Weitere Netzfunde in der wöchentlichen Zusammenstellung.

Why Russia Advances Slowly

Is the assessment of success the same for the Russian General Staff as it is for the external observer?

Across a century of profound change, these thinkers have focused on understanding the character of war, organizing the state accordingly, destroying the enemy’s operational system, sustaining offensive momentum and adapting military methods to technological change. Viewed through this intellectual tradition, territorial speed is only one variable in the General Staff’s calculations. Russian operational thought sheds light on several factors that might constrain Russian commanders from accelerating the campaign. These relate primarily to concerns around incurring higher casualties, exposing larger formations to destruction and risking exhausting the army before achieving the political objectives of this campaign.

The comparatively slow pace of Russian operations need not be interpreted as a lack of maneuver. In an open battlefield, the tempo of operation increasingly depends on the survivability of forces to seize temporary windows of opportunity to maneuver. Commanders thus face a dilemma between retaining their combat capability and accelerating territory capture.

The history of Russian military thought thus suggests that battlefield speed has never been an end in itself. From Svechin to Gerasimov, it is the gradual degrading of the war-fighting system of the enemy that has been consistently sought in order to achieve political objectives. If this intellectual tradition is genuinely considered, the key question is not why Russia advances at such a slow pace, but whether the tempo of its operations is consistent with the strategic logic that has shaped Russian operational art for more than a century.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Weaponizing the periodic table

October 2023 brought graphite export controls. China produces over 90% of the world’s processed graphite, the material that enables lithium-ion battery anodes. Every electric vehicle. Every grid-scale battery. Every piece of consumer electronics. The West wants an energy transition? Beijing will decide the pace.

December 2023 escalated further. China banned export of rare earth extraction and processing technology. Not the minerals themselves – not yet – but the knowledge of how to extract and refine them. You can’t build an alternative supply chain if you can’t access the engineering expertise required to make it work. The technology ban meant that even if Western companies found rare earth deposits, they couldn’t efficiently process them without violating Chinese export controls.

September 15, 2024 marked the implementation of antimony licensing requirements. You probably didn’t hear about it. Antimony doesn’t have the cultural resonance of rare earths or the tech-sector visibility of gallium. The median American voter has never heard the word. The median congressional staffer cannot spell it. The median defense journalist could not identify its applications without research.

Because while nobody was paying attention, antimony prices exploded from around $11,300 per metric ton in January 2024 to $57,778 by April 2025. That’s 400% in eighteen months. Fastmarkets has tracked antimony since the 1980s and has never recorded a rally this steep. Ever. Not during the Cold War. Not during previous supply disruptions. Never.

Then December 3, 2024 – one day after the United States added 140 Chinese entities to the Entity List – Beijing announced outright export bans on gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the United States specifically. The first country-specific mineral embargo in the modern era.

Not licensing requirements. Not processing delays. An explicit ban targeting America by name.

April 2025 introduced export licensing for seven heavy rare earth elements: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. Notice what’s in that list? Dysprosium and terbium. The heavy rare earths that enable high-temperature permanent magnets in missiles, fighter jets, and precision munitions. Elements where China controls 99-100% of global supply with no commercial production anywhere else on Earth.

October 2025 brought five additional rare earths under control and introduced China’s version of the Foreign Direct Product Rule. Any product containing 0.1% or more Chinese-origin rare earth materials now requires Ministry of Commerce export approval. Beijing had effectively created extraterritorial control over global supply chains. A Japanese company making electric motors with Chinese neodymium? That motor cannot be exported without Chinese permission. An American defense contractor assembling missile guidance systems with Chinese dysprosium magnets? That system is subject to Chinese export approval.

All in all, Beijing demonstrated that it can cripple American defense production through mechanisms that the American public doesn’t see, cannot or will not understand. Through materials the American media cannot explain or pronounce, and through supply chains the American defense establishment failed to monitor. The demonstration was so effective that it produced minimal political cost while forcing the Pentagon into emergency procurements that will take years to execute.

This is what a victory looks like in 21st-century financial world war. No carriers that are sunk. No cities bombed. Just quiet, patient exploitation of dependencies that nobody noticed until the moment they mattered most.

September 23, 2025. The Defense Logistics Agency awarded United States Antimony Corporation a sole-source, five-year contract worth up to $245 million to supply approximately 6.7 million pounds of antimony metal ingots for the National Defense Stockpile. The phrase that should have alarmed everyone was “sole-source”. Not a competitive bidding process. No alternative suppliers evaluated and rejected on merit. A sole-source contract because United States Antimony Corporation operates the only antimony smelters in North America.

