Understandably, this story is getting a lot of attention today since it does the U.S. military no good to have the best weapons systems in the world if it can’t get the key raw materials to build those weapons systems. This appears to be another case of the Chinese securing long-term supplies for key natural resources while other nations dither.

U.S. lawmakers called for a hearing after a government report exposed potential “vulnerabilities” for the American military because of its extensive use of Chinese metals in smart bombs, night-vision goggles and radar.

China controls 97 percent of production of materials known as rare earth oxides, giving it “market power” over the U.S., the Government Accountability Office said in the report obtained by Bloomberg News before its public release on April 14.

U.S. Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters in Washington he would call for an inquiry to discuss the report.
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“China is a rapidly rising military and economic power and the fact is that they cornered the market on these rare earth metals that are essential for a lot of our advanced weapons systems as well as a lot of manufacturing in the United States,” Representative Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican, who asked for the GAO report, said April 14 in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We need to move aggressively on this issue now before it’s too late.”

It’s been a while, but, if memory serves, the U.S. military is dependent on China for a host of other goods all throughout the supply chain. Despite the Defense Department’s “second source” for virtually everything, many of those sources all come from some part of Asia and, years ago, it was said that if defense contractors were ever cut off from their suppliers half way around the world, he U.S. military would grind to a halt in six months.