conflict
China Poised To Cut Off US Military From Key Mineral As America’s Own Reserves Lay Buried Under Red Tape
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Nick Pope
China is planning to restrict exports of a key mineral needed to make weapons while a U.S. company that could be reducing America’s reliance on foreign suppliers is languishing in red tape, energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Chinese government announced on August 15 that it will restrict exports of antimony, a critical mineral that dominates the production of weapons globally and is essential for producing equipment like munitions, night vision goggles and bullets that are essential to national security, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Perpetua Resources, an American mining company, has been navigating red tape for years to develop a mine in Valley County, Idaho, that could decrease reliance on the Chinese supply of antimony, but the slow permitting process is getting in the way, energy experts told the DCNF.
It can take years to secure all the necessary approvals and permits to develop a mine like the one Perpetua Resources is trying to operate. One of the key permitting laws in place is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which also applies to federal land management actions and the construction of certain public infrastructure projects like highways.
“After six years of planning and early engagement, we began the [NEPA] permitting process in 2016. We are now eight years into NEPA,” a Perpetua Resources spokesperson told the DCNF. The company is hoping to extract antimony from the largest known deposit in the U.S., and Perpetua Resources’ development could also produce millions of ounces of gold as well.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, argues that the Perpetua Resources mine poses real environmental considerations that should be addressed, but production in the U.S. is almost certainly cleaner than production that takes place in China. Moreover, depending on China for raw materials needed to produce key defense equipment poses a clear national security risk, Furchtgott-Roth said.
“The United States has the highest environmental standards in the world for its mines, as well as for some other things, too,” Furchtgott-Roth told the DCNF. “It’s a huge national security risk. Given what we’ve seen with Russia cutting off supplies of natural gas to Europe, we know that countries can cut off important supplies to other countries.”
“If the administration wants to pursue policies that push electric vehicles, green energy and other mineral-intensive technologies, it should look to streamline the permitting process across the board rather than selectively pursuing reform for some favored types of development and not for others,” Furchtgott-Roth added.
Steve Coonen, a former Department of Defense (DOD) official who focused on technology exports to China, agreed that relying on China for raw materials needed to produce crucial technologies presents a clear national security risk.
“The United States has all the rare earth elements it needs, not too dissimilar from its energy requirements,” Coonen told the DCNF. “However, Democrats have enchained U.S. industry by prohibiting the extraction of these materials for misplaced and ill-informed ecological reasons at a significant risk to national security and the United States’ long-term economic health.”
China is responsible for just under 50% of the world’s antimony production, and it is also the source of 63% of the U.S.’ current antimony imports, according to CSIS. The U.S., meanwhile, did not mine any “marketable” antimony in 2023, according to CNBC.
China’s recently announced export restrictions for antimony will take effect on Sept. 15, according to CNBC. To many in the industry, China moving to curb antimony exports would have come as a surprise just a few months ago, so the country’s decision to take action comes across as “quite confrontational in that regard,” Lewis Black, CEO of Canadian mining company Almonty Industries, told the outlet.
In addition to antimony, China has also flexed its muscles by restricting exports of other critical minerals that it dominates globally, like germanium and gallium, since 2023.
“The United States has some of the highest permitting standards in the world, and that’s something to be proud of. But NEPA gets criticism for being inefficient, and much of that criticism is justified,” the Perpetua Resources spokesperson told the DCNF. “When we are talking about minerals we need for America’s national and economic security — not to mention our clean energy future — we need an efficient regulatory process that still maintains robust protections for communities and the environment.”
The company is anticipating that the process — from initial deposit identification to the beginning of mineral extraction from the mine site — will take 18 years, the Perpetua Resources spokesperson told the DCNF. However, the spokesperson added that NEPA has been beneficial for transparency with the public and allowing stakeholder communities to weigh in about the project.
Nevertheless, Perpetua Resources “absolutely supports a commonsense, bipartisan approach to permitting reform” because “good projects should not wither in red tape.”
The antimony curbs may be even more pressing given existing concerns about the strength of America’s defense-industrial base amid wars in the Middle East and Europe, as well as rising tensions with China over Taiwan. Many experts have cautioned that the U.S. is allowing itself to become too dependent on an adversarial China’s mineral supplies at a time when those minerals are playing a much larger role in the American economy, thanks in part to the Biden administration’s massive green energy agenda.
