The new industrial revolution requires a fresh national security agenda

Policymakers should have already learned from the war in Ukraine that the sustainability of the defense sector and the armed forces depends greatly upon the availability of high-precision weapons embodying new technologies. Those tools depend on the availability of so-called rare earth elements, e.g. cobalt, lithium, thorium, etc. 

At the same time, the so-called green revolution entailing a repudiation of fossil fuels and the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) using batteries composed of these same materials is increasingly understood to be vital to saving the planet. 

In November 2022, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) adopted a declaration to stop selling internal combustion engine vehicles in Europe and North America by 2035 and the rest of the world by 2040. Electric vehicles are supposed to overtake internal combustion vehicles by 2030 with a 50 percent market share. This estimate refers to about 60 million electric vehicles, an increase of about 10 times the 6.6 million electric vehicles available globally at the end of 2021.  

It is increasingly clear that steady access to minerals and rare earths is essential to our and our allies’ military security, economy and overall well-being. These points apply equally to other states around the world, making access to these products a critical part of the new agenda of national security.  

China possesses a commanding share of these rare earths and minerals and similarly dominates the global market for EVs and vital batteries. The U.S. and its allies’ quandary is self-evident. Moreover, China’s economic tactics are seen in Europe as being visibly predatory attempts to establish oligopolies, if not monopolies. Fully aware of increasing foreign resistance, China is striving to consolidate its leading positions in these economic-technological sectors.  

As a result, what we now see is a global “arms race” whereby the U.S. and its allies in Asia and Europe are not only delinking from dependence on China in these sectors but are also striving to build up alternative sources. They are all globalizing this competition; the U.S., for instance, is considering building battery-producing factories in two African countries.

Similarly, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has warned that “Beijing is prepared to weaponize its control of mineral sectors vital to renewable power.” This threat has special pertinence to the EV and battery sectors because, as Granholm stated, China’s dominance in refining cobalt, rare earths and graphite “exceeds 70 percent.” And its unsavory economic tactics demonstrate its readiness to weaponize market power for political gain. 

At least two major lessons from these developments pertain to the U.S. and our allies. Clearly, we are standing on the threshold, if not already caught up in, a new equivalent of the industrial revolution that has profound long-term implications for our way of life and the health of planet Earth. Denying the urgency of these challenges degrades the U.S. and its allies’ security and endangers the planet. China and others will exploit U.S. missteps for their own lasting advantage.  

Second, the interests bound up in assuring the ongoing supply of these rare earths and minerals must force a transformation in national security policy toward greater multi-domain cooperation with and sensitivity toward the critical concerns of the Global South: Africa, Central Asia and Latin America, countries with large, untapped sources of these products.

As a result of the war in Ukraine, the scale and intensity of the Chinese and Russian campaigns to project power and influence into Africa also include their attempts to intensify leadership in this sector. Indeed, Russia has the “reserves of the group of 17 metals with unique electronic and magnetic properties that are vital to most modern electronic products.” Naturally, it is trying to leverage this endowment by substantially increasing production at home and abroad through the acquisition of foreign sources. Given their increasing alignment, we could imagine them opening up a new, or even combined front in international economic warfare. 

Our decision-makers and planners must dedicate themselves to fundamentally reconceptualizing our strategies and policies to take these new and urgent challenges and their long-term implications into account. Should they fail to do so, the consequences will come quickly but last for a long time with profoundly negative global outcomes.

Stephen Blank, Ph.D. is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a former professor of Russian national security studies and national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and a former MacArthur fellow at the U.S. Army War College. Blank is an independent consultant focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia.