2026-10-31 03:30:07
The CEPA Podcast is a series of dynamic interviews, bringing together leaders and experts from both sides of the Atlantic to explore the most important challenges shaping our world today.
In this episode, tech policy expert Ryan Fedasiuk examines how the United States can understand and outcompete China in critical technologies. From artificial intelligence and semiconductors to robotics and batteries, these technologies increasingly shape national power. Fedasiuk breaks down what computing power is and why it has become one of the world’s most strategic resources. He also explores why China is beginning to worry about the safety of its own AI, and what the race for compute means for allies on both sides of the Atlantic.
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2026-10-31 02:50:39
In the days around October 30, Russia’s Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression, at least 160 gatherings have been planned to commemorate and support prisoners of conscience.
Most will bring people together, often after public readings of the names of victims of Soviet repression, to write to today’s political prisoners, of whom around 1,800 have been formally recognized, though the true number is closer to 5,000. The evenings will span Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, with events abroad in places as diverse as Seattle and Seoul.
Organizers represent a broad range of communities, including supporters of murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny, regional branches of the liberal Yabloko party, a feminist anarchist collective and a grassroots educational initiative which writes to jailed students and scientists.
Solidarity with political prisoners has become a powerful shared cause for Russians in exile and those who remain in the country, drawing people into collective action, as documented in a CEPA report in June.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, letter-writing evenings have become one of the most widespread forms of regular in-person civic activity. Inside Russia in particular, they offer a way to meet like-minded people who oppose the war while taking part in a relatively safe act with political meaning.
CEPA identified 4,579 letter-writing evenings and combined events between January 2022 and September this year, including 1,394 across 48 Russian regions — nearly three-quarters of them outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Exiled civil society representatives interviewed for the report said solidarity fundraising marathons for political prisoners foster a sense of connection and shared purpose and are encouraging examples of their organizations’ impact.
Such campaigns also bring human rights groups and independent media together for online broadcasts. Four marathons held between 2023 and 2026 raised around 90m rubles ($1.1m) in small donations, alongside another 150m-200m rubles raised through platforms such as Zaodno.
The Kremlin sees any independent collective action as a threat to its authority and has intensified pressure on organizers. It has pursued two tracks: discrediting the cause ideologically and dismantling the groups and spaces that sustain it.
The ideological campaign casts doubt on victims of political repression, beginning with the Soviet past. Russia’s October 1991 rehabilitation law condemned state terror, cleared victims’ names and restored their rights, explicitly exonerating those convicted of “anti-Soviet agitation” or spreading “false claims” about the USSR.
This receded under Putin, and the Prosecutor General’s rehabilitation department was closed in 2005. While the law’s core principles survived, in June 2024 the government rewrote its commemoration policy, dropping references to mass repression.
By September 2024, prosecutors had overturned more than 4,000 rehabilitation decisions, reported to include those for anti-Soviet speech. By portraying past victims as deserving of punishment, the Kremlin sought to erode sympathy for today’s dissidents, whom it has branded “foreign agents” and prosecuted for treason or “discrediting” the military.
Another intervention that reinforced this ideological pressure was at Moscow’s Gulag History Museum. In November 2024, it was closed on “fire-safety” grounds; then its director was dismissed, and in June the museum’s exhibition was replaced with one on Nazi atrocities, redirecting attention from state repression to the crimes of an external enemy.
Authorities have also targeted the organizations and places that enable gatherings.
This began before the invasion when Memorial, co-founded by Soviet-era dissidents and central to Russia’s reckoning with repression, was designated a “foreign agent” in 2016 and ordered to liquidate its office in December 2021.
Attacks intensified in 2025 and have continued since. Raids on letter-writing gatherings in different regions have been followed by a crackdown on venues where cultural events brought democratic-minded people together, including in solidarity with political prisoners.
Closures have included Revolt Center in Syktyvkar, Black Square in Irkutsk, Open Space in Moscow and St. Petersburg and, most recently, Prostranstvo Politika groups across six cities.
