Energy sovereignty and defense: Why resilient supply chains matter for national security

Energy sovereignty is no longer optional—it’s a matter of national security.

In this episode of Energy Transition Talks, Derek Marinos speaks with CGI leaders Peter Warren (Energy & Utilities) and Torsten Bernström (Defense) about how resilient energy systems, secure supply chains and digital sovereignty are reshaping defense readiness and economic competitiveness.

The discussion explores why reliable energy underpins total defense, how decentralized generation and SMRs reduce geopolitical risk, and why energy and cyber resilience now form one interconnected security ecosystem. 

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Chapters

• 0:02 Redefining Security Through Energy And Data
• 0:39 Host Welcome And Episode Framing
• 1:08 Expert Introductions And Credentials
• 2:51 Why Energy Independence Matters For Defense
• 4:20 Total Defense And Civilian Infrastructure
• 5:44 Decentralization, SMRs, And Local Generation
• 8:58 Supply Chains, Sovereignty, And Cyber Risk
• 9:26 Lessons From Europe And Trade Shifts
• 11:03 Regionalization, Decarbonization, And Grid Resilience
• 13:13 Rare Earths, Refining, And Strategic Control
• 15:54 Energy–Defense Partnerships And Reciprocity
• 17:00 Digital Sovereignty, Quantum Risk, And Readiness
• 18:25 Key Takeaways And Tease For Part Two

Transcript

Derek Marinos: 0:02

Security and sovereignty are being redefined through energy and data. A nation's strength now depends on its ability to generate, manage, and protect energy locally and to secure the digital systems behind it. Resilience has become the new measure of progress. Efficiency alone is no longer enough. What matters now is readiness, the capacity to adapt, sustain, and recover amid disruption. As global systems evolve, energy and defense are converging, sharing supply chains, technologies, and digital infrastructure to safeguard the systems that keep societies running. Welcome to Energy Transition Talks. I'm your host, Derek Marinos. In this first episode, we will explore how energy independence has become a pillar of national security, linking local generation, secure supply chains, and sovereignty in a changing geopolitical landscape. And we'll look at how defense prioritizes, or rather, priorities, are reshaping energy strategy, making resilience the foundation of strategic autonomy. We have two distinguished CGI experts to help us unpack it all, Torsten Bernström and Peter Warren. Gentlemen, welcome and kindly take a moment to introduce yourselves. Peter.

Peter Warren: 1:20

Thank you very much, uh Derek. I appreciate that. So uh as mentioned, I'm Peter Warren. I'm uh with CGI for uh actually almost 15, 20 years now, and uh I'm the global industry lead for what we do. So in the form of energy, that means uh in the oil industry, everything from well heads right through to customer loyalty cards in electricity, uh, everything from uh generation to billing, the same for natural gas. Uh, we also do water and wastewater, so it's quite a mix of stuff. Uh, all of those things are key things to the infrastructure of our societies, and we'll talk about that more.

Torsten Bernström: 1:52

Wonderful. Torsten. Well, thank you for having me. I'm Torsten Banström, and I'm talking to you out of Stockholm, Sweden. Uh, I'm the global industry lead for defense at CGI, and been in the IT industry for over 25-30 years after my MBA from Stockholm School of Economics. Also, uh reserve officer. So I've been a reserve officer as long as I've been in the IT industry, uh, Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve. Uh well, you were absolutely right, uh, Derek, with your introduction. Uh, defense with all its aspects, and especially with energy as an item in it, is of strategic interest.

Derek Marinos: 2:37

Wonderful. Uh, it's great to be both with both of you, and I look forward to the conversation. And Peter, let's kick things off uh with a simple uh understanding here. And I I I love clarity to purpose, and you're one of the folks I love to engage with when it comes to that. Why does energy independence matter for national defense?

