The Iran and Ukraine conflicts have drained U.S. missile stockpiles — and restocking requires rare earth materials that China controls with an iron fist.
Can anyone validate this article’s information? Not saying it’s fake news, it’s just hard to believe given the kind of effects this has on the US being able to conduct military operations
Steve Hanke is a professor of applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University. Jeffrey Weng is the chief of staff at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
I’m trusting the authors on this one. Samarium-cobalt is undeniably a chinese monopoly, that’s been discussed for some years. Now the combat is accelerating china’s timelines.
I read the article and I have some doubts. The amount of these materials for thousands of missiles can probably be sourced elsewhere on Earth, possibly at the cost of paying more and getting shipments slower.
However, the market control that China currently enjoys, allows its native industries a considerable advantage in other sectors that needs millions of products - like cars, motorcycles, mopeds, etc.
Some of the uses listed seem are fairly extravagant and I believe materials could be replaced with something far cheaper (advise would be found in Ukraine).
But it does remain a fact that China has a near monopoly in rare earths.
Yeah this article is… such an oversimplification as to be basically useless. Unfortunately this is one of the more complex topics in the whole of geopolitics, which is a shame because it is a really sexy topic to write an article about.
Can anyone validate this article’s information? Not saying it’s fake news, it’s just hard to believe given the kind of effects this has on the US being able to conduct military operations
I’m trusting the authors on this one. Samarium-cobalt is undeniably a chinese monopoly, that’s been discussed for some years. Now the combat is accelerating china’s timelines.
I read the article and I have some doubts. The amount of these materials for thousands of missiles can probably be sourced elsewhere on Earth, possibly at the cost of paying more and getting shipments slower.
However, the market control that China currently enjoys, allows its native industries a considerable advantage in other sectors that needs millions of products - like cars, motorcycles, mopeds, etc.
Some of the uses listed seem are fairly extravagant and I believe materials could be replaced with something far cheaper (advise would be found in Ukraine).
But it does remain a fact that China has a near monopoly in rare earths.
Yeah this article is… such an oversimplification as to be basically useless. Unfortunately this is one of the more complex topics in the whole of geopolitics, which is a shame because it is a really sexy topic to write an article about.