Memorial was designated an “extremist organization” in April, followed by OVD-Info, a leading monitor of political repression. The designation carries a penalty of 10 years in jail for activists and has forced solidarity groups to adapt and curb their public activity.
Whether because of this, or for other reasons, there has been a contraction in activity since 2024.
Organizers have adapted. Between 2023 and this year, the share requiring advance registration rose from 12% to 39%, fewer used the words “political prisoners” in communications, and venue addresses were increasingly shared privately to reduce the risk of police raids.
Small grassroots groups, which can more easily escape official scrutiny, now account for 27% of recorded events, up from 14% in 2023, and they are playing a greater role in sustaining gatherings as established hubs disappear.
The adaptations suggest there is still demand among a sector of the population seeking ways to express opposition to war and censorship. Even if the Kremlin makes letter-writing evenings and similar formats untenable, the “habit” of expressing solidarity can support other forms of collective action, such as helping displaced Ukrainians and sustaining independent education.
Connections preserve the trust and shared experience that allow new initiatives to emerge and stop dissent from being a solitary experience. For those under pressure, knowing that others share their commitment can help counter the isolation and fragmentation the Kremlin is seeking to impose.
The October 30 Coalition, launched by the National Endowment for Democracy and partners to support political prisoners worldwide, aims to make that wider solidarity visible, reminding Russians that their cause resonates across the globe.
Mikhail Komin is a fellow with the Democratic Resilience program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-10-30 22:25:40
Recent months have brought electoral success in Germany for three parties on the populist extremes that challenge the country’s current security and foreign policy, albeit for different reasons: AfD, BSW and Die Linke. Might they pose a challenge to eight decades of broad European security consensus?
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose electoral support surged to record highs in the recent elections in the east German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt, is pushing for a softer line on Moscow: its Bundestag caucus has called for German weapons deliveries to Ukraine to stop, and for sanctions on Russia to be rolled back as part of peace talks. AfD politicians have also been involved in controversies related to their travel to Russia.
At the same time, the populist Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason (BSW), which calls for a return to cooperation with Russia and an end to military support for Ukraine, passed the 5% threshold in Saxony-Anhalt and supported the election of an AfD politician as president of the state parliament. The recent elections in Germany’s capital, Berlin, resulted in a win for the far-left Die Linke. While Die Linke condemns Russia’s war in Ukraine, it takes an active stance against the supply of weapons to Ukraine, as well as against Germany’s remilitarization program and involvement in NATO.
Among the major political parties, the three mainstream centrist forces, CDU, SPD and the Greens, favor a broadly pro-Ukrainian policy direction and the rearmament adopted by the current government. However, recent electoral gains for parties challenging this have put mainstream forces under pressure. Taken together, these tendencies, along with the intensification of Russian hybrid attacks on Germany, pose serious risks to one of Europe’s main security providers.
Since 2022, the German government has pursued rearmament and a much firmer stance towards Russia, while becoming Ukraine’s biggest military supplier. This year, the cabinet approved a draft budget providing for defense spending of almost €140bn ($156bn) in 2027, almost 30% above the 2026 figure. In August, the cabinet also approved plans to give domestic and foreign intelligence services more powers to hack communications and disrupt foreign adversaries’ operations to counter a growing threat from cyber and hybrid attacks.
However, if mainstream parties lose federal power to the far right, there are concerns about how these expanded capabilities might be used. That makes some nervous, not least neighbors with a grim experience of German military power. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski warned that AfD electoral gains could turn Berlin’s military buildup into a security risk for Europe, even as Warsaw backs a stronger German army.
The far right and the populist left explicitly challenge this security policy, as seen in Saxony-Anhalt. On October 14, the state parliament passed a motion calling for an immediate end to German military aid and non-humanitarian financial support for Ukraine, as well as the lifting of sanctions against Russia. The motion passed during a special parliamentary session with the votes of AfD and BSW. As political scientist Armin Pfahl-Traughber put it to DW: “Their common ground lies in their rejection of the political establishment, their pro-Putin stance, and their criticism of Germany’s support for Ukraine.”
