Defense Critical Minerals: First Among Equals

Spotlight

• The advanced technologies underpinning global defense ecosystems today are highly mineral-intensive.
• The structural irreplaceability of defense-critical minerals makes any shortages both urgent and difficult to address.
• ‘Friend-shoring’ the supply chains of defense-critical minerals must rest on strategic complementarity, if not complete coincidence.

Defense production lines are struggling to keep pace with the rate at which kinetic conflicts are consuming ammunition today. Shortages may be compounded by the persistence of low-intensity conflicts across multiple operational theatres, even after any formal cessation of hostilities in the Middle East. Many defense industrial bases, having operated for nearly two decades in a relative strategic interregnum without protracted large-scale war, are not structurally equipped to replenish these weapons at the pace now required. Constraints extend beyond inadequate defense manufacturing capacity. A significant gap lies in the ability of countries globally to develop resilient supply chains for the critical minerals central to defense production. These minerals are essential inputs for radar systems, missile guidance systems, semiconductors, electronic warfare platforms, and aerospace components, among others. Operational resilience in an era of geopolitical contestation and kinetic warfare will, therefore, depend as much on securing defense‑critical minerals as on ensuring energy security. 

The Chink in the Global Defense Industrial Armour 

On February 27, 2026 ,a day before Israel and the United States (US) launched attacks on Iran, the Pentagon is reported to have asked mining companies to ramp up production and stockpiling of 13 essential defense related critical minerals. These minerals feed into semiconductors and military hardware systems. The order simultaneously invited proposals from companies for the mining, processing and recycling of these critical minerals.

Table 1: List of Critical Minerals Requested for by the Pentagon 

Source: Reuters

In issuing this order, the US Department of War was preparing to guard against a significant chink in its armour. The world’s most formidable military’s advanced defense technology has a critical minerals problem. The US – akin to the rest of the world- is almost entirely dependent on China for the supply of most of the minerals its defense production chains use.

Table.2

Select List of Critical Minerals Essential in Defense Production

 Author’s own based on data from- SFA Oxford https://www.sfa-oxford.com/knowledge-and-insights/critical-minerals-in-low-carbon-and-future-technologies/critical-minerals-in-defence-and-national-security/; USGS 2025 Report https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol1/2020/myb1-2020-beryllium.pdf; US Department of War, 2025 Report Release, https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4264389/department-of-defense-awards-10-million-to-develop-a-domestic-mine-to-master-al/; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) , https://www.csiro.au/en/about/achievements/Our-history;  https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/chemistry/scandium-sc

The defense prowess of the American military could, therefore, be held hostage to a supply chain bottleneck. A steady production and replacement of weapons and military equipment depend on safeguarding the critical mineral supply chains central that underpin them. This is a lesson that countries will need to systematically enshrine into their defense and industrial preparedness as well as war-gaming strategies, going forward. 

Defense Critical Minerals’ Lack of Optionality

Defense critical minerals are difficult to substitute given the very strict specifications they need to comply with in order to perform reliably at all times. The radar systems and precision guided missiles that these critical minerals serve as feedstock in, must perform under very high temperatures and high-stress combat environments, including electromagnetic interference. Given these requirements, the defense critical minerals need to have a very high degree of purity in their chemical and structural composition.

In some cases, objectively, there are alternatives that could still be used. Silicon, for instance, was commonly used in semiconductors meant for defense equipment until Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology was made viable. Silicon could, therefore, technically still be used in that same machinery. However, it would significantly undercut the performance of the equipment. Compromising on operational readiness and technological superiority due to a choice of raw materials, is not a bargain that countries can afford to make when it comes to defense.

The Japanese, in answer to the weaponisation of REEs supply chains by China first in 2010, worked on a policy of industrial innovation that could reduce the need for certain minerals in their production chains. The US’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has similarly been working on integrating innovation through their research and development (R&D) to optimise the process of separation and processing so as to reduce reliance on Chinese dominated supply chains. While this is a necessary measure in the long-run, it has limitations in the near-term due to structural and engineering constraints making it difficult to replicate such optionality in the case of defense articles. The inability to substitute these set of minerals easily without compromising on the quality and performance of the defense articles, poses a national security concern.

Defense Critical Minerals- First Among Equals?

Their inherent irreplaceability ascribes a securitisation premium to defense critical minerals, placing them higher in the order of priority of a list that is already deemed vital. This makes it perilous for governments to compromise on the urgent need for these specific set of minerals. In this era of kinetic conflicts, there is then some value in considering if critical minerals needed for defense have to be accorded a different degree of prioritisation.

