🧵on China's export control of Rare Earth
Will there be a World War III?
Rest assured—there won’t be one. Not because of diplomacy, and certainly not because of US/Western restraint, but thanks to the ultimate deterrent, more powerful than any nuclear weapon: China’s stranglehold on rare earths and other critical minerals, all effectively controlled under what the world now simply calls “rare earth.”
I have argued that China has already achieved military supremacy over the United States. Many readers were skeptical. So today, I approach this claim from a different angle: rare earths. Specifically, how China’s control over rare earth exports allows it to dictate the pace and ceiling of U.S. weapons development.
In modern warfare, radar is the key. The side that sees first, strikes first. The one that detects first, locks the target first. And once that lock is achieved, the enemy is pulled into a no-escape zone. Rare earths—refined to near-perfect purity—determine how powerful, how far-seeing, and how jam-resistant those radars are. Which means, simply, China has the superior weapons.
Some ask, can the U.S. replicate China’s network-centric warfighting doctrine? The answer is no. Because without the materials—and the mastery behind them—doctrine is just theory.
Military purity High grade Rare Earth : Achilles' heel of the US military industrial complex
It’s July 13, 2025. The time: 3:56 PM. The place: London. And the silence at the negotiation table is thick enough to bend steel. American officials are still talking—still pleading—for China to ease its grip on rare earth exports. But in truth, they already know the answer. Because Beijing is not negotiating; it is calibrating.
Rare earths are no longer just about supply and demand. They are about velocity, purity, supremacy. In the defense world, purity is king. And here, China reigns.
There’s a difference between rare earths and military-grade rare earths. A difference of six zeros. Commercial uses may tolerate 99.99% purity—4N in technical parlance. But advanced radar systems, missile guidance units, directed energy weapons—they demand 6N, 7N, even 8N purity: 99.999999%. At that level, one particle out of a hundred million can change the performance of a phased-array radar. The reach of a sensor. The jam-resistance of an aircraft. The visibility of an F-35.
And that’s where China’s mastery begins. Their engineers—trained through decades of closed-loop industrial knowledge—have cracked the 9.999999 benchmark with consistency. In contrast, the best the U.S., Australia, and Malaysia have achieved is 9.999 purity—5N—and even that, only with engineers poached from Chinese firms. In other words: without China, the West can barely replicate >6N standards. 👇
Will there be a World War III?
Rest assured—there won’t be one. Not because of diplomacy, and certainly not because of US/Western restraint, but thanks to the ultimate deterrent, more powerful than any nuclear weapon: China’s stranglehold on rare earths and other critical minerals, all effectively controlled under what the world now simply calls “rare earth.”
I have argued that China has already achieved military supremacy over the United States. Many readers were skeptical. So today, I approach this claim from a different angle: rare earths. Specifically, how China’s control over rare earth exports allows it to dictate the pace and ceiling of U.S. weapons development.
In modern warfare, radar is the key. The side that sees first, strikes first. The one that detects first, locks the target first. And once that lock is achieved, the enemy is pulled into a no-escape zone. Rare earths—refined to near-perfect purity—determine how powerful, how far-seeing, and how jam-resistant those radars are. Which means, simply, China has the superior weapons.
Some ask, can the U.S. replicate China’s network-centric warfighting doctrine? The answer is no. Because without the materials—and the mastery behind them—doctrine is just theory.
Military purity High grade Rare Earth : Achilles' heel of the US military industrial complex
It’s July 13, 2025. The time: 3:56 PM. The place: London. And the silence at the negotiation table is thick enough to bend steel. American officials are still talking—still pleading—for China to ease its grip on rare earth exports. But in truth, they already know the answer. Because Beijing is not negotiating; it is calibrating.
Rare earths are no longer just about supply and demand. They are about velocity, purity, supremacy. In the defense world, purity is king. And here, China reigns.