Since state parliaments cannot determine Germany’s foreign and security policy, the motion is symbolic. State governments do participate in the Bundesrat (Federal Council), where they can introduce initiatives; however, even if the Russia-friendly AfD/BSW alliance behind the motion forms a state government, it would control only one of the 16 state delegations in the Bundesrat. The motion’s direct practical implications are thus limited.
At the same time, this motion can be seen as intended to challenge the mainstream discourse rather than effect immediate practical change. Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a CEPA Fellow, former German diplomat and intelligence professional, suggests that, while these parties have limited opportunities to change security policy in the short run, their rise is creating internal pressure within the governing CDU. Some regional leaders feel compelled to challenge the Chancellor’s stance on Russia and Ukraine to satisfy their electorates (even if CDU local representatives condemned the Saxony-Anhalt motion). There is a risk that if sympathetic rhetoric grows at the state level, it may normalize these arguments in public discourse and so create grounds for rapprochement with Russia.
German security policy is challenged not only from the right but also from the left. In January, a law introducing a new military-service system came into force, aiming to recruit more volunteers. Questionnaires have been sent to young people turning 18, asking for personal information and their willingness to serve. Completing the questionnaire is mandatory for men and voluntary for women; mandatory medical examinations for men born in 2008 and later are scheduled to begin in July 2027. Military service itself remains voluntary.
The new approach has sparked youth protests against rising military spending and the prospect of conscription. According to organizers, around 45,000 people joined a School Strike Against Conscription on September 25. The strike was backed by both Die Linke and BSW. With Die Linke’s recent electoral victory in Berlin, opposition to military recruitment and spending could gain greater political traction. These tendencies, backed by the left-wing parties, are concerning since they challenge measures that are central to Germany’s military expansion.
The country’s security policy and its geopolitical course as Ukraine’s ally are thus challenged by radical forces on both the left and the right. While elections are not due until early 2029, the rise of extreme and Kremlin-friendly parties cannot be ignored.
Von Loringhoven suggests a two-step approach that mainstream parties could adopt to navigate these challenges. The first involves moving from a reactive to an offensive posture towards hybrid threats and strengthening deterrence by signaling that Germany will “double up” on support for Ukraine rather than cave in to Russian pressure. The second is the diplomatic balance: maintaining dialogue with Russia also serves as a domestic tool to counter accusations of abandoning diplomacy, which radical parties capitalize on.
The recent bilateral meeting between Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, the first between the countries’ foreign ministers since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, can be seen as a step in this direction.
What matters even more is preventing a split within the mainstream parties over core elements of security policy under pressure from the far right and the left.
Mykyta (Nikita) Vorobiov is a political and intelligence analyst focusing on Russian and Eastern European politics, security, and information campaigns. He holds a BA in Ethics and Politics from Bard College Berlin, where his research focused on Russian visual propaganda, and an MSc in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford, where he examined how the Russian state uses political discourse, media, and propaganda to legitimize prisoner mobilization. For the past five years, Nikita has published articles on politics and security for CEPA, VoxEurop, JURIST, and other outlets.
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2026-10-30 02:19:14
Georgia’s Constitutional Court has begun hearing a lawsuit filed by ruling-party MPs to ban opposition groups. According to the official results of the disputed 2024 parliamentary election, four of the five targeted opposition forces received nearly 800,000 votes, or about 38% of valid ballots.
The implications extend far beyond these organizations. Legislation adopted in May 2025 allows the court to ban similar successor parties and requires it to rule on such cases within 14 days. Separate amendments permit permanent restrictions on the political participation of individuals “associated” with banned parties.
The aim is to strip the opposition of its ability to contest future elections. Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder and the country’s de facto ruler, wants voters to conclude that no organized alternative to his rule exists, and that political change is impossible.
Even by Ivanishvili’s standards, the attempt to eliminate meaningful electoral competition marks an extraordinary low. The closest recent parallel, other than Russia, is Belarus’s liquidation of opposition parties in 2023 after it stole an election from the democratic opposition in 2020.
