World Battle for Rare Earth Metals

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The West and the United States have a long history and experience of invading small countries that cannot defend themselves, but avoid open military conflict with states capable of retaliating crushing blows. Various “soft power” strategies are used against such countries, which include a whole range of measures in the economic, informational, social and other spheres.

In pursuit of its strategic interests, the West uses long-term methods, sometimes lasting for decades, and including the cultivation and education of new elites from scratch, who in the future will lead a civilizationally changed people in the interests of Western long-term investors.

Such aggression is not aimed at obtaining immediate benefits; it is planned for decades ahead proceeding from not only the current, but also the future strategic needs of Western society.

Now military conflicts are openly taking place mainly around strategic energy resources, transport corridors and logistics. The West has long been open about the fact that where there is oil and gas, as well as the routes of their transportation to the consumer, there are "democratic" bombing raids, aircraft carriers, Tomogavks and seals. In the article "Israel wants to oust Russia from the gas market" I examined in detail the war in the Near and Middle East through the prism of the development of huge gas fields and the construction of gas pipelines to end consumers. Oil and gas are strategic energy resources that now support not only the entire Western economy, but also civilization. However, with the development of scientific progress and technological breakthrough, the world economy has other strategic priorities that require different strategic raw materials. These raw materials are rare and rare earth metals.

With the arrival of the new President of the United States Donald Trumpmany have the illusion that the United States will deal with its internal problems and abandon the previous practice of military aggression. However, Trump almost immediately confirmed the invariability of the previous policy and, on the contrary, imperceptibly increased not only the number of countries and regions exposed to the American military threat, but also significantly raised the level of confrontation to the possibility of unleashing a world war. And all because in the near future a giant leap in the needs of the Western economy for rare and rare earth metals is expected, promising such profits that energy companies never dreamed of.

Rare earth metals are used in modern electronics, computing, power supplies and batteries. Such giant corporations as Tesla, Apple, Google, Toyota, BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Ford and others are suffocating from the shortage of this strategic raw material, the deposits of which are currently outside their control.

Recently, there have been several sharp increases in prices for these strategic metals. For example, the cost of zinc in 2005 increased by 403%, uranium in 2006 - by 778%, molybdenum in 2007 - by 809%, silver in 2010 - by 443%. Rare earth prices soared even more. Since 2008, their price has risen 20 times on average. The price of the most expensive rare earth metal, europium, used in monitor screens, medical imaging, the nuclear and defense industries, increased from $ 403 per kilogram in 2009 to $ 4,900 in 2011. Now europium is traded at a price of about $ 1110, but in China its cost is almost 2 times cheaper - $ 630 / kg.

This trend applies to all other rare earth metals. The fact is that it is China that owns the overwhelming amount of reserves of rare earth strategic metals in the world and holds the world monopoly on their production, which reduces all Trump's efforts to transfer from this country all factories producing electronics to the United States to zero. China can respond to military aggression with a crushing retaliation, and this is not part of Trump's plans. Speaking in Russian: "I want to, and inject, and my mother does not order." Against China, Trump has to be content with military provocations, demonstrations of power and information warfare. Therefore, the United States is now breeding seemingly illogical unnecessary military conflicts around countries that own large deposits of strategic metals - North Korea, Afghanistan and the countries of central Africa. One of the main elements of the cover for US aggression is the information component and propaganda. It does not differ in variety and consists of the declaration of the governments of the victim countries as terrible dictatorships that destroy their own people, accusations of terrorism and their support in the form of arms supplies from Russia.

North Korea

The aggravation of the situation around North Korea began in 2013 and surprisingly coincided with the announcement of the offshore company SRE Minerals, registered in the British Virgin Islands, about the discovery in North Korea of the world's largest rare earth deposit with a total potential of 5 billion tons, including 216.2 million tons rare earth oxides, including light oxides such as lanthanum, cerium and praseodymium, as well as britolite and related rare earth minerals. More valuable heavy rare earth elements account for about 2.66% of this amount. These reserves are more than double the current global resource of rare earth oxides, which, according to the US Geological Survey, is less than 110 million tonnes. These assets are potentially worth trillions of dollars.