“In the mid-twentieth century, domestic mining accounted for 90% of the U.S.’s antimony consumption. Today, the U.S. no longer mines antimony; instead, it relies on China, its chief geopolitical rival, for over 60% of its antimony imports,” Quill Robinson, an associate fellow in CSIS’ Energy Security and Climate Change Program, told the DCNF. “Effective China de-risking requires reducing reliance up and down the value chain.”
Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Republican Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso teamed up to introduce a major permitting reform bill in July, designing the package to simplify the regulatory hurdles that major infrastructure and development projects must clear and expedite timelines without totally defanging regulators’ ability to ensure that environmental concerns and considerations are addressed. That bill has not yet come up for a vote in the Senate.
“There are legitimate environmental challenges that need to be mitigated for projects like this,” Arnab Datta, the Institute for Progress’ director of infrastructure policy, told the DCNF. However, government agencies are more strongly incentivized to avoid legal challenges of their reviews from third parties than they are to thoroughly review the more significant environmental concerns, meaning that regulators tend to chew up lots of time on those minor points and ultimately extend the timelines for permitting, Datta explained.
“The uncertainty from permitting and litigation compounds the challenge of reaching production in what’s often a volatile and uncertain market environment for these commodities,” Datta, who also works for Employ America as a managing director of policy implementation, continued. “These companies need a process with certainty and reasonable timelines and also support that helps mitigate the volatility that arises from China’s actions in the market.”
Featured Image: Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash
conflict
US and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Hopefully a world war appears unlikely, but the decision to allow Ukraine to shoot U.S. and U.K.-provided missiles into Russia once again reveals the lengths to which the ‘neocon globalists’ will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.
News that the lame duck President Joe Biden has authorized long-range strikes into Russia using NATO systems was announced with the alarming warning that he had “started World War III.”
The following day, U.S.-supplied and operated ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the authorized strikes as an “escalation” showing that the West wants war.
“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly in the Bryansk region overnight is, of course, a signal that they want escalation,” he said, according to Reuters.
Lavrov continued: “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”
Why would the U.S. president finally give the green light to use NATO systems to attack Russia? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to follow suit and supply German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – because he does not want to see Germany drawn into a direct war with Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by suggesting it is only a matter of time before U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles strike deep into Russian territory.
Today – Wednesday, November 20 – the Guardian reported that it has already happened.
The U.K. government has been behind a long campaign to escalate the war in Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to secure continued U.S. commitments in Europe. The Trump camp has long signaled its desire to draw down its security provision to leave a “dormant NATO.”
In an indication of the dangers of the U.K.-backed move by Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an alarming amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine.
The policy change, announced in September and published following Biden’s announcement, says “an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia,” according to the BBC.
Russian nuclear doctrine has long included the use of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in “conventional” warfare – a significantly lower threshold than that of NATO.
While Russian officials urged Western leaders to consult the text, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that “we strongly are in favor of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen.”
As Reuters reported, this latest provocation is “unlikely to be a gamechanger.” Western media outlets have moved from a narrative of Ukrainian victory to mulling how or even if the state of Ukraine can survive its “inevitable” defeat.
Yet it is not only Ukraine which faces an uncertain future with a Russian victory. The entire globalist order faces a significant blow should the war conclude. Statements from figures such as George Soros, U.S. General Mark Milley, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen, and the former head of NATO stressed that their liberal-globalist regime is threatened by defeat in Ukraine.
Biden’s decision has been seen as an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s declared agenda – to clear out the “deep state globalists” whose “neocons seeking confrontation … such as Victoria Nuland” have led the U.S. into endless wars since that in Iraq.
An escalation to all-out war with Russia would not only be a disastrous precursor to nuclear escalation, but would also preserve the dominance of the same “neocon globalists” whose “forever wars” Trump has pledged to end.
Arch-neocon Robert Kagan said Americans who support ending wars are “intolerant.” He went on to author two articles which Hitlerized Trump and appeared to incite the assassination of a man who promised in his 2024 victory speech, “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”
This follows a long series of claims in the same vein.
“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump declared in February 2023, saying he would also end “the chaos in the Middle East” and “stop World War III.”