There’s a difference between rare earths and military-grade rare earths. A difference of six zeros. Commercial uses may tolerate 99.99% purity—4N in technical parlance. But advanced radar systems, missile guidance units, directed energy weapons—they demand 6N, 7N, even 8N purity: 99.999999%. At that level, one particle out of a hundred million can change the performance of a phased-array radar. The reach of a sensor. The jam-resistance of an aircraft. The visibility of an F-35.
And that’s where China’s mastery begins. Their engineers—trained through decades of closed-loop industrial knowledge—have cracked the 9.999999 benchmark with consistency. In contrast, the best the U.S., Australia, and Malaysia have achieved is 9.999 purity—5N—and even that, only with engineers poached from Chinese firms. In other words: without China, the West can barely replicate >6N standards. 👇
II/
Mountain Pass cannot refine. Australia cannot separate. Malaysia can process, but only at levels suited for iPhones—not F35s.
This is the true meaning of strategic vulnerability.
Take the F-35. Each unit—every jet—consumes around 420 kilograms of rare earth materials, primarily neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium. The magnets in the radar, the powertrain, the guidance system—all depend on high-purity inputs. Without them, production slows. With lower grades, performance drops. There’s no bypass.
And as for next-generation fighters—the U.S. can forget them. The F-47, the NGAD—they aren’t even off the PPT stage. Without ultra-pure rare earths, they can’t be built. Meanwhile, China’s sixth-generation fighters—the J-36 and J-50—are already flying. Quietly. With mass production assured by China’s own supply of high-grade magnetic materials.
That’s why China’s export controls are not just leverage. They are a quiet nuclear bomb—a non-kinetic weapon that can decide the generation gap in warfare. By modulating exports, China can delay U.S. weapons by five years, a decade, or more. Especially in radar technology, where materials determine how far you can see, how precisely you can lock on, and how well you can survive jamming.
Consider this: radar performance is a function of both software and substrate. If you use substandard rare earths—if your yttrium or gadolinium is 5N instead of 8N—your radar becomes fuzzy, slow, vulnerable. Your electronic warfare suite misreads the sky. Your missile lock fails. And you lose the first shot in combat.
All because of atoms.
The U.S. knows this. That’s why the Pentagon is pouring billions into “mine-to-magnet” programs. But ambition doesn’t equal capability. MP Materials received over $439 million for Mountain Pass and its joint venture with Australia’s Lynas in Texas. But full-spectrum refining remains years away. The January 2025 announcement of a 99.1% dysprosium oxide sample—by USA Rare Earths—was hailed as a breakthrough. But it remains a lab achievement, not a production standard. Scaling it up means duplicating Chinese expertise built over thirty years. That’s not something you hire for. That’s something you grow.
Worse, the U.S. supply chain is caught in a vicious loop.
Whenever China tightens its export controls, prices spike—and American rare earth firms breathe again. There is a window to operate, to profit, to expand. But then, as if on cue, China loosens controls. Prices crash. And the fragile U.S. supply chain collapses again. Investors flee. Mines go idle. Engineers are laid off. The survivors sell at a loss—many of them, ironically, to Chinese buyers.
And here lies the trap.
Whenever rare earth prices dip, Western buyers—especially in defense and automotive—stockpile like survivalists. They buy tons. They hoard, gambling on China’s next move. But this glut destroys demand for U.S. producers. And when China tightens again, it’s too late—the industrial infrastructure has already withered. A fledgling system, broken by price shocks and indecision.
The market itself is small—just $3.4 billion globally. China holds 70% of that value, 69% of production, and 90% of refining. But it is not the volume that matters. It is the precision. China dominates not because it mines more, but because it controls every layer: the metallurgy, the solvent systems, the purity benchmarks, and the geopolitical timing.
Mountain Pass cannot refine. Australia cannot separate. Malaysia can process, but only at levels suited for iPhones—not F35s.
This is the true meaning of strategic vulnerability.
Take the F-35. Each unit—every jet—consumes around 420 kilograms of rare earth materials, primarily neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium. The magnets in the radar, the powertrain, the guidance system—all depend on high-purity inputs. Without them, production slows. With lower grades, performance drops. There’s no bypass.