There are no others.

Now recall what China did. August 14, 2024: antimony export licensing announced. September 15, 2024: licensing takes effect, shipments collapse by 97%. December 3, 2024: explicit ban on exports to the United States. And now the price trajectory: $11,300 per ton (January 2024) to $22,700 (May 2024) to $38,000 (December 2024) to $57,778 (April 2025).

And the US stockpile? Approximately 1,100 tons. Down from 27,000 metric tons in the 1990s. Current holdings represent 4-5% of annual US consumption of 23,000-24,000 tons. At current usage rates, the National Defense Stockpile contains maybe forty-two days of antimony. Not months. Days.

Congress sold off strategic reserves systematically since 1992 because “global markets will always provide”. The entire National Defense Stockpile collapsed 98% in value from $9.6 billion in 1989 to $888 million in 2021. Current holdings meet only 37.9% of military needs and less than 10% of essential civilian needs in a national emergency. The Government Accountability Office has been warning about this for years. Nobody listened.

Beijing didn’t need missiles to prove it could cripple American ammunition production. It just needed patience and the structural monopoly that American policymakers failed to prevent and now cannot quickly undo.

And then there’s cesium. You’ve probably never heard of it. Most people haven’t. It doesn’t have the cultural resonance of rare earths or the tech-sector visibility of gallium. The median voter couldn’t identify its applications. The median defense journalist would need Wikipedia.

Cesium enables GPS navigation. Atomic clocks. Oil and gas drilling. Telecommunications infrastructure. Aerospace systems. The element that keeps global positioning working and enables precision timekeeping for financial markets and communications networks worldwide.

China controls the only two active cesium facilities on Earth. Not most of them. Not a dominant share. All of them.

Sinomine Resource Group operates the Tanco mine in Manitoba, Canada and the Bikita mine in Zimbabwe. That’s it. That’s the entire global cesium production infrastructure. Two facilities owned by one Chinese company.

The market is tiny – estimates range from $350 million to $600 million globally. Not enough revenue to justify Western investment in alternative capacity. But just enough strategic importance to matter when it’s cut off.

There’s no public spot market for cesium. Pricing is opaque. Sinomine controls both supply and price discovery.

A cesium restriction would cascade through systems most people don’t know exist. Financial markets lose precise timekeeping? Transactions fail. GPS accuracy degrades? Navigation systems become unreliable. Oil drilling operations lose cesium formate drilling fluids? Production slows. The disruptions would be technical, obscure, and devastating.

Nobody would understand the cause. The explanation requires three levels of technical detail that loses 95 percent of audiences. The public wouldn’t comprehend why critical systems stopped working. Media couldn’t explain it. Politicians couldn’t address it.

Maximum damage. Minimum comprehension.

Bismuth flew completely under the radar until February 2025, when China imposed export controls that caused prices to surge seven-fold from $4 per pound to $40-55 per pound. I’ll bet you’ve never even thought about bismuth. Most people haven’t.

China controls 68-80% of global bismuth production and refining. The United States ceased primary bismuth production in 1997. There is no government stockpile. Zero. Because bismuth was always considered a byproduct of lead and copper refining, easily available from global markets, nothing to worry about.

Then in June 2025, the “Magnificent Seven” tech companies – we’re talking Apple, Microsoft, Google, the entire AI infrastructure buildout – warned that bismuth-based solder shortages could halt data center construction. AI chips require lead-free solder due to environmental regulations. Bismuth-tin alloys are the primary alternative. No bismuth? No solder. No solder? No AI data centers.

What makes bismuth particularly insidious is that it demonstrates maximum leverage with minimum visibility. The general public cannot understand why data centers aren’t being built. The explanation requires three levels of technical detail that lose 95% of audiences. Perfect weapon.

Everyone knows the Democratic Republic of Congo produces most of the world’s cobalt. What they don’t know – what the simplified “cobalt comes from Africa” narrative obscures – is that China controls fifteen of the nineteen DRC cobalt mines. China Molybdenum Corporation (CMOC) alone controls 41% of the global cobalt market through its ownership of Tenke Fungurume.

The DRC produces 74-76% of mined cobalt. But China refines 73-77% of global supply. This distinction matters because cobalt ore from the DRC has limited utility without refining infrastructure. And the refining infrastructure is Chinese-controlled, either through direct ownership or through contracts that give Chinese entities first right of refusal on output.

