Critical Minerals and Components for Defence

Defence is where critical minerals stop being an economic question and become a strategic one. Modern weapons, aircraft, ships and satellites depend on materials with few substitutes: rare earth magnets in guidance systems and actuators, gallium nitride in radar, germanium in thermal sights, tungsten in armour-piercing rounds, titanium in airframes and the nickel superalloys of jet engines, strengthened with rhenium and hafnium.

Many of those minerals are produced or processed in a single country, often China, which has placed a growing number of them under export control. That is why governments in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia now treat critical minerals as part of national security, stockpiling them, funding new mines and processing plants, and restricting where defence suppliers may source them.

Stockatomics maps 60 critical minerals to defence, from the magnets in a missile fin to the antimony in an artillery shell.

Defence uses critical minerals wherever performance cannot be compromised: in sensors that must see further, metals that must survive more heat, and munitions that must penetrate harder targets.

Sensors, radar and communications

Gallium nitride powers modern radar and electronic warfare systems, germanium forms the lenses of thermal imaging sights, and indium antimonide and mercury cadmium telluride detect infrared light. Cesium and rubidium atomic clocks keep navigation and communications in time, and beryllium keeps optics and satellite structures stiff and stable.

Magnets and motors

Guided munitions, aircraft actuators and drones rely on permanent magnets: samarium-cobalt where heat is extreme, and neodymium-iron-boron with dysprosium and terbium elsewhere.

Aircraft and engines

Airframes use titanium and aluminum, and jet engines run on nickel superalloys strengthened with cobalt, chromium, rhenium, hafnium, tantalum and niobium, protected by yttrium-stabilised thermal barrier coatings.

Munitions and armour

Tungsten forms armour-piercing penetrators, antimony goes into primers and hardened lead, copper and zinc make cartridge brass, and boron carbide and titanium make lightweight armour. Magnesium burns in flares, while depleted uranium and zirconium have their own specialised military uses.

Defence supply chains face the sharpest concentration risk of any sector. China produces most of the world's rare earths, magnets, gallium, germanium, antimony and tungsten, and has placed all of them under export controls, several explicitly aimed at defence users. Many defence-critical minerals are by-products of other metals, so supply cannot easily be increased when demand rises.

Western governments have responded with stockpiling, direct investment and procurement rules. The US Department of Defense has funded domestic rare earth, antimony and tungsten projects, and US defence contractors face restrictions on sourcing magnets and some other materials from China.

What that means for defence

• Production of munitions and missiles can be limited by a single mineral, as antimony and tungsten have shown
• Governments are rebuilding stockpiles and funding mines and processing plants outside China
• Long-term contracts and price floors are being used to make Western supply viable

As of October 2026, defence demand for critical minerals is rising with rearmament. NATO members have agreed to raise defence spending substantially, ammunition and missile production is being expanded after years of underinvestment, and drones have become a major new category of military equipment.

What to watch

• Munitions: expanded artillery and missile production lifts demand for antimony, tungsten, copper and energetic materials
• Magnets: restrictions on Chinese magnets in defence supply chains are driving investment in Western magnet production
• Stockpiles: governments are rebuilding strategic stockpiles of rare earths, antimony, tungsten, gallium and germanium
• Drones: large-scale drone production adds demand for magnets, batteries and electronics
• Price floors and offtake: governments are underwriting new mines and processing plants through long-term contracts and minimum prices