The Pentagon is scrambling to find new sources of raw materials as China prepares to choke off exports of the metals our country needs to make military equipment. But it might already be too late.
Decades ago, globalists imagined that if only China was made to feel part of the “world community,” it would shed its belligerent behavior and soften its communist ideals in favor of commerce and economic development.
And with that idea, many manufacturers began to turn away from locally produced raw materials — such as mined minerals, metals and rare earths — in favor of far cheaper supplies from China, Russia and Ukraine.
Now, that globalist movement is putting us all in danger as China has developed a chokehold on the materials we need to supply our military.
This has put us at the mercy of our avowed enemies, and the Pentagon is finally starting to wake up to the danger.
According to Reuters, the U.S. military has run out of gallium, a metal used in semiconductors and electronics. The military needs gallium for radar and radio devices, satellites, and LEDs.
The Pentagon is rushing to find new sources of this metal after China recently announced that starting next month, it will be placing severe restrictions on the export of materials including gallium.
Arun Seraphin, executive director of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute, told Reuters that the restrictions could “[slow] down the production of [Department of Defense] systems” or “[ratchet] up the cost.”
The DOD admitted that it is now in a bind.
Should the U.S. mine its own raw materials?
Yes: 100% (373 Votes)
No: 0% (1 Votes)
“The Department is proactively taking steps using Defense Production Act Title III authorities to increase domestic mining and processing of critical materials for the microelectronics and space supply chain, including gallium and germanium,” a spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
The question is, why has the Pentagon allowed so many of our supplies and raw materials to be sourced from our biggest international enemies?
Recently, Defense News noted that over 75 percent of the global aluminum market is controlled by Russia, and without that aluminum, the Pentagon cannot produce jets and tactical ground vehicles.
Another issue is cobalt.
“A lot of cobalt was getting refined in either China or the Ukraine,” said Anthony Di Stasio, director of the Defense Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office. “What most people don’t know is every hard-target penetrator that we use in the military is a tungsten-cobalt alloy. So if we want to shoot through anything hard, we need cobalt.”
The Pentagon is now attempting to fund cobalt mining in the U.S. and in friendly nations like Canada, Australia and the U.K.
So the federal government is finally seeing that sourcing critical raw materials from our worst enemies is something of a bad idea. But for now, we are completely vulnerable to our adversaries.
In June, Greg Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon, warned that the U.S. military industrial complex is so beholden to China for raw materials that it would be impossible to stop doing business with them.
Hayes told the Financial Times that Raytheon has “several thousand suppliers in China and decoupling … is impossible.” He thinks this is the case for every U.S. arms manufacturer.
“More than 95 per cent of rare earth materials or metals come from, or are processed in, China. There is no alternative,” Hayes said.
China has just turned off the spigot for gallium. It could easily do the same for the other raw materials we need to build our military machine. And that makes us weak as a kitten.