This prioritised status impacts resource allocation when a nation seeks to acquire these minerals internationally. Once the element of securitisation enters the calculus, it enables governments to mobilise public funding, provide seed capital, offer incentives, commit to price floors and offtake agreements – all on the grounds that national security concerns are related to resilience in this segment, and therefore they must be prioritised.

Similarly, this prioritisation could also have an impact when two or more sectors in the same country begin vying for the same scarce resource. There are many critical minerals central to defense that have dual-uses for other industrial segments. Neodymium and Gadolinium, for instance, are used in the permanent magnets needed by wind turbines just as they are used in the engineering of Tomahawk missile guidance systems and nuclear-powered submarines respectively. In a situation of scarcity, when it falls on governments to grapple with deciding on the trade-offs of which sector to prioritise, the element of securitisation ascribed to defense production, could play a deterministic role.

Making the case for defense value-chains being made more resilient before any others, imbues faint echoes of the age-old guns versus butter debate. In an environment of scarcity, the opportunity cost of these minerals being directed to the defense sector could have a material impact on their other use-cases which range from pathways of the energy transition to manufacturing of medical equipment as well as ambitions of digitisation. However, the argument for stationing defense critical minerals higher than other indisputably important sectors is based on the urgency and the present structural irreplaceability associated with those minerals in particular. Defense Critical Minerals must be prioritised as first among equals simply because the costs of not doing so are not deferred ones. They will instead be felt in immediate and existential terms by virtue of a country not having the military capability to guard its own territory. The cost, then, will be paid for in human lives instead of contractions in profit margins. 

‘Friend-shoring’, but with Eyes Wide Open 

Complete independence or autonomy from Chinese presence in the global critical minerals value-chain in the short to medium terms is structurally not feasible. Yet, any effort to guard against these vulnerabilities, even if only incremental, are valuable and must be reinforced. The most meaningful step in this direction has been the creation of mineral security partnerships through efforts at ‘Friend-shoring’. The US drive to friend-shore supply chains as part of its effort to diversify and de-risk from China, has, in turn, galvanised multiple multilateral partnerships.

Table 3: Significant International Partnerships to Secure Critical Mineral Supply Chains

Examples of such coordination by mineral-rich countries like Canada and Australia with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)’s Critical Minerals High Visibility Project, and  Japan respectively, for instance, focused on the stockpiling of defense raw materials and the production of light and heavy rare earths, serve as useful templates to replicate in this domain.

Now, strategic coincidence is not a pre-requisite for ‘friend-shoring’ resilient defense-critical mineral supply chains. Strategic complementarity, however, must be. For these ‘friend-shoring’ exercises to be effective and durable, there must be an institutional mechanism to acknowledge and manage differences between partners that could affect resource allocation and risk appetites– whether in threat perceptions, financial outlays, industrial capabilities, strategic priorities, or the list of minerals deemed critical. Such transparency would enable each country to factor in the trade‑offs and opportunity costs its partners face. Absent this, friend‑shoring arrangements risk devolving into fragmented coordination at best, and zero‑sum competition among allies themselves for scarce critical minerals at worst.

To guard against divergent and duplicative efforts, ‘friend-shoring’ architectures must be underpinned by an ethos of coordinated prioritisation. In addition to coordinating stockpiling and development of midstream capabilities globally, risk-sharing financial arrangements to share the burden of anticipated repricing of defense critical minerals due to increased securitisation premiums, should serve as a first step. This would also help alleviate, even if marginally, the impact of China’s predatory pricing regimes in the sector. Similarly, building on the comparative advantages of partners in seeking to integrate these minerals into jointly developed defense equipment could create meaningful and productive vertical integration in the sector. Thirdly, to ensure that price-floors do not carry a penalty through increased final costs, coordinated offtake agreements and demand-signaling policies must be extended to defence articles produced through the minerals accessed under these friend-shoring frameworks.

These are, admittedly, expensive propositions. Resilient defense industrial ecosystems are, however, intrinsically tied to a country’s strategic autonomy and leverage. Spending that may appear exorbitant in peacetime could, therefore, prove existential in war. It is worth considering that the wars of the future will not be won solely by the defense equipment used to wage them. Their outcomes will also be determined by the ability of countries to access and process the critical minerals that makes defense production plausible.

Disclaimer: The author acknowledges the use of ChatGPT 5.5 to help generate Table 2

Cauvery Ganapathy is Fellow, Climate and Energy, ORF Middle East