Georgian Dream MPs allege that the opposition parties seek to overthrow or forcibly change the constitutional order. Their case invokes alleged abuses under the former United National Movement (UNM) government, accuses opposition parties of attempted violent overthrow between 2019 and 2025, and cites election boycotts and challenges to the government’s legitimacy.
As Transparency International Georgia points out, the lawsuit treats alleged wrongdoing by individuals as grounds for dissolving parties, and transfers responsibility to other organizations. The Venice Commission found that the 2025 rules on individuals associated with banned parties impose penalties without requiring an individual assessment of conduct, and that the legal framework as a whole works toward “preventing the formation and survival of a political opposition.”
When they filed the original claim in October 2025, the plaintiffs left the smaller parties out. In their own explanation, those parties lacked significant political influence or a realistic prospect of crossing the electoral threshold. Restrictions could follow if those parties gained influence. In April, the plaintiffs added the Federalists, which were not among the four parties that crossed the threshold to win seats in 2024. In September, they moved to broaden the case and include For Georgia, the only one of the four original opposition targets that took up its seats in parliament.
The allegations concerning the 2008 war with Russia are also worrying. The plaintiffs argue that UNM’s actions created the conditions for the Kremlin’s invasion. This gives Moscow political ammunition to excuse its aggression and risks undermining Georgia’s efforts to hold Russia accountable.
Western governments have responded to Georgia’s democratic deterioration with incremental measures. Most significant perhaps was the European Council’s June 2024 conclusion that Georgia’s democratic backsliding was effectively halting its EU accession process. A month later, Washington paused more than $95m in assistance directly benefiting the Georgian government. Five months after that, the United States and Britain coordinated sanctions against officials implicated in violence against protesters and journalists, and Washington separately sanctioned Ivanishvili. Alongside his designation, the US Treasury issued General License 116, authorizing transactions with companies in which Ivanishvili holds at least a 50% ownership stake, provided they are not separately listed as sanctioned.
The EU suspended parts of its visa-facilitation arrangements in January 2025, then imposed an EU-wide visa requirement this March for holders of Georgian diplomatic, service and official passports. Ordinary passport holders retained visa-free access for short stays. In October, the EU endorsed the Venice Commission’s criticism of legislation expanding party bans to individuals and tightening restrictions on foreign funding and political activity.
While these measures inched up the pressure, Georgian Dream moved further and faster by expanding restrictions on political and civic activity, and widening the lawsuit from three parties to five.
Washington and European capitals still have the power to influence events if they coordinate. The court must rule by June 2027, but a verdict could come much sooner.
Georgian Dream seeks a reset with the Trump administration, and after a State Department visit in May, the US Embassy stated that a sustainable partnership requires a political climate “conducive to opposition engagement.” Banning parties that won nearly 38% of the disputed vote fails the administration’s own test.
Western governments should now make the consequences clear before the court rules. Washington and European capitals should specify which actions will trigger targeted financial and travel restrictions, and which corrective steps would lift them. Withdrawal of the lawsuit, release of political prisoners, repeal of restrictions on legitimate political participation and civil society activity should top the list.
Sanctions must reach the networks and individuals that implement repression, including responsible officials, police commanders, prosecutors, judges, and business enablers.
The Constitutional Court, widely regarded as dominated by party loyalists, recently lost one of its members. Judge Manana Kobakhidze, a co-founder and the first chair of Georgian Dream, whose term was due to end in February 2027, resigned on October 13 after her colleagues denied her recusal request. Some linked her departure to domestic and international pressure, including potential sanctions. If so, it would show the prospect of personal costs reaches even this court.
Pressure should make repression more expensive for its organizers and encourage others to stop cooperating with the regime.
Washington should review the broad authorization for transactions with Ivanishvili-owned companies that are not individually sanctioned and consider targeted restrictions on entities sustaining his political power, while limiting harm to the wider Georgian economy. Congress should also advance the MEGOBARI Act, passed by the House in 2025, which provides for sanctions against those undermining Georgian democracy. Georgians still believe political change is possible. Protests have continued for more than 700 days without pause, through arrests, restrictive laws, and mounting pressure. Western governments can give force to their opposition and disgust by imposing costs on those responsible.
