And not a moment too soon, as Russia asserts its claim to the resource riches of the Arctic, as China locks down metals and minerals supply in Africa, South America and even Canada - all while it subjects its own Rare Earths and other critical metals to export restrictions. Even our allies from Germany to Japan and South Korea are busy brokering resource deals to secure metals critical to their own technology sectors and national defense.
Until now, only the U.S. had been a non-combatant in the Resource Wars.
But with the new Executive Order, we've got a number of interesting dots on the canvas. Start with the U.S. Department of Energy - hotbed of failed green-tech ventures like Solyndra - but also home of sober-minded analysis on critical metals shortages, in its two Critical Material Strategy reports. According to the DoE, five Rare Earths - dysprosium, europium, neodymium, terbium and yttrium - are rated at "critical risk." On the Congressional side, consider the late 2011 creation of the House Rare Earths Caucus to focus on developing Rare Earths deposits located under American soil. And in the few days since the WTO action and the issuance of the National Defense Preparedness EO, add to the small coterie of Congressional metal-heads newcomers from the Democratic side of the aisle, Senator Robert Casey, and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - strange bedfellows to be sure.
The only outlier is the Pentagon itself, where the long-delayed DoD report on Rare Earths in the defense supply chain - a follow-on to the 2010 GAO Report that found major U.S. weapons systems dependent on Chinese Rare Earths - popped up briefly in a leaked story to the Wall Street Journal the very morning of the Obama EO, only to vanish down the bureaucratic rabbit-hole immediately after. With growing government concern about surety of supply for strategic metals, it's hard to know if the DoD has converted to the Milton Friedman school of free-market economics - or the Alfred E. Newman "What, Me Worry?" school of public policy.
Either way, a range of U.S. Government entities - now including the White House itself - and a growing cadre of Congressional officials are beginning to align across party lines on the issue of resource security.
In a town dominated by partisan posturing, these could be random blips on the policy radar screen. Or they may just be the enduring national security apparatus jolting awake, shaking off the rust and juddering into action.