And as for next-generation fighters—the U.S. can forget them. The F-47, the NGAD—they aren’t even off the PPT stage. Without ultra-pure rare earths, they can’t be built. Meanwhile, China’s sixth-generation fighters—the J-36 and J-50—are already flying. Quietly. With mass production assured by China’s own supply of high-grade magnetic materials.
That’s why China’s export controls are not just leverage. They are a quiet nuclear bomb—a non-kinetic weapon that can decide the generation gap in warfare. By modulating exports, China can delay U.S. weapons by five years, a decade, or more. Especially in radar technology, where materials determine how far you can see, how precisely you can lock on, and how well you can survive jamming.
Consider this: radar performance is a function of both software and substrate. If you use substandard rare earths—if your yttrium or gadolinium is 5N instead of 8N—your radar becomes fuzzy, slow, vulnerable. Your electronic warfare suite misreads the sky. Your missile lock fails. And you lose the first shot in combat.
All because of atoms.
The U.S. knows this. That’s why the Pentagon is pouring billions into “mine-to-magnet” programs. But ambition doesn’t equal capability. MP Materials received over $439 million for Mountain Pass and its joint venture with Australia’s Lynas in Texas. But full-spectrum refining remains years away. The January 2025 announcement of a 99.1% dysprosium oxide sample—by USA Rare Earths—was hailed as a breakthrough. But it remains a lab achievement, not a production standard. Scaling it up means duplicating Chinese expertise built over thirty years. That’s not something you hire for. That’s something you grow.
Worse, the U.S. supply chain is caught in a vicious loop.
Whenever China tightens its export controls, prices spike—and American rare earth firms breathe again. There is a window to operate, to profit, to expand. But then, as if on cue, China loosens controls. Prices crash. And the fragile U.S. supply chain collapses again. Investors flee. Mines go idle. Engineers are laid off. The survivors sell at a loss—many of them, ironically, to Chinese buyers.
And here lies the trap.
Whenever rare earth prices dip, Western buyers—especially in defense and automotive—stockpile like survivalists. They buy tons. They hoard, gambling on China’s next move. But this glut destroys demand for U.S. producers. And when China tightens again, it’s too late—the industrial infrastructure has already withered. A fledgling system, broken by price shocks and indecision.
The market itself is small—just $3.4 billion globally. China holds 70% of that value, 69% of production, and 90% of refining. But it is not the volume that matters. It is the precision. China dominates not because it mines more, but because it controls every layer: the metallurgy, the solvent systems, the purity benchmarks, and the geopolitical timing.
III/
Their export control strategy is not random. It is dialed, tuned like a radio, to hit exact pressure points in the Western military-industrial complex. When F-35 production ramps up, supply tightens. When prices need crashing, smuggled supply floods the market. And in the background, Chinese firms stockpile 6N and 7N materials for their own J-36 radar arrays and electromagnetic weapons.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Lynas and Canada’s Aclara inch forward. Brazil has reserves but no governance. The EU dreams of 40% domestic critical mineral capacity—by 2030. Maybe. Ukraine is a wild card. Vietnam offers promise. But everywhere the U.S. turns, it needs Chinese tech to move forward.
And China knows it.
The 2023 ban on exporting rare earth separation technology sealed the final gate. Even if new mines open in allied countries, they will be useless without refining capacity. The most advanced rare earth knowledge—the “recipes” of separation, the waste-handling protocols, the gradients of purity—are now a national security secret. Hidden behind a wall of state monitoring, passport controls, and academic blacklists.
All of this—every ounce of leverage—was learned the hard way. In 2010, after the Senkaku Islands standoff, China cut rare earth exports and watched the West spiral into panic. Prices soared. But when China eased restrictions under WTO pressure—after a complaint filed by Japan, the U.S., and the G7—the Western effort collapsed. Molycorp folded. The Phoenix Plan went up in smoke.
Today, China has perfected the game. And the U.S. is still learning the rules.
This is not a trade war. This is not about dollars.
This is about control.
