Companies (Page 190)

The US wants to significantly increase missile production in preparation for a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait against China, a development of weapons that could quickly stall according to institutional challenges, labor difficulties, and a possible shortage of essential materials.

The US Air Force ( USAF ) is working on its Enterprise Test Vehicle ( ETV ) project this month, which aims to create low-cost, high-production cruise missiles for potential high-end conflicts, including those involving China in the Pacific.

The War Zone mentions that four businesses, including Zone 5 Technologies, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Leidos company Dynetics, and Anduril Industries, have been chosen to design, create, and aircraft test new missile ideas in the next seven times.

The report says that the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit ( DIU), in cooperation with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Armament Directorate ( AFLCMC/EB), announced the collaboration, which also involves US Special Operations Command ( SOCOM), Naval Air Systems Command ( NAVAIR ), and US Indo- Pacific Command ( USINDOPACOM).

The ETV task is aimed at creating professional and dual-use technology solutions that demonstrate scalability for subsystem upgrades and function as a basis for low-cost, high-rate production, according to The War Zone.

The missiles are anticipated to be able to be deployed in large numbers using a variety of launch techniques, which poses a geopolitical risk to adversaries.

The project intends to create financial ammunition stockpiles for extended conflicts using commercial off-the-shelf components and modern manufacturing techniques. If successful, the initiative was substantially increase the USAF’s corporate skills while reducing costs.

According to the War Zone report, the designs aim for a range of about 500 nautical miles, great supersonic speed, and a cost goal of US$ 150, 000 per unit in bulk orders, which is considerably lower than the existing AGM- 158B Joint Air- to Surface Standoff Missile- Extended Range ( JASSM- ER ), which costs between$ 1.2-$ 1.5 million per unit.

The ETV project comes after a significant US spending spree to increase missile stocks. Task and Purpose reported in March 2023 that the Pentagon had allocated$ 30.6 billion of its$ 842 billion budget for 2024 to expand its tactical missile and munitions arsenal.

Task and Purpose points out that while the US Navy and Air Force intend to purchase more Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles ( LRASMs), missile stocks may not be sufficient for a potential conflict over the Taiwan Strait in 2027, necessitating easy-to-make, low-cost alternatives.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated the prodigious need for precision-guided weapons in massive, industrialized wars, making low-cost solutions all the more necessary.

Christopher Miller points out in the Financial Times that Russia’s retrofitting of cheap pop-up wings and satellite guidance with Soviet-era gravity bombs has proved deadly against Ukraine’s forces.

Such vintage weapons include the 1, 500- kilogram FAB- 1500 from World War II, the 500- kilogram FAB- 500, first produced in the 1950s, and the much larger FAB- 3000, a 3, 000- kilogram bomb from the same period.

Miller claims that these guidance kits allow the bombs to be launched from outside the Ukrainian airspace and that they are much less expensive for Russia to use because one bomb can destroy several buildings at once.

Russia’s extensive Soviet-era stockpiles of gravity bombs have allowed it to carry out frequent airstrikes against Ukrainian forces. Miller says that in the third week of March, Russia launched over 700 guided bombs. At the time of his writing, Russia has launched 3, 500 guided bombs this year, a 16- fold increase over 2023.

According to Miller, mass guided bombings were key to Russia’s bloody capturing of Avdiivka in mid-February, and that mass cruise and ballistic missile strikes against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure plunged Kharkov into darkness and threatened the destruction of Kaniv and Zaporizhzhia’s hydroelectric facilities.

In the first days of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the US may run out of high-tech munitions in the wake of Russia’s prodigious expenditure of precision-guided munitions made of refurbished vintage bombs.

Seth Jones notes in a January 2023 CSIS article that CSIS war games conducted in January 2023 demonstrated that the US might run out of precision-guided munitions in a Taiwan Strait conflict in less than a week.

In two dozen versions of a CSIS war game playing a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, Jones mentions that the US spent 5, 000 long-range missiles in three weeks of conflict, wasting its entire stock of LRASMs in just the first week.

Jones points out that China has been acquiring high-end weapons and equipment five to six times more quickly than the US, noting that the Ukraine war has highlighted significant deficiencies in America’s ability to produce sufficient arms.

He also makes mention of several obstacles to expanding the US defense industry base, including inconsistent and unpredictable orders from the US Department of Defense ( DOD ), limited supply chains for crucial components, China’s dominance of rare earth metal supplies and nitrocellulose for explosives, long lead replacement times for spent munitions, and bureaucratic delays in foreign military sales ( FMS ) programs.

Although the ETV project can reduce the US’s need for expensive weapons stock by enabling low-cost design and manufacturing, it is unclear whether US stocks are sufficient to increase missile production.

Joe Buccino writes in a Defense One article from February 2024 that the US must focus on crucial munitions and rehabilitate its obscure National Defense Stockpile.

Buccino notes that the National Defense Stockpile, which operates across the US, holds an emergency supply of critical metals such as aluminum, titanium, magnesium, and electric steel, saying that rehabilitation efforts should focus on these.

Buccino does point out that while the US government recognizes 50 materials as critical, the National Defense Stockpile is only kept at six full or nearly full depots, which is a paltry compared to the US’s 102 depots and 92 critical materials at the height of Cold War times.

Buccino claims that a critical munitions reserve within the National Defense Stockpile would restore munitions stocks for air and missile defense, interdiction operations, interdiction operations, and the destruction of hardened or buried structures. Such munitions, Buccino says, include the LRASM, JASSM- ER, Precision Strike Missiles ( PSMs) and 155- millimeter artillery rounds.

