To become a general officer, one has to be commissioned and then attend multiple years of progressively advanced schooling culminating in a ‘War College.’ Further, the officer has to demonstrate mastery of senior officer leadership – tactics, strategy, and logistics. So, what has America gotten for the time and money it invests in training and selecting general officers?
6 days ago, in April 2025, China curbed the export of specific rare earth materials that are essential for the high tech weaponry that the US is reliant on to win any fight with a near peer military. This was in response to President Trump’s massive tariffs levied on exports from China. This crisis did not begin when Trump was inaugurated and began his tariff plan to help bring industry back to the United States. It began far earlier.
Since the 1990s, China has aggressively pursued global dominance in the rare earth mining and refinement industries. Due to massive reserves of rare earths, low labor costs, laxed environment policies, and significant government assistance, China quickly became dominant in the market. By the early 2000s, China controlled nearly 95% of the rare earth materials in the world.1
China has flashed warnings numerous times that they have the power to control these essential components for military weapons. In 2010, China halted rare earth exports to Japan over a border dispute. In 2023, China restricted rare earth exports briefly to the US over US restrictions on technology transfers.2
In 2024, the Pentagon published the National Defense Industrial Strategy which outlined a plan to make the US increasingly self-reliant on rare earth mining and refinement/production to secure its own defense supply chain. The announcement appears to have been too late and with little intention for aggressive implementation. At best, the plan hoped to have a supply chain secured by 2027.3 This means the US cannot go to war against China until at least 2027. Imagine the power this gives China in its calculus to go to war or take back Taiwan.
In 2025, the US has one rare earth mine. The US currently has plans to build refinement facilities in the US but no large scale ones exist.4 As of 2025, China mines 60% of the global rare earth supply and refines 90% of it.
The problem was visible 35 years ago. Generals don’t directly control government spending, environmental regulations, and US industry. However, they have tremendous soft power in both their positions as generals and in their positions as retired highly paid executive members of defense corporations. Recall that 80% of senior generals retire and go to work for the military industrial complex.
The rare earth crisis is not a concept that seems to have been put into words that have come out of US generals’ mouths (active duty or retired). They have been proponents of cool high tech gizmos to fight wars, increased defense spending in general, DEI, and many other things. Securing essential materials to build our core fighting machines was not one of them. Worse, pointing out that the US is risking losing future wars by being entirely dependent on our #1 near peer adversary for these essential rare earth materials is also not a concept that the generals brought to the public and government’s attention.
West Point prides itself on being an intellectual thinktank for research and national defense topics. A query of “rare earth” on West Point’s webpage yields only the result “Your Search Yielded No Results.” West Point brags about how its cadets embraced diversity, fly drones, build robots, etc. Does it not talk about and teach its cadets to pull back the curtain to see how the US will build these technological masterpieces to win wars? Does West Point teach strategy and logistics?
Imagine if the US was reliant on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to build all of its tanks, planes, ships, rifles, and other military equipment on the eve of Pearl Harbor only to beg our enemies to keep building our weapons for us so that we can turn around and use them against them. As laughable as this seems, this is exactly the situation the US and its military finds itself in in the year 2025, 35 years after China made clear to the world it would control the rare earth market.
It is said that amateur soldiers talk tactics and professionals talk logistics. It seems America’s generals are amateurs. Sleep well tonight, America. These are the ‘leaders’ who claim to be able to defend you.
- https://rareearthexchanges.com/history-of-rare-earth-production-in-china/
- https://www.newsweek.com/china-xi-trump-rare-earths-2057930
- https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3700059/dod-looks-to-establish-mine-to-magnet-supply-chain-for-rare-earth-materials/
- https://rareearthexchanges.com/domestic-rare-earth-refining-in-america/
Up until 2003, I was a Mech. Eng. working for various manufacturing companies. The military is not the only industry using rare earth minerals(they are used by many equipment mfgs.)- EVERYONE in this country knew what was happening when they relinquished control of mfg. to China. NO ONE had the courage(or cared) to stop it- GREED took hold of everyone involved and now we(the people)are in a MESS(of course the global elites don't see it as a mess). We must correct this pronto-time is up!
THEY DIDN'T MISS IT. THE UPPER BRASS KNEW ALL ABOUT OUR VULNERABLITY IN THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, THEY CHOOSE TO IGNORE IT SO THEY CAN GET THE CUSHY COORPERATE JOBS WHEN THEY RETIRE. WHY DO YOU THINK WE GET COMPUTER CHIPS AND MOTHER BOARDS FROM CHINA FOR OUR FIGHTERS AND BOMBERS JUST ABOUT EVERY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT THE MILITARY THAT HAS A COMPUTER IN IT THE PARTS ARE CHINESE. YEAH THEY KNEW BUT CHOOSE TO IGNORE IT FOR MONEY.
Research China's "capture" program and you will have your answer. Yes even senior/executive military officers were successfully "captured". Sad but true.