Peter Warren: 2:56

That's a great question, Derek. Um, I mean, we just have to look at recent history, what's been going on, uh infrastructure being attacked uh in uh the war in Ukraine, uh, the uh social impacts of things, our own voice of the client uh research that we do each year, even before the changes in uh the leadership of the United States, people were concerned about tariffs and what the impact was. And disruption uh means that there is uh a concern, I'll put it that way, with nations and how they're going to move forward. And as economies shift, and you look at Canadians uh uh the Canadian economy where I happen to be, as we want to shift maybe from dealing with one primary consumer of our products uh to a global player, we have to consider uh the impacts of how we produce energy and how those goods and services are going to be received around the world. Uh certainly as we want to become part of the global economy in Europe, we have to be compliant to their carbon uh rules. Therefore, the source of energy is important, uh, the consistency of energy is important, uh, and uh the reliability of energy. And we see this as uh an element of maybe economic national security, not just physical defense.

Derek Marinos: 4:08

It very much is like bloodline, so to speak, and vital as well. And Torsten, you're alluding it just uh just as we we heard from you in your introduction. I'd love to get your perspective on this question as well.

Torsten Bernström: 4:20

Well, we can start with usually how we define defense. I always underline that when we are talking defense, it's not only the hard shell. I mean the hard shell of the military capabilities with tanks, planes, and ships. It is also, I mean, the total defense, which uh I usually draw a picture and say, like total defense is not, of course, the military capabilities, but there are nothing without the civilian defense, with all the the things that goes with that, uh, and and around the citizen protection, but also the infrastructure and the uh industry. Industry has to produce things, even under harsh conditions. The civilian society with all the payment systems and so on needs to function, and of course, the infrastructure, and in the infrastructure, the uh energy, the supply, the uh persistent energy uh presence is vital. Without that, nothing works. So to sum it up, the total defense, uh which in the Scandinavian countries is a very given thing, we've always talked about total defense, are those four things together?

Derek Marinos: 5:38

Well, that's interesting, and and if we could get maybe into a specific area, and and perhaps Peter, uh I'll direct this one to you. How do decentralized models like small modular reactors, these so-called SMRs and renewables reduce geopolitical risk?

Peter Warren: 5:53

Yeah, it's a it's a great one. And certainly there's a rise uh of interest in SMR, but it's also a rise of interest in all different forms of local energy production and moving forward. Um and we'll come back to the cyber protection of it that Torsten talked about there, about how that's a concern in uh in all geographies as the world rises. Uh, but the production of energy locally uh has been something we've been talking at uh from CGI for a long time. In fact, uh uh it's been our viewpoint that a lot of shift is gonna happen where energy is gonna be made and consumed much closer to the point of consumption. Uh supply chains still will exist, uh, they'll still move forward, but much more of a balancing function is gonna happen as things move forward uh because people cannot rely necessarily on a supply chain that is stretching out and is constantly changing if they need that energy. But conversely, uh some new opportunities. I'm just thinking about what's uh in the recent conversation with South Africa, is that they're interested in uh they're interested in uh gaining uh more reliable natural gas supplies down there, uh, but they also have an interest in exporting their wine, which is kind of a funny combination of things. But those sort of uh strange bedfellows of how you're going to actually produce something, ship something, and move things forward between have and have nots is going to be it. But it also means that you needed to have more sovereignty in where you are. When I look at the Nordics, for example, Norway doesn't consume a lot of natural gas, but it ships a lot of natural gas. And it's a very profitable country as a result of doing that. And one of the reasons why it's highly electric is that if it burns it locally, it can't sell it internationally. So actually driving change and being more energy stable for a country like Norway actually also makes it more profitable. So I think you're gonna see these shifts on how people look at how I can interact not only with somebody halfway around the planet and maybe have an economic uh commitment and and expand somebody, but also uh really a benefit to my society.

Derek Marinos: 7:52

Torsten.

