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.

As a Canadian, I’m glad they’re running out of ammo before they turn north.