SRE Minerals has signed a joint venture agreement with the DPRK government to build a processing plant at the Jongju field, located about 150 kilometers northwest of the capital, Pyongyang. This news instantly collapsed the rare earth metals market that skyrocketed in the period 2008-2013, but at the same time caused huge US concerns about the observance of human rights in the DPRK, its nuclear and missile programs. Not posing any danger to its neighbors, practically impoverished and hungry, an isolated and technologically backward country, suddenly turned into a monster that threatens not only its neighbors, but the entire planet.

The United States imposed aggressive and ever-tightening sanctions against the DPRK, which put the country on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. In 2013, the United States cut North Korea off from the global financial system, and in March 2016 banned its exports of gold, vanadium, titanium and rare earth metals (!!!). The constant exercises and provocations launched under Obama, which put North Korea in the crosshairs of a nuclear aim, have only increased under Trump. Naturally, China does not intend to yield to the United States in such a strategic area as control over rare earth metals. At the same time, China is not profitable from the war at its side. Therefore, he even made some concessions to the United States, stopping the export of coal from the DPRK, hoping to compensate for it with supplies from Mongolia. But this did not change the situation, therefore, for the sake of its strategic economic interests, China will not allow Trump to gain control over the Jongju field, which is vital for the United States. Half measures and compromises are impossible here, so a large-scale military conflict between world leaders is now limited only by determination Donald Trump.

Both China and Russia have already warned Trump against a military adventure in North Korea. Now, if Trump, after so many statements and real actions, backs down, he could get impeachment in his own country, which could lead to the disintegration of the United States and a civil war, which would suit Russia and China, peacefully and relatively painlessly calibrating the future world order. The Washington establishment also understands these consequences and will not back down. Therefore, it is the conflict over the fields in North Korea that could trigger a world war.

Afghanistan

For 15 years now, the United States has been "leaving" Afghanistan. Forgotten the original reasons for the entry of US and NATO troops into this country and the goals they pursued. American presidents have repeatedly promised and announced the withdrawal of their military contingent, but this still does not happen, which costs the US budget hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives of American soldiers. Moreover, to justify its own aggression, American propaganda uses more and more absurd pretexts. Her latest invention is accusations of Russia supporting the Taliban, financing and supplying them with weapons. This is the basis for the introduction of additional military contingents into Afghanistan and the intensification of hostilities.

Why did the Taliban suddenly fail to please their creators and sponsors? The fact is that the Taliban now control the territories of mineral deposits, including the strategic raw materials - rare earth metals. Since 2006, the United States has been conducting magnetic, gravity and hyperspectral monitoring of mineral deposits in Afghanistan with the help of aerial reconnaissance. Aerial reconnaissance found that the deposits may contain 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earths such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, as well as deposits of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For example, only one carbonatite deposit Hanneshin in the Afghan province of Helmand is estimated at $ 89 billion, together with rare earths. The Afghan government's overall assessment of the deposits shows a fantastic $ 3 trillion.

Over the past four years, the U. S. Geological Survey and TFBSO have conducted dozens of studies to confirm aerial findings, resulting in mine maps being issued to mining companies. General of the Army David Petraeus spoke very frankly about the deposits of Afghanistan in August 2010

While the United States is solving these problems exclusively by military means, China, once again dragging them into the game of "good and bad cops", quietly and imperceptibly reached an agreement with the Taliban and the government, and gains control over these fields. The Afghan government has already signed a 30-year, 3-billion-dollar contract with the Chinese steel group MCC and Jiangxi Copper to lease and operate the Aynak copper mine. The right to develop the largest iron ore deposit was given to a group of Indian public and private companies.

