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In his latest column for Real Clear World, American Resources Principal Daniel McGroarty zeros in on China’s dominance of the Rare Earths market. Invoking lopsided production numbers – in spite of international efforts to develop Rare Earths outside of China, China’s supply monopoly still hovers at 95 percent – McGroarty likens China’s REE control to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) powerful position in the oil market.

As for the national security implications of the United States’ (unnecessary) reliance on foreign – and in many cases Chinese – mineral imports, McGroarty points out that according to the Congressional Research Service, REEs are “critical to five functional areas that collectively encompass every major war-fighting capability used to project power via ground, sea, air and space,” adding that they are just “one example of several dozen rare metals U.S. weapons designers use to create the “killer apps” of the modern military.”

Says McGroarty:

“In a different century and a different conflict, Lenin quipped that capitalists would sell his Bolsheviks ‘the rope to hang them with.’ Is it our strategy in the 21st Century to expect the world’s rising power to sell us the resources we may confront them with on the battlefields of tomorrow?”

In the post-fiscal cliff world, this would be a good question for U.S. policymakers to ponder.

This is part three of American Resources’ three-part 2012 retrospective. Check out parts one here and two.

Traditionally, the New Year is the time when people reflect on the past twelve months and formulate resolutions for the months ahead. As the first hours of 2013 have been dominated by the drama the Fiscal Cliff, our Federal lawmakers may not have gotten around to focusing on other less publicized — but no less pressing — issues, we at the American Resources Policy Network have put together a few New Year’s resolutions for U.S. policymakers as they relate to critical and strategic metals and minerals.

• Improve the United States regulatory framework as it relates to mining without compromising environmental standards.To an overwhelming degree, our dependence on foreign mineral imports is self-inflicted. As American Resources Principal Daniel McGroarty points out in his latest Real Clear World column:

“It needn’t be this way. While industrialized economies like Japan, South Korea and many European nations are resource-poor in terms of their geology, the U.S. is, by any measure, remarkably resource-rich. Our American Resources Policy Network study (PDF), co-authored with Sandra Wirtz, shows that of the 46 metals we found to be “at-risk” in terms of national security and defense applications, the U.S. possesses known resources for 40.”

Creating a regulatory framework that is conducive to better harnessing our vast mineral potential should be the order of the day for 2013. The “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) mentality remains an obstacle here, but a serious conversation is warranted, because if we fail to mine the minerals we are blessed to have here, we have to rely on foreign imports with all the strings attached — which often come in the form of significantly less stringent environmental standards or human rights abuses in supplier nations. Leading mining nations such as Canada and Australia show that mining and environmental standards can go hand in hand.