This move by Biden has no military significance in improving Ukraine’s chances of victory. Russia claimed to have shot down seven of eight ATACMS fired into its Bryansk region. Yet prolonging or even escalating this war has enormous political significance.
Since the publication of the RAND Corporation’s 2019 paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” a strategy of bleeding Russia on the battlefield to collapse its government has been clear. Russia’s near-limitless mineral wealth would provide an obvious boon to a Western system self-sabotaged by sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream gas supply.
The enormous significance of the war is found in its use as an attempt to extend and consolidate the power of the same system of neocon “globalism” which Trump has vowed to end.
This context explains why the U.K. government has consistently pressed for escalation since the 2022 intervention of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to have sabotaged peace in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble towards “regime change” in Russia.
Since then, the U.K. government has urged the authorization of long-range strikes into Russia, and it has supplied cruise missiles to attack Russian over-the-horizon nuclear radar warning systems, which play no role in the Ukraine war.
Reports have confirmed “terrorist operations” in Russia, including attacks on the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea were U.K.-led. A recent expose by The Grayzone revealed that the British state appears to be training Ukrainians to fight a guerilla war, extending hostilities even beyond any ceasefire.
Ukraine’s recent and failed offensive into Russia’s Kursk region appears to have also been a British operation – to secure the kind of “morale boost” which Alastair Crooke says is the only significant war-fighting contribution of the authorization of “wonder weapons” like ATACMS.
The ATACMS authorization was heralded as a turning point in the war by Foreign Affairs. Yet the suspicion of Responsible Statecraft that it was a “sideshow that may become a tragedy” appears to have been confirmed.
The grim reality of this war is underscored by the fact that measures taken which will result in even more needless loss of human life are done so to legitimize useful propaganda headlines. This is undertaken to sell a war which has long been predicted to end as it now seems certain to do so: with a victory on Russian terms.
Though it appears unlikely that a world war will result from this latest reckless move, what has been demonstrated once more is the lengths to which the “neocon globalists” will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.
That lifeline is perpetual war, and when they end – so do the careers of so many whose livelihoods and reputations depend on keeping them going.
From Armstrong Economics
By Martin Armstrong
Russia has begun mass production of mobile nuclear bunkers. This is in response to Ukraine’s use of Western US and British missiles to attack deep inside Russia to destroy its conventional capability so NATO can launch an invasion by March/April 2025.
This has coincided with Mr Putin’s change of Russia’s doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons to include the use of conventional weapons by Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked an ammunition stockpile in the Bryansk region using missiles supplied by the US military’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
Russia has also ordered the production of its mobile nuclear bunkers to protect citizens. They are shelters capable of protecting people from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment. These are known as “KUB-M” and will protect 54 people for 48 hours from the air shock wave and light radiation of a nuclear explosion; penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area; high-explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons; falling debris from building structures; dangerous chemicals; fires. Unlike traditional, stationary bunkers, mobile bunkers are built to be easily moved from one location to another, often on vehicles or trailers. They can be equipped with advanced shielding, air filtration systems, and other necessary survival equipment to withstand the harsh conditions of a nuclear event.
The Western press keeps putting out the Neocon and NATO propaganda that Russia will never fire a nuke and Ukraine can win the war. But this is all a smoke screen for NATO will invade Russia, and they are using Ukraine as our Hesbolla, the same as Iran is using Lebanon. Zelensky claimed he invaded Russia to force Putin to peace. But they had a peace deal. Boris Johnson ran to Kiev and instructed Zelensky he was not allowed to sign a peace deal, and now far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed so Europe can invade Russia.
Just as Robert McNamara said about Vietnam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq, what if these people are wrong AGAIN? There goes Europe! Not a single European leader cares about their own people.
Either the Ukrainian people rise up and take their country back, or Putin needs to nuke Kiev to show the world he is serious. Otherwise, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Our press will NEVER write a single word for peace. It is always Putin is bluffing. What if you are wrong again?
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was just shut down after Biden gave the go-ahead to use long-range missiles. Hm. If this was to win the war, then why flee Kiev? They know Putin will respond forcefully against Zelensky. Russians get nuclear bomb shelters, and we get Fake News – Don’t worry – he’s bluffing.
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