The New Great Game: Who Controls the World's Critical Minerals Controls the Future

In the 19^th century, Britain and Russia played a shadowy contest across Central Asia that spies and writers later called “The Great Game.” The prize was not territory for its own sake, but strategic power projection. Whoever dominated the steppes, deserts, mountain passes between the Himalayas and the Caspian, controlled the middle of the geostrategic game board. Russia, traumatized by centuries of attack by outsiders (see “Mongols” and “Napoleon”), sought to protect itself by creating buffer zones along its periphery. In turn, Britain maneuvered to defend its interests in India from the alleged threat of Russian invasion. The Great Game was waged as an asymmetric, “l

ow intensity” conflict, but the consequences were huge. While the two powers never fought a full war, every new fort, treaty, or tribal alliance shifted the balance of empire.

Two centuries later, the political map has evolved, but the physical map endures. Today, the middle of the game board is not simply Central Asia, but anywhere critical minerals are found, and the many points along their processing and supply chains. Rather than seeking control of invasion routes and buffer zones, or even oil and coal deposits, today’s players seek lithium brines, cobalt hills, and rare-earth clays, as well as refining hubs and transportation networks linking them. And the game is no longer bipolar; new players have joined the fray: the U.S., China, India, multiple rising powers, as well as the fragile governments or militant groups perched atop geological jackpots they barely control. What historians once called the Great Game has resurfaced, but this time the stakes are batteries, wind turbines, semiconductors, and missiles that will define the rest of the century.

Mining has always been inherently geopolitical. Metals and minerals are crucial to a society's economic and military strength, but their distribution in the earth’s crust is not uniform. They are often concentrated in narrow belts formed hundreds of millions of years ago, long before borders, nations, or even humans existed. Copper formed in ancient subduction zones along the Andes and the Ring of Fire. Rare earths crystallized in alkaline rocks under what is now Inner Mongolia and the Bayan Obo steppe. Cobalt pooled in the Katanga Crescent of Central Africa. These deposits are located without regard to today's nation-state boundaries (which were mostly drawn up in the 20^th century).

Some of the richest deposits of critical (strategic) minerals sit within the jurisdictions of powerful states, while others lie in places where state influence is weak or contested, and old ethnic or religious conflicts simmer. Because the locations of these minerals are geologically fixed, states must go where the deposits occur and negotiate the associated political, economic, cultural, and geographical challenges as best they can. Areas that look stable on a risk dashboard today may sit on cultural fault lines that have been contested since the Bronze Age, or along strategically vital chokepoints or buffer zones that armies have fought over since pre-Roman times. At any point, and for a multitude of reasons, these ancient flashpoints could reignite. Thus, obtaining and maintaining access to critical minerals is an inherently geostrategic endeavor. No longer is mining driven simply by market forces; it entails consideration of politics, geoeconomics, and socio-cultural forces. In today’s world, mining must be a central piece of national security strategy.

China grasped this reality decades ago. While Western companies chased quarterly profits and closed their domestic mines, Beijing treated critical minerals the way 19^th-century Britain treated coaling stations: as strategic assets worth any price in time or money. Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), backed by capital from Chinese banks, bought into mines across Africa, locked up South American lithium through joint ventures, and built refineries at home that now process the majority of the world’s battery-grade materials.

The West is now racing to catch up. Old mines in California and Australia are being reopened. New partnerships stretch from the Canadian Arctic to the Atacama Desert. Billions flow into recycling plants and alternative chemistries. Defense departments label certain metals “strategic” the same way they once labeled oil. And recently, there is growing talk of “strategic investment” (i.e., state-owned or -financed mining efforts, combined with national security policy - e.g., see U.S. Office of Strategic Capital). Yet every new project runs into the same immovable facts: geology moves in millions of years, permitting in decades, and tribal memory in centuries.

The truth is that today’s “safe” jurisdictions can flip overnight. A copper-rich desert that belongs to a reliable ally may awaken nomadic claims older than the state itself. A stable African partner can fracture along linguistic lines the moment cobalt royalties grow large enough to fight over. Meanwhile, places written off as chaotic may, under the pressure of shared interest (or with the tactful application of certain “asymmetric” policies – see “The Great Game”) become tomorrow’s most dependable suppliers. Against this background is the inescapable reality that mining is a decades-long process that involves massive up-front expenditures and huge risk (geological, economic, and political).

The New Great Game, then, is not only about controlling mountain passes and caravan roads as military buffer zones. It is about securing access to geological deposits, processing facilities, and supply lines. This new geopolitical reality reflects a moment when three different clocks collide: the ancient clock of geology, the long clock of human belonging, and the frantic clock of modern technological change. Political maps will keep shifting to the rhythm of elections and wars and treaties, but the deeper maps, drawn by geology and culture, will decide which capitals stay lit, which armies remain competitive, and which visions of the future get built.

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