The West talks of diversification. But diversification without mastery is theater. And China, with its 92% share of global rare earth magnets, is no longer just a supplier—it is an arbiter of what weapons the West can build.
Beijing holds the center of the board.
And Washington, for all its tough talk, is lost.
Their export control strategy is not random. It is dialed, tuned like a radio, to hit exact pressure points in the Western military-industrial complex. When F-35 production ramps up, supply tightens. When prices need crashing, smuggled supply floods the market. And in the background, Chinese firms stockpile 6N and 7N materials for their own J-36 radar arrays and electromagnetic weapons.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Lynas and Canada’s Aclara inch forward. Brazil has reserves but no governance. The EU dreams of 40% domestic critical mineral capacity—by 2030. Maybe. Ukraine is a wild card. Vietnam offers promise. But everywhere the U.S. turns, it needs Chinese tech to move forward.
And China knows it.
The 2023 ban on exporting rare earth separation technology sealed the final gate. Even if new mines open in allied countries, they will be useless without refining capacity. The most advanced rare earth knowledge—the “recipes” of separation, the waste-handling protocols, the gradients of purity—are now a national security secret. Hidden behind a wall of state monitoring, passport controls, and academic blacklists.
All of this—every ounce of leverage—was learned the hard way. In 2010, after the Senkaku Islands standoff, China cut rare earth exports and watched the West spiral into panic. Prices soared. But when China eased restrictions under WTO pressure—after a complaint filed by Japan, the U.S., and the G7—the Western effort collapsed. Molycorp folded. The Phoenix Plan went up in smoke.
Today, China has perfected the game. And the U.S. is still learning the rules.
This is not a trade war. This is not about dollars.
This is about control.
The West talks of diversification. But diversification without mastery is theater. And China, with its 92% share of global rare earth magnets, is no longer just a supplier—it is an arbiter of what weapons the West can build.
Beijing holds the center of the board.
And Washington, for all its tough talk, is lost.
IV/
Rare Earth: The Silent Weapon Mightier Than the Bomb
In the hierarchy of strategic weapons, nuclear bombs are often placed at the top. But in the 21st century, a new form of deterrent has quietly surpassed them in power — Rare Earth Elements.
Ignored so far, yet irreplaceable, and tightly controlled, these minerals form the very core of modern military and economic strength.
Without them, you cannot build a jet engine, a radar, a hypersonic missile, or even an iPhone. Without them, the globalized machine halts. The aircraft carrier becomes a floating museum. The F-35 turns into a powerless shell.
China’s grip on the rare earth supply chain is not just an economic advantage — it’s the ultimate checkmate. With a simple policy shift, Beijing can freeze entire industries in place. That’s not hypothetical. That’s what already happened.
This is not just leverage. It is structural supremacy. While others scramble to mine, refine, or stockpile — China dictates the rhythm of the global industrial symphony.
Rare Earth is not the bomb. It is the wire that makes all bombs detonate.
The Quiet Bomb: How China’s Rare Earth Sanctions Are Rewriting Global Power
Many still think China’s rare earth sanctions are just about missiles and jet engines. But they’re not seeing the full picture. The real impact goes far beyond the battlefield. It touches the world’s economy, power politics, and even the future of war itself.
Let’s start with a bold claim:
There will be no World War III. Not now, not in the coming years.
Why? Because the West can no longer fight one. The May 2025 Indo-Pakistani air combat already exposed the scale of weakness of western weaponry. Today, the U.S. and Europe’s ability to launch a full-scale war rests entirely on a handful of high-tech aircraft: the F-35, the F-22, and the B-2 stealth bomber. Everything else — F-15s, Typhoons, Tornados, and Rafales — are lit-up targets in a modern war zone. Radar-visible and easily neutralized.
Let’s look at the numbers.
There are around 900 F-35s globally, but less than 100 are combat-ready at any given moment. The U.S. Air Force operates about 60 of them with a mission-capable rate of roughly 30%. That gives the U.S. fewer than 20 usable stealth fighters. Add in NATO’s partners — a few from the UK, Italy, and others — and total deployable F-35s in a real war scenario barely hits 40.
