China produces the entire world’s supply of samarium, a rare earth metal that the United States and its allies need to rebuild inventories of fighter jets, missiles and other hardware.
Some small part of my brain keeps expecting competency from the West like some kind of evil mastermind. This despite decades of both foreign and domestic policy basically going “It hurt itself in its confusion!” over and over like a pokémon battle log. And that’s on me. That part of my brain is screaming “YOU DIDN’T PLAN FOR THIS!?” in disbelief, despite the fact that they have never given me any cause to believe that they would plan for this.
Some small part of my brain keeps expecting competency from the West like some kind of evil mastermind. This despite decades of both foreign and domestic policy basically going “It hurt itself in its confusion!” over and over like a pokémon battle log. And that’s on me. That part of my brain is screaming “YOU DIDN’T PLAN FOR THIS!?” in disbelief, despite the fact that they have never given me any cause to believe that they would plan for this.