Cobalt’s primary military application isn’t batteries. That’s the civilian narrative. For defense, cobalt enables jet engine superalloys. Over 50% of US cobalt consumption goes into superalloys, not batteries. Cobalt-chromium-tungsten alloys operate at temperatures exceeding 1,000°C while maintaining structural integrity. Every advanced jet engine – the F-35, F-22, commercial aircraft turbines – requires these alloys.

The F-35 specifically contains approximately 50 pounds of samarium-cobalt magnets. Not neodymium-iron-boron magnets like civilian applications. Samarium-cobalt magnets maintain magnetic properties at higher temperatures, essential for military electronics operating in extreme conditions.

Graphite represents battery warfare. China produces over 90% of the world’s processed graphite, specifically the spherical graphite required for lithium-ion battery anodes. You can mine graphite in various countries – Australia, Mozambique, Canada all have deposits. But processing raw graphite into battery-grade spherical graphite requires specialized facilities that exist almost exclusively in China.

Every electric vehicle contains 50-100kg of graphite in its battery. Grid-scale storage? Thousands of kilograms. Consumer electronics? Smaller quantities but billions of units. The West wants energy transition, wants electric vehicles, wants grid storage to enable renewable energy? Beijing controls the input materials. Again.

The problem isn’t mining. The problem is processing economics. Chinese facilities benefit from decades of optimization, vertical integration, and state support that makes Western facilities uncompetitive even when they successfully start production. Which means even if you build alternative capacity, it may shut down during price dips, returning control to China.

China can throttle Western energy transition at will. The restriction doesn’t need to be permanent. Just long enough to make alternative investments economically unfeasible.

Gallium and germanium might seem like semiconductor industry concerns, technical materials that matter for chip manufacturing but lack broader strategic implications. That interpretation would be wrong.

China controls 94% of global gallium production and 83% of germanium. Both materials are critical for compound semiconductors – the gallium nitride and gallium arsenide chips that enable 5G infrastructure, satellite communications, radar systems, electronic warfare, and power electronics. These aren’t the chips in your laptop. These are the chips in F-35 avionics, Patriot missile systems, AEGIS radar, military satellite networks.

Gallium is primarily produced as a byproduct of aluminum smelting. Theoretically, any country with aluminum production could extract gallium. In practice, the extraction economics only work at Chinese scales and with Chinese cost structures. Recycling gallium from manufacturing scrap offers some relief but cannot replace primary supply.

For military systems with 10-20 year development and procurement timelines, gallium and germanium restrictions creates an immediate crisis. You cannot redesign radar systems or satellite communications on short notice. The electronics are baked into platform architecture years before production starts. If China cuts off gallium when a major defense program is scaling up production, that program stops. No alternatives. No substitutions. Just delays measured in years while you redesign around component availability.

The semiconductor restrictions demonstrate something crucial: China can target specific technology sectors without broader economic disruption. Gallium and germanium shortages don’t affect consumer goods prices. They don’t trigger inflation that voters notice. They just quietly degrade Western military and telecommunications capabilities while the public remains completely unaware anything is wrong.

The Government Accountability Office estimated that rebuilding heavy rare earth supply chains would require fifteen years. Not five years with aggressive investment. Not seven years with emergency measures. Fifteen years assuming everything goes right, permits are granted, deposits are found, processing facilities are built, skilled workers are trained, and production scales to military specifications.

It’s an absolute clusterfuck. 78% of Department of Defense weapons systems contain rare earth magnet components. Navy: 91.6%. Air Force: 85.1%. These aren’t optional enhancements. These are core components that cannot be substituted without complete system redesigns.

Magnesium represents the single greatest systemic risk in the entire critical minerals landscape. Not because it’s used in exotic military applications or cutting-edge technology. Because it’s essential for aluminum alloys that enable modern manufacturing. And China controls 85-95% of global production.

Magnesium cannot be stockpiled. It oxidizes within three months. You cannot build strategic reserves the way you can with other metals. There is no buffer. There is no emergency backup supply sitting in warehouses waiting for a crisis. Magnesium supply must be continuous or it doesn’t exist at all.

This is what makes magnesium restrictions existential. Every other critical mineral discussed here – antimony, rare earths, gallium, bismuth, cobalt, tungsten, graphite – can be stockpiled. You can build months or years of inventory if you see restrictions coming. Supply disruptions are painful but manageable if you have warning.

