Comment by rapjr9

So what is happening right now with rare earths used for military purposes? My reading says it will take 5-10 years to build processing facilities without which the raw ore is useless. Has the US stopped building missiles and fighter jets? They seem to still be selling them to other countries, but it is unclear if they can actually deliver anything until many years from now, or even restock their own supplies. Maybe the military has a small stockpile of some of the REE's? It's also not clear how the UK, EU, and Australia are going to stockpile REE's if they don't have the capability to process the ore. Is the West's supply of weapons going to run out soon as they use up what they have and can't build more? This seems pertinent both to attacking Iran and the war in Ukraine.