Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative

The Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI) is a strategy and list, maintained by the United States Department of Homeland Security, of foreign infrastructure which "if attacked or destroyed would critically impact the U.S." A copy of the 2008 list was redacted (removing details of names and locations) and leaked by on 5 December 2010 as part of the website's leak of US diplomatic cables; no details on the exact location of the assets was included in the list. The list's release was met with strong criticism from the US and British governments, while media and other countries have reacted less strongly saying that the entries are not secret and easily identified.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it "Developed and executed the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative (CFDI) which extends our protection strategy overseas to include important foreign infrastructure that if attacked or destroyed would critically impact the U.S. The prioritized National Critical Foreign Dependencies List (NCFDL) currently contains over 300 assets and systems in over 50 countries." According to the 2009 National Infrastructure Protection Plan, the CFDI was launched by the federal government "working in close coordination and cooperation with the private sector" in 2007 "to identify assets and systems located outside the United States, which, if disrupted or destroyed, would critically affect public health and safety, the economy, or national security. The resulting strategic compendium guides engagement with foreign countries in the CIKR [critical infrastructure and key resources] protection mission area". Using an initial inventory of infrastructure located outside the United States created by the federal government, DHS and the Department of State (DOS) developed the CFDI, "a process designed to ensure that the resulting classified list of critical foreign dependencies is representative and leveraged in a coordinated and inclusive manner."

Development of the CFDI was planned in three phases, on an annual and ongoing basis. The first phase was identification, beginning with "the first-ever National Critical Foreign Dependencies List in FY2008". This was done by the DHS working with "other Federal partners", in a process that "includes input from public and private sector CIKR community partners." Next comes prioritization, in which "DHS, in collaboration with other CIKR community partners and, in particular, DOS, prioritized the National Critical Foreign Dependencies List based on factors such as the overall criticality of the CIKR to the United States and the willingness and capability of foreign partners to engage in collaborative risk management activities." The third "involves leveraging the prioritized list to guide current and future U.S. bilateral and multilateral incident and risk management activities with foreign partners. DHS and DOS established mechanisms to ensure coordinated engagement and collaboration by public entities, in partnership with the private sector."

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