Rare Earth: The Silent Weapon Mightier Than the Bomb
In the hierarchy of strategic weapons, nuclear bombs are often placed at the top. But in the 21st century, a new form of deterrent has quietly surpassed them in power — Rare Earth Elements.
Ignored so far, yet irreplaceable, and tightly controlled, these minerals form the very core of modern military and economic strength.
Without them, you cannot build a jet engine, a radar, a hypersonic missile, or even an iPhone. Without them, the globalized machine halts. The aircraft carrier becomes a floating museum. The F-35 turns into a powerless shell.
China’s grip on the rare earth supply chain is not just an economic advantage — it’s the ultimate checkmate. With a simple policy shift, Beijing can freeze entire industries in place. That’s not hypothetical. That’s what already happened.
This is not just leverage. It is structural supremacy. While others scramble to mine, refine, or stockpile — China dictates the rhythm of the global industrial symphony.
Rare Earth is not the bomb. It is the wire that makes all bombs detonate.
The Quiet Bomb: How China’s Rare Earth Sanctions Are Rewriting Global Power
Many still think China’s rare earth sanctions are just about missiles and jet engines. But they’re not seeing the full picture. The real impact goes far beyond the battlefield. It touches the world’s economy, power politics, and even the future of war itself.
Let’s start with a bold claim:
There will be no World War III. Not now, not in the coming years.
Why? Because the West can no longer fight one. The May 2025 Indo-Pakistani air combat already exposed the scale of weakness of western weaponry. Today, the U.S. and Europe’s ability to launch a full-scale war rests entirely on a handful of high-tech aircraft: the F-35, the F-22, and the B-2 stealth bomber. Everything else — F-15s, Typhoons, Tornados, and Rafales — are lit-up targets in a modern war zone. Radar-visible and easily neutralized.
Let’s look at the numbers.
There are around 900 F-35s globally, but less than 100 are combat-ready at any given moment. The U.S. Air Force operates about 60 of them with a mission-capable rate of roughly 30%. That gives the U.S. fewer than 20 usable stealth fighters. Add in NATO’s partners — a few from the UK, Italy, and others — and total deployable F-35s in a real war scenario barely hits 40.
V/
Even if we add in the aging Japanese F-2s (derived from the F-16), the total number of advanced fighters ready to operate in a contested environment remains under 50.
What about bombers?
The U.S. owns just 20 B-2 stealth bombers, and only 18 are considered mission-capable. These are the only heavy aircraft the U.S. can send deep into enemy territory without immediately being spotted and destroyed. The rest of the bomber fleet — B-52s and B-1s — is obsolete in a high-threat zone. They’d be flying targets.
In other words, US/NATO doesn’t have the air fleet to even start a world war, let alone win one.
Now contrast that with China’s current arsenal of long-range, networked combat aircraft:
- Over 400 J-20 stealth fighters
- Over 350 J-16 multirole strike fighters
- Around 600 J-10C 4.5-generation jets with AESA radar
- Around 200 H-6K/KN long-range bombers, capable of carrying cruise missiles and electronic warfare payloads
And these numbers are growing. More important than the platforms themselves is China’s missile output. China’s annual air-to-air missile production — especially in the long-range class (PL-15 and PL-XX series) — already exceeds US and NATO’s combined output several times over. And those missiles are integrated into a networked doctrine: China doesn't just fly jets — it commands a layered, datalinked kill-chain system from satellites to ground radar to forward controllers.
China now possesses more active, BVR-capable combat aircrafts than the entire Western alliance combined.
So again, what would US/NATO use to start a war?
Even if every EU member state were to raise its military budget to an unprecedented 5% of GDP, and even if the United States were to double its defense spending to $2 trillion annually, they still wouldn’t be able to significantly ramp up weapons production—because the bottleneck isn’t money, it’s rare earths, and they don’t have them.
