There is an invisible war for the periodic table.
The green revolution and the arms race are now fighting over the same shovel.
We used to debate ‘guns versus butter’, but in the Exponential Age the trade-off is sharper: missiles versus wind turbines.
A new report from the Transition Security Project highlights a critical tension. The United States Department of War is accelerating its stockpiling of critical minerals- lithium, cobalt, rare earths - to secure supply chains for advanced weaponry.
The problem is simple. These are the same ingredients we need for the energy transition.
It is physics rather than policy. The defence prime and the climate tech scale-up are competing for the same molecules. A collision between two priorities:
1/ Planetary Security: the existential need to build batteries and renewable infrastructure. 2/ National Security: the urgent demand to build precision guided munitions and AI-enabled weapons systems.
Miners such as Rio Tinto and Glencore are no longer just commodity suppliers. They are strategic assets. Defence primes such as Lockheed Martin are signing upstream agreements to secure their own futures.
For 30 years we assumed the global market would provide enough for everyone. That assumption is dissolving.
We are now deciding how to use the scarce minerals needed to stabilise the climate and secure the peace.
When supply is finite, strategy is not about what you want to build. It is about what you can afford not to.
