As the global landscape changes and our world becomes more driven by and dependent on technology, it’s clear that America’s fighting men and women will need the best available tools at hand to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad. But to develop and produce the cutting-edge aircraft, weapons, and communications systems that will win tomorrow’s battles, the U.S. military relies on a handful of assets buried at the bottom of the periodic table — the rare-earth elements — and other critical minerals buried in the earth.
Our military relies on rare-earth elements such as yttrium and terbium for GPS systems, cell phones, fiber optics, computers, missiles, laser targeting, and weapons in combat vehicles. That’s because rare-earth elements are more resistant to demagnetization when exposed to high temperatures, making them the best choice for military applications. And while minerals such as copper, nickel, lithium, and cobalt might not come to mind as battlefield assets, they are key to producing batteries for the zero emissions vehicle fleet the Pentagon envisions in the long-term and for the manufacture of crucial defense equipment..
The bad news? China holds most of the cards when it comes to these critical minerals.
Economic and national security tensions between the United States and China are approaching a boiling point, with current events signaling they aren’t likely to simmer anytime soon. With President Xi Jinping firmly at the helm of Chinese foreign policy, China’s vice grip on the critical minerals supply chain means America’s reliance on Chinese critical minerals will grow only more dire. How serious is the state of play? UBS AG predicts that China may control a third of the world’s lithium by 2025. The nation today is responsible for 85% of rare-earth processing and 92% of rare-earth magnet production.
Anticipating the enhanced role of rare-earth elements in the global economy, particularly in the manufacturing of clean energy and defense technologies, China’s leadership deliberately scaled up rare-earth element production, growing its global share of rare-earth element output by more than double from 1994 to 2008, from 47 percent of global share to an astonishing 97 percent.
China’s foresight with regard to critical minerals has opened a sizable gap in U.S. national security that the Chinese not only recognize but will continue to exploit to their advantage.
Unfortunately, the path to equilibrium on this issue, or something akin to it, will be a long and arduous journey, as the Department of the Interior’s 2023 Mineral Commodities Summary reported the U.S. at its highest ever mineral output reliance. Of the fifty most critical minerals identified by the United States Geological Survey, the U.S. relies 100% on imports for twelve of them. We count on foreign nations for more than half our supply of an additional thirty-one critical minerals. Our top supplier? China.
The math should be a splash of cold water to policymakers and military planners alike. Today, the U.S. produces more than half our domestic requirement for only seven of the fifty minerals most critical to the U.S. economy and national security. We are placing America’s future in real peril, not because of technology, training, or firepower, but from a failure to secure the fundamental components of tomorrow’s military tools.
The road won’t be easy, but we must start taking steps to counter China’s considerable advantage in the critical minerals market. At the moment, the U.S. lacks the domestic capability to meet our domestic demand for critical minerals, meaning we’ll need to cooperate closely with our allies in the European Union and with other allies such as Chile, Australia, and African nations to gain access to the critical minerals we need. In doing so, we should enlist private corporations in our efforts, rather than relying too heavily on state-owned companies whose attitudes toward the U.S. can shift with the political winds.
We’ll also need to evaluate our own domestic capabilities to mine and produce some of the minerals we need, acknowledging the geological limitations involved in doing so and understanding that we must build refining capacity alongside production.
Last year, the Biden administration announced billions of dollars of investments to spur domestic production of key critical minerals and materials. But it will be years before these investments produce any sort of tangible results, and the stark reality is we can’t wait any longer. If we hope to have any shot of continuing the U.S. military’s superiority on the world stage, maintaining America’s economic might, and realizing the potential for electric vehicle adoption, we must get serious about sourcing critical minerals from places outside of China. China won the opening round on critical minerals. It’s time for U.S. leadership to answer the bell and come out swinging.
Tom Magness, a retired Army colonel, formerly served as a commander in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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