Will future resource demand cause significant and unpredictable dislocations for the UK Ministry of Defence?

• UK (read: Western) military capability is becoming increasingly dependent on advanced technology.
• Such technology, including digital, depends upon the a small number of elements, the Rare Earths.
• These are produced in only a few countries, with at least 75% of production being located in China.
• Chinese actions (such as export quotas) are increasing the risk of disruptions to the supply chain.
• These could threaten the UK's military capability and national security if measures are not taken.

This paper focuses on the drivers which may affect future trends in material availability for defence, in particular, the availability of rare earth elements (REE). These drivers include resource concentration, tighter regulatory policy and its enforcement, export policies, their use in economic statecraft, increases in domestic demand, promoting greater efficiency in resource use, efforts to mitigate resource depletion and more efficient resource extraction while reducing its associated environmental impact. It looks at the effect these factors might have on global systems and supply chains, the impact on material insecurity and how this may exacerbate the issue of their use in UK military equipment. It finds that these drivers are likely to have an increasing impact on material availability (if measures are not taken to mitigate them), which will have consequences for the provision of military capability by the UK.