Irina Arabidze is a Non-resident Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at CEPA and a visiting lecturer at Caucasus University in Tbilisi. A Fulbright scholar, she holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a graduate degree in International Relations and European Studies from the Central European University.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-10-29 23:41:26
Ukrainian soldiers returning from NATO training programs in Britain or Poland sometimes discover that lessons learned abroad require immediate revision. The problem is not necessarily the quality of Western instruction, but the assumptions behind it.
Much of the alliance’s small-unit training still reflects conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Western forces enjoyed air superiority, technological advantages, and relatively reliable evacuation and resupply. Ukraine demonstrates what happens when these advantages disappear.
The modern battlefield has become almost entirely transparent, with reconnaissance drones, thermal imaging, electronic surveillance, and first-person-view (FPV) strike drones fundamentally changing infantry operations. Traditional squad formations, vehicle movements, and defensive positions can be detected and attacked within minutes.
Ukrainian units increasingly disperse into smaller groups, sometimes operating in teams of two or three rather than conventional squad formations. Concentration, once essential for command and maneuver, now creates vulnerability.
Camouflage has changed equally dramatically. Conventional netting, artificial vegetation, and improvised coverings offer limited protection against experienced drone operators, while thermal cameras expose personnel and running engines even when visual concealment appears adequate.
Managing thermal signatures and exploiting natural cover have become critical survival skills.
The electromagnetic spectrum presents another danger: radios, generators, satellite terminals, and drone control systems can reveal positions to enemy intelligence. Communications discipline is no longer merely a technical requirement but a matter of survival.
Electronic warfare has also exposed the limitations of technological dependence. Ukrainian reconnaissance operators have conducted missions with DJI Matrice-class reconnaissance drones almost entirely in manual mode because GPS jamming and spoofing make autonomous navigation unreliable.
A drone’s automatic “Return to Home” functions also cannot be trusted in heavily contested environments. Consequently, successful reconnaissance increasingly depends on individual piloting skills, terrain recognition, and visual navigation rather than satellite guidance.
Equipment losses are similarly revealing. Some operators report that small reconnaissance drones survive approximately 10 days of intensive frontline operations before requiring repairs or replacement.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) crews are also priority targets for artillery, mortars, and strike drones. Their operational importance makes them vulnerable to electronic detection and persistent surveillance.
Mobility presents another challenge. Civilian pickup trucks and lightly protected vehicles, which have been the workhorses of the frontline, have become particularly vulnerable to FPV drone attacks.
Accounts of soldiers abandoning moving vehicles when drones approach illustrate how dramatically battlefield transportation has changed. Traditional NATO training rarely prepares personnel for an environment where routine vehicle movement can be lethal.
Medical evacuation exposes the doctrinal gap most clearly. While Western military medicine emphasizes rapid casualty evacuation and early surgical intervention, near Ukraine’s front lines these assumptions frequently collapse.
Armored ambulances risk detection and attack, while helicopter evacuation is generally impractical. As one Ukrainian operator observed to this author, “you arrive on foot, and you leave on foot.”
Wounded personnel may require evacuation over considerable distances, sometimes taking many hours or longer than a day. Light all-terrain vehicles, unmanned ground systems and occasionally heavy drones provide alternatives, but cannot guarantee rapid access to medical facilities.
Prolonged field care, once treated as a contingency, has become an essential battlefield capability. NATO medical training must reflect this reality.
Logistics face comparable pressures, as traditional supply vehicles expose personnel to precision strikes. Ukrainian forces have responded by employing heavy-lift cargo drones and unmanned ground vehicles to deliver ammunition, water, batteries, and medical supplies.
These developments suggest future frontline logistics will depend increasingly on distributed, remotely operated systems rather than conventional transport alone.
Infantry fire support is also evolving. FPV drones can deliver precision strikes against fortified firing positions that previously required sustained machine-gun suppression or artillery use.