While the US is busy "fighting terrorism" in Afghanistan, Chinese and Indian companies are quite successful in developing its mineral resources, peacefully solving security problems. China, against the background of the United States, looks like a real peacemaker and businessman, which allows it not to stand on ceremony either with the Afghan government or even with the world community. The Ainak field, 40 kilometers southeast of Kabul, lies beneath an ancient 5,000-year-old Buddhist city. According to the South China Morning Post, China plans to destroy the city in order to gain access to the field. China plans to demolish many historic sites, resettle a dozen villages and clear mining areas. However, this has met with no resistance from the Afghan government or the Taliban, who, according to CNBC, said they would not hinder China from developing the field.

While the United States is once again trying to put pressure on Russia and spending huge amounts of money to fight the Taliban, China is assimilating the wealth of Afghanistan at a much lower cost, observing convulsions Donald Trumpin another trap from which the United States is almost like death to get out.

Central Africa

Recently released by ViceNews, exclusive documents from the US Strategic Planning Center SOCAFRICA reveal yet another shadowy and virtually unknown war that the US is waging in Africa. Now the American military contingent on this continent is the fastest growing in the world. Moreover, it consists mainly of elite units. Their number in Africa has grown from 1% of all deployed overseas in 2006 to over 17% in 2016. According to the American Special Operations Command, the largest contingent of special operations forces in the world is currently operating in Africa - 1,700 fighters, which allows the United States to conduct up to 100 missions simultaneously. The data of this report is indirectly confirmed by the African command of the USA U. S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

According to the official version, all these forces are fighting Islamic terrorism in the region. The report is replete with information about Islamic terrorist organizations operating in central Africa and the threats they pose to civilians and governments in the region. However, reports of military clashes with Christian armed groups, to which Islamic terrorist groups, government troops and even UN peacekeepers are subjected, do not fit into this picture. The Western propaganda machine is at a loss as to what sauce should be used to present this information, and whether to present it at all. At first, there was complete silence in the Western media, then individual messages began to appear, moreover, the emphasis was placed on the terrorist nature of already Christian units, acts of atrocities, vandalism and the death of many people were described.

The reason for this situation, apparently, lies in the fact that huge deposits of cobalt were discovered in the region, which includes the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, accounting for 64% of the total world reserves of this metal. Now these deposits are being developed with the help of slave labor, including child labor, and the workers are kept in inhuman conditions. The Washington Post reports that the children are working in deadly conditions and the cobalt mines are owned by Apple. Every iPhone and iPad contains a particle of blood and sweat from children who are dying in the mines of Central Africa. Traditionally, Western businesses are targeted by Islamic terrorist groups. Sky News, among the security concerns in the cobalt supply chain carried by Islamic troops, also notes rampant child abuse, who are predominantly Christian.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Christian groups, traditionally fighting Islamic ones, began to attack government troops, UN peacekeepers and, most likely, American special operations forces, which ensure the safety of cobalt mines and transport routes. In addition, South Sudan is traditionally behind the Christian militias in Central Africa, and it is the fiefdom of China and Israel. These countries are producing cheap oil and other strategic raw materials there, and their sphere of interests has now been invaded by Apple and investment company First Cobalt, which, through advertising articles in the American and Canadian media, forms an investment portfolio for the development of cobalt mines in Central Africa.

For any small and poor country, deposits of rare earth metals, instead of prosperity and wealth, bring poverty, hunger and war. And the larger these resources are, the more merciless and bloodshed is their development by the countries concerned. Now, in any place of occurrence of these metals, there is a collision of world giants, which threatens to develop into a large-scale world war. The winner in this raw material war gains future dominance in the world economy and geopolitics, and the loser loses everything. Russia, practically provided for its own needs with its deposits and resources of Kazakhstan so much that it almost painlessly left the problematic market of Mongolia, it remains only to watch the battle of the world giants, minimizing the consequences of possible conflicts for itself in order to enter a new formatted world order with a strong, confident and a powerful power.