Torsten Bernström: 7:54

Well, um it we talk a lot about sovereignty. So that there is a strong trend that you need to control your supply chain. And again, Peter started by saying like supply chain is not only the materials, it is all the functions, capabilities in it. And first the world was kind of hit with the pandemic, where we all already then had to start to revise our our um supply chains. Did we have the material? Did we have the commodities? Did we have the knowledge uh close to us? Somebody defined the sovereignty as the ability to power, govern, and defend without outside coercion. And that has a good definition of it. Outside co coercion in this case can be, as Peter also mentioned, kinetic energy, that is, if somebody wants to destroy your parts of your chain, or cyber threats.

Derek Marinos: 8:55

Yes, that's interesting. And you know, I'm I'm guided by that one of the words you use to end your your your answer there and and the term destroy because we're we're seeing some destruction in Eastern Europe right now. And I I think there are lessons that that we're learning right now from from Europe's dependence on Russian gas and and global trade wars. Uh what would they be? Torsten, I'll I'll begin with you.

Torsten Bernström: 9:19

Well with uh also with the trade wars and um differences in alliances, shifting alliances that we see in the world, the same goes there. We need all countries need now to maybe re-evaluate their uh supply chain. Uh we're talking about a world that well, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, everything was kind of optimized into an efficiency where economies of scale, economies of globalization was the primary thing. And uh if resilience came in, it was in the state of should we say uh environmental uh sustainability. But now that sustainability is actually uh very important when it comes to resilience and the supply chain supply chains. So we need probably all all nations, all governments to actually look at this in a very, very uh intuitive and uh a new shape shape new uh supply chains where maybe, maybe just maybe, links of that entire chain need to be revised or maybe shortened.

Derek Marinos: 10:38

Yeah, and and Peter, I'd love to come to you with some perspective on this because globalization, as we knew it, and Thorsten described its birth, so to speak, with the you know, the the end of the so-called Cold War in the beginning and ushering in a new age of trade and economy, uh a regional approach seems to be where we're we're we're heading.

Peter Warren: 10:58

Yeah, and it it it definitely has been. I mean, it's for certain industries like uh producing electricity, you generally make it fairly close to where you are and you consume it. I mean, we have cross-border trading and things like that, and I think that's a key thing to keep moving forward, again, providing energy uh to places, plus the rise of the demand for clean green energy or low carbon energy um for different industries, and not just because it's meant to be for some ESG or accounting purpose, but because it makes economic sense. If I'm going to have a cleaner, better product, I can make a cleaner, better product, and so on. So I think that gets into looking at these impacts on these supply chains. And you know, we were talking earlier on a previous meeting uh today about shipping and you know the drive for shipping to move to hydrogen as a fuel source. Uh it does it for a few different reasons. One is it wants to come into the ports, not belching black smoke. It wants to come in uh looking good, and that meets local requirements and laws. But even as they go across the ocean, and the quote from one of our transport experts, uh Magaline, she commented that, you know, these are the folks that are directly now facing 30-foot waves that they didn't used to face. And although, you know, we don't uh it's a political thing for some reason, is talking about the environment, but these folks are hitting 30-foot waves that they didn't hit before. So they now see a direct cause and effect of them belching black smoke into the atmosphere and waves that they're hitting. So, you know, we're seeing this as a shift where people are looking for practical things, but they're also looking to decarbonize and move forward. The state of Texas, for example, uh great oil state, is is putting in more solar and energy faster than they ever have, even today. And this is not because it's being mandated, it's because it makes good economic sense and it makes them more resilient. They have had some problems in their grid before. Uh, we all saw something a few years ago where the an ice storm took out a bunch of their grid, and you know, it was quite a tragic situation. So reinforcing local grids, even if you're not under necessarily a direct threat, makes sense.

Derek Marinos: 13:02

Indeed, it does. And and as we move on here in our conversation, and and and both Peter and Torsten uh clearly articulate that supply chains are becoming the new battleground, so to speak, for sovereignty. Um, how does defense reshape global supply chains for specifically rare earths and and metals? Torsten.