Conventional weapons remain indispensable, but reconnaissance and precision engagement are becoming increasingly integrated. The distinction between observation and attack is narrowing.
These developments do not mean NATO doctrine is worthless. Its principles of leadership, coordination, combined-arms operations, and disciplined execution remain essential. The problem is institutional speed.
Drone technology, electronic warfare, and battlefield countermeasures evolve within months, while military manuals, procurement systems, and training programs often take years to change.
Some NATO training missions have already incorporated Ukrainian battlefield feedback, and that progress deserves recognition, but incremental adjustments are not enough. The alliance needs a continuous process in which operational experience rapidly informs training, doctrine, equipment requirements, and procurement decisions.
For NATO’s eastern flank, particularly the Baltic states and Poland, these lessons are not theoretical. Any confrontation with a technologically capable adversary could produce similar conditions of persistent surveillance, contested communications, disrupted logistics, and restricted medical evacuation.
Ukraine’s most important lesson is therefore institutional rather than technological. Military effectiveness increasingly depends on how quickly armed forces can recognize changing conditions and translate experience into practical adaptation.
NATO has spent decades teaching others how to fight. It must now demonstrate that it can learn from those fighting Europe’s most consequential war. An alliance that updates its doctrine more slowly than its adversaries update their drones risks preparing soldiers for a battlefield that no longer exists.
Alex Sebastian Kliszewicz is an international expert in security and geopolitical risk, and founder and CEO of Iron Navy Ltd. He has a background in military service with the Estonian Defense Forces — including service in the Navy aboard minesweepers and in the Scouts Battalion as a combat engineer and medic — as well as extensive experience leading armed maritime security teams in high-risk zones and managing rapid-response units. His professional experience also encompasses providing instruction for military and private military company (PMC) training programs, as well as conducting training missions for Ukrainian military personnel.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2026-10-29 23:23:53
This is part of a series examining the central importance of critical minerals and the race to ensure Western supply.
Over decades, many democratic governments stopped planning strategically or placed losing bets on what future threats might be. They allowed the free market to outsource manufacturing and critical supply chains, including for the vital mineral inputs at the heart of every aspect of modern technology, from cell phones to power grids and F-35 fighter jets.
In contrast, Chinese leaders did not let markets get in the way. For six decades, Beijing has backed mineral mining and processing with state planning, cheap capital, and a tolerance for environmental costs that Western producers could not match.
It then consolidated the industry into state-controlled champions. Washington and Brussels now face the question Beijing answered long ago: when the market cannot price security, will government pay for it?
In 1992, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping declared “the Middle East has oil, China has rare earths,” reflecting a national vision for domination of the resources that are today at the heart of modern life. Using every tool available, from foreign direct investment in the developing world to domestic industrial policy and environmental regulation, China built control over critical minerals and their global market.
The strategic importance of these minerals was not unknown to Western political leaders. In 1980, Congress declared that the availability of minerals and processed materials was essential to national security, economic prosperity, and industrial production.
But as Washington talked episodically about the importance of sustaining local production, China built a formidable advantage in processing and refining capacity. Now China dominates global rare earth supply chains, accounting for approximately 60% of mining, 90% of processing and separation, and 94% of permanent magnet manufacturing.
Beijing’s control is even more concentrated in heavy rare earths such as terbium, which, along with samarium and other rare earth elements, is essential for high-performance magnets used in advanced defense technologies. China also controls about 94% of battery-grade graphite processing and roughly three-quarters of cobalt refining, key elements in most batteries.
Last year, China demonstrated to the world just how serious its leverage is. Beijing imposed export controls on several rare earth metals and heavy rare earth elements, forcing some automakers to cut production or halt lines. Beijing then expanded export restrictions to include Chinese technology, graphite anode material, and battery cathode inputs.
In their October 2025 Busan meeting, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to the suspension of some of these curbs until November 2026 (recently extended to January 2027). If fully enforced, the restrictions could put at risk $6.5 trillion in annual downstream output, according to the International Energy Agency.