Why Rare Earths Have Changed the Equation
There’s a deeper reason why the U.S. can’t go to war. And it has nothing to do with public opinion or election cycles.
It’s supply chains.
The F-35, for instance, requires 420 kilograms of rare earth elements for every airframe. These materials go into the radar, the electronic warfare suite, the sensors, and the engines. And China controls over 90% of the global supply of refined rare earths, especially the heavy rare earths for precision weapon systems.
Even if we add in the aging Japanese F-2s (derived from the F-16), the total number of advanced fighters ready to operate in a contested environment remains under 50.
What about bombers?
The U.S. owns just 20 B-2 stealth bombers, and only 18 are considered mission-capable. These are the only heavy aircraft the U.S. can send deep into enemy territory without immediately being spotted and destroyed. The rest of the bomber fleet — B-52s and B-1s — is obsolete in a high-threat zone. They’d be flying targets.
In other words, US/NATO doesn’t have the air fleet to even start a world war, let alone win one.
Now contrast that with China’s current arsenal of long-range, networked combat aircraft:
- Over 400 J-20 stealth fighters
- Over 350 J-16 multirole strike fighters
- Around 600 J-10C 4.5-generation jets with AESA radar
- Around 200 H-6K/KN long-range bombers, capable of carrying cruise missiles and electronic warfare payloads
And these numbers are growing. More important than the platforms themselves is China’s missile output. China’s annual air-to-air missile production — especially in the long-range class (PL-15 and PL-XX series) — already exceeds US and NATO’s combined output several times over. And those missiles are integrated into a networked doctrine: China doesn't just fly jets — it commands a layered, datalinked kill-chain system from satellites to ground radar to forward controllers.
China now possesses more active, BVR-capable combat aircrafts than the entire Western alliance combined.
So again, what would US/NATO use to start a war?
Even if every EU member state were to raise its military budget to an unprecedented 5% of GDP, and even if the United States were to double its defense spending to $2 trillion annually, they still wouldn’t be able to significantly ramp up weapons production—because the bottleneck isn’t money, it’s rare earths, and they don’t have them.
Why Rare Earths Have Changed the Equation
There’s a deeper reason why the U.S. can’t go to war. And it has nothing to do with public opinion or election cycles.
It’s supply chains.
The F-35, for instance, requires 420 kilograms of rare earth elements for every airframe. These materials go into the radar, the electronic warfare suite, the sensors, and the engines. And China controls over 90% of the global supply of refined rare earths, especially the heavy rare earths for precision weapon systems.
VI/
Because of China’s export restrictions, America is running on fixed inventories. There is no replacement stock. Every fighter jet or warship lost today cannot be replaced tomorrow.
This is not just about jets. It’s about the entire U.S. defense-industrial base. Without rare earths, you don’t build radars, sonar arrays, missile guidance systems, or jet engines. Even munitions assembly lines get bottlenecked. That’s why the Pentagon has started stockpiling — but stockpiling is a last resort strategy. It signals weakness, not strength.
So when people say, “the U.S. can always start a war to shake off debt or scare rivals,” they’re missing the point. Wars are now resource-driven. And China controls the spigot.
Sure, America can still bomb a small Caribbean country like Haiti or Panama. Maybe even muscle Guatemala or Honduras. But try flying halfway around the world and attacking a mid-sized state like Somalia, and you’ll see how fast the fantasy crumbles. Even in Somalia, it's almost certain the hypersonic missiles will appear in guerrilla hands. Today the U.S. Navy is routinely humiliated but can't do anything. That’s the new normal.
America’s military dominance rests on a stockpile. Not on production. Not on renewal. It’s the power of a dying star — still bright, but collapsing from within.
When the Market Follows the Missile
Now let’s talk about money.
For the last century, the financial centers of the world — Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt — have acted not just as stock exchanges but as distribution centers for plunder. The West used its military muscle to enforce trade rules, seize resources, and then repackage that loot as investment “flows.” That’s how the system worked. That’s why Wall Street mattered.
But once the muscle behind the system is gone, the cash stops flowing. Without power, there is no magnetism.