Torsten Bernström: 13:22

First of all, uh again, what before was considered not economically sound, or even through uh different climate goals that that we had was no, we cannot derive material from that source. Now there is a re-evaluation of that, and uh new possibilities open. I mean materials are there in in the soil, and uh it the goals that we set for environment, their goals, they can be reshaped in new light, suddenly a commodity that you have on your own terrain or in a partner country becomes interesting. And resilience, actually to have resilience, being close to the source is well what uh what matters. They say that resilience actually is the new efficiency matrix, and with that reshaping or re-evaluating what you can or can't do when you try to get those uh scarce materials uh from from uh Mother Earth, well that will be the new evaluation here.

Peter Warren: 14:39

Yeah, it's it's very true, and we see as shifting supply chains happen and things move forward, even if a country isn't in control of the actual ore itself, the refining of the ore has now been politicized, unfortunately, is that if you look at China, even if they are not the manufacturer of some rare uh earth minerals, they are actually the number one refining and some in some cases the only refining location for those rare earth. So as people have been looking at whether they see China as a friend or a foe, but also shifts in everything else we've talked about, they're looking at, well, if I need that thing, if I need that product for whatever I'm going to do to make my grid more resilient or uh to make uh components for any number of different things, um maybe I need to start looking at having it not only dug out of my earth and but also refined locally. Uh so we live in a globalization, it had a lot of benefits, but now there's sort of this point where you talked about before, uh uh Derek, is more centralizing, bringing things a little closer to home.

Derek Marinos: 15:43

No, that that's interesting. And I I'd I'd like to take a uh a crack here at some policy and strategic alliances and and try to bridge together a really a couple of quick questions here. Uh to begin with, you know, what new partnerships are needed between the energy and defense sectors? Torsten, I'd love to hear your point of view first, and then Peter will get yours on that.

Torsten Bernström: 16:04

Well, I again referred to what what I said before. If we start to look at defense as uh total defense with its components, industry, infrastructure, civilian defense, and the defense capabilities, that comes in naturally.

Peter Warren: 16:21

I totally agree with that. Is that you know uh military needs energy to move forward, um, but also civilians, uh police forces and things, the rise of AI, the rise of cyber detection, all of those different things requires actually more and more energy to power it. And uh looking at the infrastructure, it's it's reciprocal. If you don't have the energy, you can't run the cyber protection. If you don't have the cyber protection, then you could lose the energy. And uh so we see that there's a tight connection between those two groups.

Derek Marinos: 16:52

One final question. How can digital sovereignty and low carbon goals coexist with security priorities, Peter?

Peter Warren: 17:00

Yeah, it's it's a it's an interesting one. Uh digital sovereignty looking at that, um I think has become a huge national concern as we look at the the threat through new tools. Uh certainly we haven't talked about quantum computing, but uh quant the rise of quantum computing combined with uh AI is going to be a big impact on security and how it moves forward. Um we were having to consider moving towards concepts called a quantum password, where uh if you get into quantum mechanics, I'm not gonna do that here, uh, but you know, by observing a password, you've automatically changed it in quantum. So uh you can't have these. We're gonna have to have these things. The banking industry is concerned about it, the military is work concerned about it, and so on. That computing power is going to have to be on both uh the maybe the aggressor side as well as the defender side. We're gonna have to have these tools brought forward. So as we want to do things more, we're gonna need more energy locally to have systems that we have that defend ourselves in this rising cyber war.

Torsten Bernström: 18:02

Well, I kind of felt that you had in your question uh about the conflict of goals. I would say goals are always set uh towards a backdrop of what we know right now. And that means that the goals would need to be redefined as well as the supply chain over time.

Derek Marinos: 18:24

Thank you both. As we've heard, energy sovereignty is now a cornerstone of national security, but resilience isn't only about physical infrastructure, it's also digital. In part two, we will explore the next frontier how cyber resilience, AI, and data sovereignty are transforming both defense and energy. Because readiness today depends as much on the integrity of our data as on the reliability of our energy. Until then, I'm Derek Marinos. Thank you for listening.