Magnesium is different. A restriction would halt aluminum alloy production globally within weeks. Not months. Weeks. And aluminum alloys are everywhere. Aircraft fuselages. Automotive body panels. Beverage cans. Construction materials. Military vehicles. Spacecraft. High-speed trains. Consumer electronics casings.

The timeline to rebuild meaningful Western magnesium capacity is estimated at five to seven years minimum, assuming billions in subsidies and acceptance of environmental impacts that Western countries have historically rejected. China’s cost advantages stem partly from Pidgeon process efficiency but largely from environmental externalities that OECD countries cannot politically accept.

Here’s the nightmare scenario: China announces magnesium export restrictions. Within two weeks, European and American aluminum smelters begin running out of supply. Within four weeks, alloy production halts. Within six weeks, aircraft manufacturing stops. Automotive production lines shut down. Defense contractors cannot produce vehicle hulls or aircraft components. The entire industrial base that depends on aluminum alloys – which is essentially all modern manufacturing – faces cascading failures.

No amount of emergency procurement can fix this. No strategic reserve can buffer the disruption. No alternative suppliers can ramp up in time. The restriction itself would be economically catastrophic, but the public wouldn’t understand why aluminum plants are closing. The explanation requires knowledge of metallurgy and alloy chemistry that 99% of the population lacks.

Maximum damage. Minimum comprehension. Perfect weapon.

And China hasn’t even restricted magnesium exports yet. That card remains unplayed.

On January 1, 2026, China’s silver export licensing came into effect. Only 44 companies received approval for 2026-2027. That’s it. The entire approved exporter list.

Then reports started surfacing from Japan and UAE. Physical bullion dealers selling – when they could find inventory – at $130 per ounce. COMEX spot showing $80. A 60% premium. The biggest decoupling in precious metals history. Gold occasionally sees 5-10% premiums during supply crunches. Silver sometimes trades at modest premiums in specific markets. But a 60% systematic decoupling between paper and physical prices across an entire region has never happened before in modern markets.

The Russia-China precious metals realignment accelerates this bifurcation. Russia controls 40% of global palladium production. After London suspended Russian refiners from the LBMA Good Delivery list in April 2022, Norilsk Nickel redirected output to China. Previously 60% went to Western markets. Now the majority flows East.

First half 2025 data shows Russian precious metals exports to China surged 80% to $1 billion. Chinese entities reportedly purchase Russian metal below international benchmark prices, creating a two-tier pricing system. Western buyers pay premium prices for constrained non-Russian supply. Chinese buyers access Russian material at discounts.

Financial warfare doesn’t require sanctions or frozen assets. It just requires control over physical commodity flows and the patience to exploit pricing disconnects that markets cannot arbitrage away.

December 26, 2025. China announces sanctions on twenty US companies and ten individuals in retaliation for the $11.1 billion Taiwan arms package approved on December 17, 2025. The sanctioned list reads like a who’s who of American defense: Northrop Grumman, Boeing St. Louis, L3Harris Maritime, plus drone manufacturers Red Cat Holdings, Teal Drones, Epirus, Dedrone. Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril Industries, makes the individual sanctions list.

the signal is unmistakable: if you sell weapons to Taiwan, you are permanently cut off from Chinese supply chains and the Chinese market. Not just for the transaction in question. Forever.

The irony is brutal: the cost of selling weapons to Taiwan might be the very ability to defend it. Because if American munitions cost three times Chinese equivalents and take twice as long to produce, the war is already over before it even began.

The pattern is clear: restrict, suspend, escalate elsewhere. Military end-use restrictions remain permanent. China’s processing dominance cannot be replicated within a decade. US strategic stockpiles remain at historic lows. Physical delivery stress on Western exchanges intensifies.

Million government investment contracts and emergency stockpiling efforts represent belated recognition of vulnerabilities. Too little, too late. Perhaps 15-20% of a $14+ billion estimate should be invested NOW. When China can escalate within days, and ramping up production is measured in years or decades.

China already knows the next metal.

They’re just waiting for the right moment.

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Even If the Strait of Hormuz Opens, the Damage to the Persian Gulf Energy Infrastructure is Enormous

I remain skeptical that the US and Iran will soon reach an agreement regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The US wants it open to all ships and strongly opposes Iran charging any kind of fee or toll for ships entering or leaving the Persian Gulf. Iran’s position is unchanged… It is going to collect a fee from every ship entering the Persian Gulf and will not allow Israeli or US ships to enter.

