In 1944, when the outcome of World War II hung in the balance, the rapid advance of Allied forces across Europe suddenly stalled due to fuel shortages. In the famous words of then-Gen. George Patton: “My men can eat their belts, but my tanks have gotta have gas.”
Patton’s quote is a testament to the crucial role of supply chains and logistics in military operations. Simply stated, supply chains win wars and save lives. Materials need to be in the right place at the right time.
For the United States today, those materials include many more resources than fuel for tanks. A host of so-called critical minerals are essential to building and maintaining modern weapons systems. In today’s globalized world, the United States and other major world powers are alarmingly dependent on other nations—first and foremost China—for these materials. China’s rapid buildup of a sophisticated military has rendered it America’s most consequential strategic competitor and has set the so-called pacing threat for American defense strategy.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the dangers inherent in heavy dependence on another state, especially a hostile one. The war ushered in the most serious energy crisis since the 1970s and forced Europe, which had become dangerously complacent about reliance on Russian oil and gas, to spend billions of euros seeking alternate suppliers and insulating consumers from inflation and astronomical energy prices.
If you’ve heard of critical minerals before, then it was likely in the context of climate change and the energy transition. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and many other minerals are critical for building electric car batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, and other clean energy technologies. Russia’s war in Ukraine has hastened the clean energy transition and pointed a spotlight on the availabilities of these minerals.
But beyond the national security implications of energy security, a steady and secure supply of critical minerals is just as essential if the United States wishes to maintain its role as a military superpower.
This national security aspect of critical minerals does not garner the same public attention as the energy transition due, in part, to the necessary secrecy that surrounds military preparedness and planning. But the fact remains: The United States and its allies do not produce anywhere near enough of these minerals to maintain our military’s technological edge in the coming decades.
The U.S. Defense Department has also been a longtime leader in materials science and advanced weaponry, fields that require abundant minerals and metals and where demands can suddenly and dramatically jump. Consider the massive shipments of armaments that are going to Ukraine or the armaments that must be stored up for possible postures in the South China Sea.
But maintaining the U.S. military’s existing stockpiles is only one challenge. Despite the fact that the United States is not engaged in direct conflict, the war in Ukraine has depleted U.S. stocks of some types of ammunition to “uncomfortably low” levels. The U.S. Army is now conducting research into how to support its current ammunitions industrial base and has asked Congress for $500 million a year to upgrade ammunitions plants. Developing advanced weaponry will require new critical minerals and the supply chains that deliver them. Advanced semiconductors are crucial components of missile guidance systems, cyberwarfare, and artificial intelligence capabilities. These semiconductors require materials, including gallium, arsenic, and neon—much of which are located and produced in Russia, China, and Ukraine. The United States does not produce gallium, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine halved the world’s supply of semiconductor-grade neon.
The U.S. Geological Survey keeps a list of these and other minerals critical to U.S. national security, economic, infrastructure, and energy needs. In 2018, the list comprised 35 minerals. By 2020, it had grown to 50 minerals, with many focused on military applications. Some of these minerals include titanium for aerospace components, high temperature superalloys for turbines and hypersonic missiles, ceramic matrix composites, and hypersonic thermal protection systems. Another mineral on the list—lanthanum—is used for night vision goggles. Beryllium is used for targeting and surveillance systems as well as for fighter jets.
Some critical minerals are used for the sonar, radar, and surveillance systems that form the U.S. military’s first line of defense. Neodymium and samarium are used for powerful magnets that can withstand high temperatures. Germanium is used for infrared devices and in solar panels on military satellites. Niobium is used in the superalloys that jet engines are made from, and holmium is needed for solid state lasers.
Although some of these minerals can and are sourced by ally-shoring, other minerals and intermediate products are sourced primarily from China. Moreover, after mining, these minerals must be refined and processed along an international value chain. The same lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles in the suburbs also have military applications, including electric-powered tactical vehicles, autonomous systems, and austere operational concepts. In 2019, although China mined less than 20 percent of the world’s total supply of lithium, it controlled more than 60 percent of its refining and production capacity.
Graphite is another key mineral used in battery production for electric vehicles. In 2022, the U.S. imported 100 percent of its graphite, nearly a third of which was sourced from China. Currently, China controls 100 percent of the refining and production of spherical graphite needed for anodes in battery production.
For its part, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) lists more than 50 such materials on its website, all with key military uses. Each year, it conducts strategic sales as well as acquisitions based on future needs. And those do not include the massive needs of the Pentagon’s main defense contractors.
At last count, the DLA had an emergency stockpile of 47 commodities with a market value of more than $1.5 billion. This stockpile was initially founded after World War I, when “leading American scientists sought to educate industrialists and those in government on the necessity of having a national minerals plan in hope that America would not return to its old isolationist thinking,” according to an official history.
Last fall, Congress authorized $1 billion for the National Defense Stockpile to acquire strategic and critical materials, an important step toward creating additional buffer stocks in the event of crises and disruptions in supply chains. However, the appropriation for fiscal year 2023 only included $93.5 million for the stockpile and about $373 million for minerals-related purchases under the Defense Production Act.
Over the past few years, the Pentagon has pushed to strengthen domestic production of critical minerals. A framework for this plan was pursued under the 2019 use of the Defense Production Act and was expanded under the Biden administration to include battery materials. But the Pentagon cannot work alone. To overcome regulatory and legal hurdles that have hamstrung U.S. mining, production, and supply chain sectors for decades, elected officials, regulators, and environmental groups must put aside their differences and work together.
The impetus for this crucial collaboration would be justified by climate change concerns alone. But as security and geopolitical challenges of the 21st century continue to mount, it is abundantly clear that the future of the U.S. military also relies on a more robust domestic supply chain for critical minerals.
