For nearly three decades, mining executives faced an uphill battle persuading governments that minerals constitute strategic assets. That argument is no longer necessary — global events have made the case decisively.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine revealed the critical role of industrial capacity in sustaining modern warfare. China's readiness to deploy export controls on critical minerals showed that processing capability can be as potent as production itself — a leverage amplified by the fact that China refines approximately 60% of the world's lithium, processes nearly 90% of rare earth oxides, and dominates the conversion of mined material into battery-grade compounds. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is generating unprecedented demand for electricity, copper, and the infrastructure required to connect them.

Although these developments are frequently discussed as distinct narratives, they are deeply interconnected. Collectively, they signal a fundamental transformation in how governments perceive mining — no longer merely a cyclical commodity industry, but increasingly as a cornerstone of economic resilience and national security.

Minerals Alliance

Industrial power has historically underpinned military success, from Britain's Industrial Revolution to the United States outproducing Germany and Japan during World War II. Today, that power is measured by access to critical minerals, refining capacity, semiconductors, electricity, and AI capabilities as much as by traditional factories and shipyards.

In May, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) defined economic warfare as "the use of financial, industrial, trade, and regulatory tools to shape how states convert resources into military power."

In June, G7 leaders agreed to establish a critical minerals alliance designed to reduce dependence on any single supplier such as China. The initiative includes coordinating strategic stockpiles and expanding the International Energy Agency's role in monitoring mineral markets and issuing early supply warnings. The IEA has separately estimated that mineral demand for clean energy technologies could grow four- to sixfold by 2040, depending on climate policy pathways, underscoring the scale of the supply challenge the alliance is meant to address.

The effort extends beyond trade policy. It reflects an acknowledgment that secure mineral supply chains are now integral to national preparedness. These are not isolated announcements; rather, they embody a wider recognition that supply chain resilience is becoming as vital as the efficiency that governed global trade for decades.

Industrial Endurance

The war in Ukraine has reinforced this principle. The conflict has evolved into a contest of industrial endurance as much as battlefield tactics, where the capacity to manufacture artillery shells, drones, and missiles has proven equally critical to military strategy. Manufacturing capability is once again being treated as a defence asset.

As Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz of CSIS noted in their April report on China's rare earth export restrictions: "True resilience will be measured not by policy announcements or deployed capital, but by sustained output, diversified supply, and the ability to attract private investment."

That observation ranks among the most consequential statements made about the mining sector this year. It underscores the reality that mines, refineries, smelters, transmission infrastructure, and skilled labour forces cannot be established overnight — each requires years to permit, finance, and construct. In the United States, where the Defense Production Act was invoked in 2022 to accelerate domestic mineral production, new mining projects still routinely face permitting timelines exceeding a decade. The United States has taken decisive action on mineral security, bringing most Western allies along in the process.

Significant challenges remain. In Alberta, proposed AI data centres are competing directly with industrial projects for electricity and grid access. Across North America, utility companies are warning that transmission capacity — not power generation — is emerging as the primary constraint.

Simultaneous Scramble

Governments are concurrently working to secure supplies of copper, rare earths, graphite, tungsten, and other materials essential not only for batteries and power grids, but also for missiles, aircraft, radar systems, and communications equipment. Increasingly, the same metals serve overlapping civilian and military applications.

NATO members are rebuilding depleted munitions stockpiles and reinforcing domestic industrial capacity following decades of outsourcing and just-in-time supply chain models. The objective extends beyond fielding superior weaponry; it is about ensuring continuous production capability throughout a prolonged conflict.

This convergence is redefining mining's economic role. The industry no longer simply supplies manufacturers — it underpins the infrastructure on which digital economies, energy systems, and national defence collectively depend.

Researchers at the Washington-based Resources for the Future arrive at a similar conclusion through a different analytical lens. In a May report, the organization argues that rebuilding domestic mineral supply chains demands considerably more than favourable geology. Workforce availability, processing capacity, infrastructure, permitting, community support, and long-term policy certainty all determine whether new supply can realistically be developed.

Critical minerals policy is, in effect, becoming industrial policy. Success will depend less on discovering the next mineral deposit than on constructing the infrastructure, processing capacity, and social licence necessary to bring those resources to market.

The First Link

For years, the mining industry contended it merited a central position in economic policy discussions. Governments frequently dismissed such appeals as self-interested lobbying from yet another cyclical sector.

Today, governments recognize that mines producing copper, nickel, rare earths, and uranium represent the foundational link in supply chains supporting AI, the energy transition, and national defence. This shift transforms the policy conversation, even if it does not automatically deliver higher commodity prices or streamlined permitting.

Mining has grown in strategic importance not through industry self-promotion, but because governments, military planners, and technology companies have independently reached the same conclusion: industrial strength originates with secure mineral supplies. The path to economic and military power increasingly begins where mining always has — in the ground.