However, let’s assume that an agreement is reached on Friday and that oil and LNG tankers are allowed to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz. Even if a deal is struck, it will be months, possibly years, before the Gulf arabs return to normal because of the damage to the equipment that pumps and stores oil.

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Is Donald Trump Serious About Declaring Victory Over Iran?

According to a Wall Street Journal report citing US officials, President Trump has been privately weighing the possibility of declaring victory against Iran and ending the war without securing a nuclear deal.

Trump reportedly has floated to senior aides that if the US can keep Iran’s nuclear program in check and traffic resumes through the Strait of Hormuz, he would be willing to extend the ceasefire “indefinitely” and effectively declare the conflict over.

In recent meetings, Trump has expressed confidence that Iran is “likely unable to revive its nuclear work” after Operation Midnight Hammer caused heavy damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in June 2025. He believes US intelligence capabilities would catch any Iranian attempts to rebuild, and that the threat of further American strikes would “serve as an enduring deterrent.”

Trump’s key condition for ending the war is that Iran agrees to fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. In exchange, officials expect Trump would lift the US naval blockade on Iranian ports.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a White House official said that the U.S. has “completed all of its military objectives against Iran,” and the president’s focus is now on “securing the flow of the world’s energy through the Strait of Hormuz.” The reporting suggests Trump is patient and expected to ride out the latest diplomatic snarl, especially so long as gas prices remain where they are.

Let’s assume that this WSJ report is accurate (a big assumption). President Trump is still living in a fantasy world. Despite his recent outbursts about bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, he now seems content to revert to his original declaration from June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program has been obliterated. Count me skeptical. However, if Trump is willing to make that assumption then it removes one item from the negotiation list… Until recently the US, via Pakistani mediators, was pressing Iran to discuss the Iranian nuclear program before addressing the lifting of the blockade and sanctions, and the unfreezing of assets. Iran, for its part, has insisted on the reverse position: i.e., lift the blockade and sanctions, unfreeze the assets and accept Iran’s sovereignty over the Persian Gulf.

If Trump’s decision to declare victory and end the war hinges on Iran, “fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping,” then prospects for a deal are slim. Iran will only agree to allowing ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz in accordance with the Persian Gulf Strait Authority guidelines it issued on April 22nd. In early May, the Supreme National Security Council and other Iranian bodies publicly confirmed the PGSA’s formation and role. It began administering a permit-based system requiring vessels to submit a detailed “Vessel Information Declaration” (covering ownership, insurance, crew, cargo, etc.) before receiving clearance. Fees for “specialized services” were part of the planned mechanism. Iran is not going to backdown on this point.

I think that there is growing concern within the Trump administration about the potential for a global economic crisis if the Persian Gulf remains shuttered, especially if this continues as is into September. And this is likely the main factor pushing Trump to do a repeat of the end of Operation Rough Rider… i.e., Declare victory and leave.

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«Höchste Zeit für einen Stopp der Militärgeschäfte mit Israel»

Israel schickt Flugzeuge über die Grenze nach Syrien und in den Libanon. Sie versprühen Glyphosat, ein Pflanzengift. Danach wächst nichts mehr. Wäre es nicht an der Zeit, nach diesem Pflanzengifteinsatz in Syrien und im Libanon die Rüstungszusammenarbeit mit Israel einzustellen und unter anderem die Drohnengeschäfte mit Israel zu stoppen?

Die Militärgeschäfte mit Israel hätten nach dem Gazakrieg sowie dem Krieg im Libanon und im Iran längst beendet werden müssen. Die Schweiz müsste auch die Exporte von Kriegsmaterial an Staaten stoppen, die Israel mit Waffen beliefern. Laut dem Stockholm International Peace Research Institute sind das zur Hauptsache die USA, Deutschland und Italien. Mit ihren Waffenlieferungen nach Israel sind sie Kriegsparteien. 

Auf dem Papier ist seit Jahrzehnten festgeschrieben, dass die Herstellung, die Vermittlung, die Ausfuhr und die Durchfuhr von Kriegsmaterial für Empfänger im Ausland nicht bewilligt wird, wenn «das Bestimmungsland in einen internen oder internationalen bewaffneten Konflikt verwickelt ist.» Dieser Absatz im Kriegsmaterialgesetz müsste dazu führen, dass unser neutrales, humanitäres Land, das dem Frieden verpflichtet ist, sofort alle Kriegsmaterialexporte an solche Staaten einstellt, nicht nur die Exporte nach Russland.