Retarded strategic decisions.Follow

Lets sell the Chinese government/"International corporate interests" critical components of our smart missile manufacturing system. (Yes, the article says "green technology" but that's not the real story here.

And then be totally bewildered when they start squeezing supply.

It's not like we've never dealt with a command economy before.

Morons.

Neodymium isn't actually that rare, and we can mine it here. We just haven't been.

You know what was a good idea? Selling tech manufacturing trade secrets to the Japanese. Surely they'd never develop the infrastructure to take from us a market we dominate.

While the article mentions missile guidance systems, the quantities needed for that in relation to other larger industries is minimal. That's before realizing that specific requirements for production of weapon systems in the US prohibit reliance on a number of nations (including China) for any component. Yes. Even back to where the raw materials were mined.

The real impact is on most of the green tech stuff mentioned. There's a need to ramp up production of that stuff, and it takes a lot more of the rare earth elements than we're consuming currently. I'm not worried about this from a military standpoint. It's China realizing it can make a profit. Not surprising really.

Honestly, I'm quite amused by the same green industry supporters being hoist on their own petard here. Basically, their own unwillingness to loosen restrictions on mining of these needed materials in their own countries is causing this situation. It's a catch-22, isn't it? To use the "green" technology, you have to operate mines which are decidedly "un-green". Up till now most of the proponents of this movement have been satisfied with an "out of sight, out of mind" approach. As long as the mining is done in dirty China, we'll that's just peachy... hah!

Er? General Motors makes missile guidance systems? I'll admit that my direct knowledge of work on sensitive electronics in weapons systems is a bit out of date, but I know from fairly direct information that the background materials requirements for *any* such work in the US is extensive and in some cases ridiculously overcautious. It's done precisely so that our weapons systems capability cannot be compromised by any single (or even a group) of nations breaking off relations with us.


If rare earth elements are required in weapons systems (and I'll assume they are in some of them, but probably fewer than you think), you can be sure that at least for military supply purposes, the US government has secured at least three separate sources, none of which are from a nation with less then a high rating in terms of friendliness towards the US. I would not be at all surprised if the US government operates a small mine inside the US that it simply doesn't advertise in order to ensure it has enough of these materials.


Unless requirements have dramatically changed in just the last 4 or 5 years, there's no way that anything China does to limit production of REE in its own country can affect US weapons production capability.