Strategic Minerals: Is China's Consumption a Threat to United States Security? (CSL Issue Paper, Volume 7-11, July 2011)
Abstract
The vitality of a powerful nation depends upon its ability to secure access to the strategic resources necessary to sustain its economy and produce effective weapons for defense. This is especially true for the world s two largest economies, those of the United States and China, which are similarly import dependent for around half of their petroleum imports and large quantities of their strategic minerals. Because China s economy and resource import dependence continue to grow at a high rate it has adopted a geopolitical strategy to secure strategic resources. China s resulting role in the mineral trade has increased Western security community concern over strategic minerals to its highest point since the end of the Cold War. The importance of mineral access to security policy turns on the adequacy of domestic supply, reliability of mineral imports, rate of economic growth, and the degree to which the nation perceives threats from external actors. Security policy makers should become alarmed when resource imports are concentrated in a limited number of unstable countries, scarcity drives up commodity prices, external actors undertake behavior that interferes with free trade and mineral access, or peer competitors demonstrate a geopolitical interest in trade vulnerabilities. Today, the rise of China and its growing import dependence are creating conditions that call into question the continued security of mineral imports to the United States and the West.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA548775
Entities
People
- Adam Norris
- Brent Bankus
- Kent H. Butts
Organizations
- United States Army War College