The ransom of the Rare Earths

The future conflicts are going to be fought for natural resources and more pertinently for the sake of acquisition of energy.

- DR. MANAN DWIVEDI

Flicks such as Waterworld and Mad Max cinematically depict the crisis of energy takeovers in an environ of dystopia when the post nuclear war comity is in the offing. The thematic percept, realism and immediacy of rare earth elements and the larger narrative about it leads to the conception of an Orange Economy.

Observers of International Relations and International political economy talk about this novae geo economic perspective and geopolitical reality. There happens to be argument afoot that the rare earth minerals are not contributors to the Global economy but that might not travel as a workable rationale as the present day “techne” instrumentality for the carriage of global security, cyber concerns and the staple fare resources necessary to cobble together computer systems, mobile phones, batteries and Electronic vehicles, depend a great deal upon the germinating and constituent capacity of the rare Earth materials. They have become the prime contestation as far as the critical minerals trade and the new frontiers in global geo-economics and geo-strategy is concerned.

President Trump is too inching for a close tete a tete with Islamabad for the realization of the strategic objective of countering the Chinese Belt and Road initiative and the entwined CPEC element in the form of the Gwadar sea base. In a manner, the White House has reneged on the India-US camaraderie post Operation Sindoor with the Americans allowing their soil to be utilized by the Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz shareef to militate against India in a speech in Tampa, Florida.