The U.S. has already hollowed out its manufacturing base. It can no longer create wealth internally. It also can no longer seize it externally. Add to that the loss of rare earth leverage and the shrinking ability to maintain secure trade routes, and what’s left?
A casino — disguised as a stock market — where someone like Donald Trump can inflate his net worth tenfold in a month by floating rumors and gaming algorithms. This is not a financial system. It’s the end-stage of empire.
No security. No industry. No advantage.
And once the world stops trusting in this system — once capital flows shift from New York and London to new centers like Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Abu Dhabi — the entire architecture collapses.
That shift is coming.
And rare earths are the fuse.
Politics rests on economics. Economics rests on force. And today, force depends on production.
Rare earth sanctions may look like a footnote in a weapons catalog, but under the current global order, they are reshaping the world’s strategic landscape.
This isn’t just economic warfare. It’s structural transformation.
China today can approach the US/Nato from a position of strength.
As Secretary Blinken declared in January 2021, “We have to start by approaching China from a position of strength, not weakness” — yet when the U.S. invokes that line, it often proves to be a bluff.
In China's case, the stance is real: backed by real cards, capabilities, resolve, and global momentum.
Follow me and stay with me — this is only the beginning.
Because of China’s export restrictions, America is running on fixed inventories. There is no replacement stock. Every fighter jet or warship lost today cannot be replaced tomorrow.
This is not just about jets. It’s about the entire U.S. defense-industrial base. Without rare earths, you don’t build radars, sonar arrays, missile guidance systems, or jet engines. Even munitions assembly lines get bottlenecked. That’s why the Pentagon has started stockpiling — but stockpiling is a last resort strategy. It signals weakness, not strength.
So when people say, “the U.S. can always start a war to shake off debt or scare rivals,” they’re missing the point. Wars are now resource-driven. And China controls the spigot.
Sure, America can still bomb a small Caribbean country like Haiti or Panama. Maybe even muscle Guatemala or Honduras. But try flying halfway around the world and attacking a mid-sized state like Somalia, and you’ll see how fast the fantasy crumbles. Even in Somalia, it's almost certain the hypersonic missiles will appear in guerrilla hands. Today the U.S. Navy is routinely humiliated but can't do anything. That’s the new normal.
America’s military dominance rests on a stockpile. Not on production. Not on renewal. It’s the power of a dying star — still bright, but collapsing from within.
When the Market Follows the Missile
Now let’s talk about money.
For the last century, the financial centers of the world — Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt — have acted not just as stock exchanges but as distribution centers for plunder. The West used its military muscle to enforce trade rules, seize resources, and then repackage that loot as investment “flows.” That’s how the system worked. That’s why Wall Street mattered.
But once the muscle behind the system is gone, the cash stops flowing. Without power, there is no magnetism.
The U.S. has already hollowed out its manufacturing base. It can no longer create wealth internally. It also can no longer seize it externally. Add to that the loss of rare earth leverage and the shrinking ability to maintain secure trade routes, and what’s left?
A casino — disguised as a stock market — where someone like Donald Trump can inflate his net worth tenfold in a month by floating rumors and gaming algorithms. This is not a financial system. It’s the end-stage of empire.
No security. No industry. No advantage.
And once the world stops trusting in this system — once capital flows shift from New York and London to new centers like Shanghai, Shenzhen, or Abu Dhabi — the entire architecture collapses.
That shift is coming.
And rare earths are the fuse.
Politics rests on economics. Economics rests on force. And today, force depends on production.
Rare earth sanctions may look like a footnote in a weapons catalog, but under the current global order, they are reshaping the world’s strategic landscape.
This isn’t just economic warfare. It’s structural transformation.
China today can approach the US/Nato from a position of strength.
As Secretary Blinken declared in January 2021, “We have to start by approaching China from a position of strength, not weakness” — yet when the U.S. invokes that line, it often proves to be a bluff.
In China's case, the stance is real: backed by real cards, capabilities, resolve, and global momentum.
Follow me and stay with me — this is only the beginning.
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