The US and Europe are scrambling to build resilience. Political timelines are tight, especially in the US, which is fast approaching the deadlines for both Chinese export restrictions and new statutory and White House requirements to cleanse US defense supply chains of certain foreign inputs by January.
To meet these ambitious goals, Western allies are focused on creative industrial policies combining market stimulation, government investment, price floors, stockpiles, and partner engagement. Key to the success of these efforts will be agreements with like-minded nations, accelerating innovation, and rapidly expanding mining and processing capacity outside China.
The US administration launched two major initiatives in February under Hollywood-style monikers: Project Vault and FORGE.
Project Vault, or the US Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve, is a public-private stockpile backed by $12bn in government and private commitments. Designed as an insurance policy for companies to protect against external supply manipulation, it aims to boost investor confidence to facilitate risky new minerals processing ventures.
At the same time, the European Union’s 2025 RESourceEU plan aims to mobilize €3bn ($3.3bn) for priority critical mineral projects. It also pilots joint purchasing and a joint stockpile, and limits exports of scrap. Other nations, such as Australia, the UK, Japan, and Canada, are also building strategic stockpiles and action plans.
FORGE, or the Forum On Resource Geostrategic Engagement, is a plurilateral organization focused on policy coordination and setting price floors to help new processing ventures get off the ground. It currently has 17 members, including the biggest economies in Europe as well as the EU itself.
Vice President JD Vance described the goal of FORGE as building a “preferential trade zone” for critical minerals, with a US-led architecture to support bilateral agreements and rebalance a market now dominated by China.
The greatest challenges for US and European cooperation lie in long timelines to establish new mineral processing plants, and the difficulty of negotiating sustainable price floors. Geopolitical fluctuations caused by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as changes in US politics, could derail these urgent efforts.
China spent more than half a century establishing a new paradigm in the mining industry, and the only way for the US and Europe to counterbalance Beijing’s dominance is through trust, collaboration, and innovation.
FORGE, for example, will succeed if its members can build reliable operating and enforcement mechanisms, but after nearly two years of shifting US tariff announcements, members are likely to be wary of Washington’s commitments on price floors.
Collaboration among allies is critical. A price floor set alone, or bilaterally, can keep new mining and processing projects alive, but at a high and rising cost. It invites leakage, i.e., cheaper supply flows to markets without a price floor, and China can undercut the price or play allies against each other. Only a price floor backed by a group covering most of allied demand can support a viable market outside China. With America’s two deadlines in January, the US and Europe should agree on shared rules now or risk bidding against each other for the same scarce supply.
It is time for America and its key allies to supercharge government research and development support for mining and processing. Not only does China dominate critical mineral processing, but it also controls the unique expertise and technology needed to run modern processing factories and is continually improving its efficiency and cleanliness. More than 11 Chinese universities and 40 laboratories train hundreds of specialized rare earths engineers each year, while the United States trains none.
The US and Europe should aim to capitalize on scientific breakthroughs and leapfrog into a more sophisticated use of byproduct and waste recovery, as well as using AI, new processing methods, and modular processing plants.
There is neither time nor capital to build a parallel market-based critical minerals supply chain without state support, especially as China deflates prices and skews the market when its competitors attempt to gain ground.
Instead, US and European leaders should hark back to the spirit of ambitious Allied programs during World War II, when necessity forced the rapid construction of alternative technologies and supply chains. Faced with the loss of Asian natural rubber supplies, Washington and London coordinated production, concentrated investment where industrial capacity was strongest, and developed alternative supply chains at extraordinary speed.
Today’s critical-minerals challenge requires the same ambition: shared rules, shared financing and shared innovation, or competition between allies could undermine the very supply chains they are trying to secure.
Sharon Hudson-Dean is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House in London. She is a senior foreign policy leader with more than 30 years of diplomatic experience managing complex global, defense, political, and strategic challenges. Most recently, she served as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Northern Europe, NATO, and Arctic Security (2024-25).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
The post Ending China’s 60-Year Grip on Critical Minerals appeared first on CEPA.