Buccino suggests that the US PROCURE Act, which creates a$ 500 million annual revolving fund within the Treasury Department to allow the Pentagon to purchase essential munitions, could help restock the National Defense Stockpile.

That, he says, would allow the DOD to swiftly replenish high- demand munitions supplied to US allies and partners in future conflicts, using profits from FMS programs.

Continue Reading

Over the forthcoming years, European countries may require tremendous&nbsp, volumes&nbsp, of essential nutrients given the demand for mineral- wealthy technologies like electric vehicle batteries.

A well-known policy recommendation is “friendshoring,” where companion countries source extracted minerals from each other rather than relying on political adversaries, notably China.

For instance, Australia and the European Union lately signed a&nbsp, document of understanding&nbsp, to improve collaboration and investment in crucial nutrient supply chains.

In this author’s environment,” the West” covers countries piece of the&nbsp, Mineral Security Partnership—that is, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and regions in the European Union.

Technically, these states collectively have significant&nbsp, reserves&nbsp, of essential nutrients, they just need to create more mines. However, building new mine requires not only reserves but successful reserves, which the West lacks for many essential nutrients.

The likelihood of a plant being built is determined by its possible success. Mine success relies on many variables, including the precise entity’s value, the girlfriend’s capital expenditures, operating costs, mechanical recovery rates, and—perhaps most crucially—the deposit’s scale and&nbsp, grade.

For some minerals, European countries have discovered and are mining most of their big- scale, higher- grade deposits, while different jurisdictions like African countries have more untapped large- scale, high- grade deposits.

For example, of the ten largest copper discoveries between 2012 and 2021, only&nbsp, 13 % &nbsp, of the discovered copper volume was in the West, with the majority of commercial copper deposits being discovered in Latin America and Africa.

Therefore, mining companies generally prefer to expand production at their existing mines or to develop large-scale or high-grade deposits in non-Western jurisdictions, rather than small-scale or low-grade mines in Western countries.

The copper industry displays this trend with the&nbsp, three largest copper- producing mines&nbsp, to commission this decade being in non- Western countries, namely the&nbsp, Oyu Tolgoi mine&nbsp, in Mongolia, &nbsp, the Kamoa- Kakula&nbsp, mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the&nbsp, Antamina mine&nbsp, in Peru.

In nations like Chile, Botswana, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the majority of the major new copper projects are anticipated to be finished in 2024.

Nonetheless, some mining companies may seek to develop less profitable deposits in the West.

To access higher grades, these mines are &nbsp, increasingly&nbsp, underground and usually incur higher costs with the&nbsp, complexity&nbsp, and safety risks of designing, constructing and operating mines&nbsp, thousands of feet&nbsp, beneath the surface. Given these higher costs, these mines are frequently economically untenable due to lower mineral prices.

For instance, the recent zinc glut caused lower zinc prices, and the&nbsp, first zinc mine&nbsp, to be placed on&nbsp, care and maintenance&nbsp, was Boliden’s Tara&nbsp, underground&nbsp, zinc mine in Ireland. Similarly, due to low cobalt prices, Jervois&nbsp, suspended&nbsp, final construction at its underground cobalt mine in Idaho until cobalt prices, which are currently around &nbsp,$ 12/lb, reach&nbsp,$ 25/lb.

Meanwhile, mines with higher profit margins, like the Chinese company &nbsp, CMOC&nbsp, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, continue to produce cobalt. Even open-pit mines in Western nations face profitability challenges when prices drop.

Amid low nickel prices, First Quantum Minerals has &nbsp, placed&nbsp, its open- pit nickel mine in Western Australia on care and maintenance.

With higher mineral prices, new, less profitable mines in Western countries may be built and commission production. However, as more profitable mines become available online, a larger global supply may cause prices to drop, making higher-cost mines become unprofitable and thus non-operational as a result.

However, sustained, higher mineral prices could make mining these deposits in Western countries profitable. Notably, given the US Inflation Reduction Act, higher prices for minerals produced in the United States and free trade agreement countries ( e. g., Australia ) are possible.

Electric vehicle manufacturers that enter the American market may have to pay premium prices for battery minerals to allow their customers to claim tax credits, resulting in price bifurcation between higher-priced minerals that are in compliance with the Inflation Reduction Act and lower-priced non-compliant minerals.

Governments can support businesses that find and develop new mineral deposits as well as keep them profitable and operational rather than waiting for higher mineral prices to start new mines in the West.

Western governments could increase mineral exploration incentives and mine development loans to find and develop new mines. Western governments could raise the demand and thus the prices for these minerals by imposing higher tax credits on electric vehicles made of friendshore-produced minerals and collective tariffs on mineral imports from non-partner countries like China in order to keep those mines profitable and operational.

Moving forward, industrialized Western nations lack lucrative deposits in many different minerals, which could prevent friendshoring important mineral mining. Due to their higher costs, these mines may face long-term profitability challenges, even if companies do develop mines in Western nations.

The Friendshoring of crucial mineral mines is indeed possible with government support, such as subsidies and tariffs. Therefore, Western governments should assist businesses in discovering new deposits and building new mines in the West, as well as keeping existing Western mines profitable and operational.

Gregory Wischer works for the Colorado School of Mines ‘ Payne Institute for Public Policy and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Northern Australia Strategic Policy Center.

Shubham Dwivedi is a Faculty Fellow at Georgetown University’s Science, Technology, and International Affairs program. &nbsp,

Continue Reading