint exercises, publish annual assessments, and broaden participation to include startups, mid‑cap firms, and non‑traditional vendors, ensuring that the voices most affected by private‑infrastructure decisions are heard.
The Emerging Threat Landscape Originates in Private Infrastructure
The next major national‑security crisis is likely to spark from a private actor—a frontier AI lab, a telecom carrier’s network, or a factory deprived of an irreplaceable critical mineral. When such a crisis erupts, the U.S. government will revert to the familiar playbook used after the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack: senior officials convene government‑only meetings, call industry executives from their existing rolodexes, and try to reconcile divergent interests on the fly. This reactive, relationship‑driven approach works only insofar as the right people happen to be on the speed‑dial list.
The Absence of a Standing Public‑Private Forum
What is missing is a durable venue where business leaders and national‑security officials meet routinely across the full spectrum of security concerns, set a shared agenda, and collaborate openly. Technology advances, supply‑chain shifts, and critical‑mineral discoveries occur almost daily, affecting both public and private actors. Without a standing forum, coordination remains improvised, information sharing is fragmented, and planning for long‑term resilience is hampered.
Private Decisions Carry Public‑Security Consequences
Never before have private‑sector choices held such weight for national security. Leading AI models, compute allocations, jailbreak policies, and foreign partnerships are decided in boardrooms where government officials have no seat. When SpaceX switched on Starlink for Ukraine in 2022, a single firm became the wartime communications backbone, and its owner’s decisions—limiting service near Crimea, restricting drone use, reportedly cutting coverage during a counteroffensive—directly shaped the battlefield without any treaty or vote. Adversary intelligence services increasingly target privately owned networks, yet the U.S. government’s insights about those threats remain locked inside classified channels, inaccessible to the operators who need them.
The Limits of Private‑Sector‑Only Coordination
Even when private firms attempt self‑organized solutions, the results are incomplete. A leading frontier AI company once deemed one of its models too dangerous to release and formed a private coalition of critical‑infrastructure firms to use the model for hardening cyber defenses. The effort uncovered thousands of serious vulnerabilities, but it also highlighted the reach and limits of private action: the public became subject to a company’s remedy and its vision of de‑facto governance, and firms could create coalitions that serve competitive advantage rather than the public interest. In such cases, the public interest hinges on the judgment of a single private actor.
Inadequate Existing Mechanisms
Current channels for government‑industry communication are fragmented and ad‑hoc. Trade associations lobby in one direction; informal CEO calls are episodic, company‑specific, and favor those with the best personal networks. The administration’s heavy reliance on these channels—presidential calls to CEOs, commerce‑secretary calls to steel executives—does not institutionalize engagement. Formal bodies that do exist are narrow: the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) at CISA handles only cyber threat sharing and operational planning, leaving regulation, investment screening, supply‑chain exposure, and mineral dependencies unaddressed. Various think‑tank proposals—open‑source intelligence partnerships, national economic‑and‑technology‑security intelligence centers, shared AI research infrastructure—address slices of the problem but none calls for a comprehensive, standing institution.
Durability Requires Legislative Anchoring
Neither government nor industry will invest in a forum they believe will vanish with the next administration. The record shows that advisory bodies created by executive order are fragile: the Trump administration terminated the Cyber Safety Review Board and the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council in early 2025, despite the latter’s 19‑year history. By contrast, the JCDC survived because Congress embedded it in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act as an operational CISA component, shielding it from the whims of executive‑order rescissions. Durability, therefore, hinges on statutory creation, binding charters, and joint funding.
Designing a Public‑Private National Security Forum
To close the gap, this article proposes a legislatively established public‑private national‑security forum with the following core features:
Joint Board: Co‑chaired by a senior business leader elected by industry peers and a national‑security official appointed by the President, ensuring neither side dominates the table. The chairs execute the congressionally mandated charter and serve as ambassadors between sectors.
Permanent Secretariat: A small, dedicated staff reporting to both co‑chairs would organize sessions, draft reports, manage logistics, and keep the forum’s machinery running between meetings.
Funding: Shared financing—congressional appropriations plus membership contributions—prevents either side from buying undue influence over who sits at the table.
Forum Membership: Selections would follow published criteria focused on a company’s systemic importance to the public interest (cascading sector impact), not mere size or Washington influence. A core of such firms would be complemented by rotating seats for frontier startups and a block for mid‑cap companies with critical dependencies but limited national presence. Membership would tilt away from the government’s top vendors, while still including them, to capture voices that currently lack steady government engagement—financial firms, industrial conglomerates, logistics operators, internet‑infrastructure providers, agriculture and pharma suppliers, energy utilities, and more.
Public Sessions: Regular, open meetings with agendas set by the joint board would discuss observed threats, unclassified intelligence the government wishes industry to absorb, and enforcement priorities firms seek clarified. Media and the public could attend.
Closed Sessions: Parallel closed‑door meetings under the Chatham House Rule would allow candid discussion of sensitive vulnerabilities; either co‑chair could call an emergency session, ensuring a pre‑existing venue when a crisis strikes.
Published Assessments: An annual joint‑board report would highlight emerging issues or coordination gaps. The government co‑chair would be required to answer the recommendations in writing, on the record, within ninety days, ensuring accountability despite the forum’s non‑binding nature.
Legal Protections Essential for Candid Participation
For the forum to function, three legal barriers must be lifted. First, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972 mandates open meetings, public notice, and balanced membership—requirements that impede candid talk of classified vulnerabilities. A statutory FACA exemption would allow the forum to operate in a closed‑session environment suited to its subject. Second, antitrust laws (Sherman Act) restrict information sharing among competitors; Congress should create a safe‑harbor provision akin to the aviation‑safety reporting system, shielding participants from antitrust claims when they share information in good faith. Third, firms that disclose sensitive data to the government risk regulatory retaliation; liability limits for good‑faith disclosures would protect them from civil suits arising solely from the act of sharing, while preserving accountability for underlying misconduct. These protections mirror longstanding practices in aviation safety and cyber‑threat information sharing (CISA’s 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act), which have proven effective when made permanent rather than subject to periodic sunsets.
Beyond Crisis Response: Building Trust and Joint Capability
A standing forum can evolve into a platform for broader public‑private cooperation. Over time, it could host joint cross‑sector exercises—mirroring the electric‑grid’s GridEx or the Treasury’s Hamilton Series—enabling participants to rehearse responses to complex, multidimensional threats. Regular interaction would foster informal relationships, increase trust, and reduce reliance on ad‑hoc phone trees. Critics who argue the forum would become a “talking shop” overlook that its non‑binding, dialogue‑focused design is precisely what makes bipartisan legislation feasible: neither side needs to cede authority, yet both gain a structured avenue to voice concerns, share intelligence, and align priorities.
Conclusion: A Modest, Achievable Step Toward Resilience
The evolving threat landscape—great‑power competition with China, the AI race, and contests over supply‑chain chokepoints—runs through private hands. Government and industry each recognize they need the other more than ever, yet they lack a regular, durable means of engagement. Embedding a public‑private national‑security forum in the next National Defense Authorization Act would create a charter, supply essential legal shields, fund a modest secretariat, and establish a rhythm of dialogue that survives administration changes. Its modest scope is its strength: it is achievable, precedent‑based, and directly addresses the gap that has left the United States reacting to crises rather than anticipating them. Congress should build the table now, before the next emergency forces a hurried reconstruction.