The world runs on rock · Story 7 of 12

The Shield defence runs on minor metals

Radars, jet engines, armour and ammunition depend on metals most people never hear of: gallium, tungsten, antimony, beryllium, the rare earths. For most of them a single country supplies the bulk. This story is about what they are made of and where it comes from, not how any weapon works.

Scroll to open a radar panel

Take it apart

A wall of tiny radios

A modern radar is often a flat panel rather than a spinning dish. Its face is a grid of small transmit-receive modules, each sending and listening on its own, steered together by electronics instead of motors.

Three white radar antenna dishes standing in a grassy field under a blue sky

Not only for defence: NASA's Ka-BOOM test array at Kennedy Space Center, 2013, built to develop radar for tracking near-Earth objects. NASA/Charisse Nahser (public domain).

The chip inside

Gallium nitride

The amplifier in each module is increasingly a chip of gallium nitride. Raytheon reported in 2008 that GaN modules give "significantly higher" radio power with greater efficiency than the ones they replace, which allows a smaller antenna for the same job.¹

GaNAuCuSi

One supplier

China produced 99% of the world's primary gallium in 2025.² It banned gallium, germanium and antimony exports to the United States in December 2024, then suspended the ban in November 2025 for a year.³⁴

The minor-metal shelf

Twenty ingots each

Each column holds twenty ingots, each one 5% of the world's supply. The ingots that light up are the share of the largest single producer.²

What they do

Tungsten hard carbide tools and wear parts, special alloys and steels
Titanium strong and light, mostly for aircraft
Rare earths magnets for motors and actuators
Germanium optical fibre, infrared lenses and windows
Antimony flame retardants, lead alloys and ammunition
Beryllium copper alloys for electronics; about a quarter goes to aerospace and defence

Single source

How much is in a fighter?

A figure often quoted is about 417 kg (920 lb) of rare-earth materials per F-35, 2,360 kg per destroyer and 4,170 kg per Virginia-class submarine. It comes from one 2012 Pentagon report, quoted by the Congressional Research Service.⁵ Adamas Intelligence has argued the real F-35 figure is far smaller.⁶ Treat it as an estimate.

Hunan

Antimony country

Hunan holds Xikuangshan, the world's largest known antimony deposit, worked since the 1890s once miners realised the heavy grey ore was not tin.⁷ China mined 36% of the world's antimony in 2025; Russia 29% and Tajikistan 20%.⁸

Follow the supply

1 · Tungsten

China mined 79% of the world's tungsten in 2025. The United States has not mined it commercially since 2015.⁹

2 · Antimony

Three countries mined more than four-fifths of it: China 36%, Russia 29%, Tajikistan 20%. In the United States, 49% went into flame retardants and 40% into antimonial lead and ammunition.⁸

3 · Gallium

Gallium is a by-product of refining aluminium ore, and nearly all the refineries that recover it are in China: 99% in 2025.²

4 · The exception

Beryllium is the one on the shelf the United States leads: 53% of world mine output in 2025, from one company mining bertrandite ore in Utah.¹⁰

August 2024

Antimony nearly triples

China announced export restrictions on antimony in August 2024 and banned exports to the United States in December. The US monthly average price went from $9.80 a pound in August 2024 to $27.50 in June 2025; the 2025 average, $25, was more than double 2024's.⁸

February 2025

Then tungsten

New Chinese export controls on tungsten items took effect in February 2025. Over the year the Rotterdam price of ammonium paratungstate, the traded form, rose from $331 to $675 per metric ton unit.⁹

The lines show the size of each reported move, not a full price history.

Making more

The shell gap

After 2022 the US Army set out to raise 155 mm artillery shell output from about 14,000 a month to 100,000 by October 2025.¹¹ In March 2026 it was making about 36,000 a month, the Pentagon's inspector general reported.¹²

Why "critical"

Small tonnages, big consequences

World mine output of antimony was about 110,000 tonnes in 2025, and of tungsten 85,000 tonnes.⁸⁹ These are tiny markets next to iron or copper, so one country's decision can move the price of a whole metal, and the defence industry competes with phones, cars and solar panels for the same supply.

GaGalliumChina 99% WTungstenChina 79% SbAntimonyChina 36% NdRare earthsChina 69% GeGermaniumChina 68% TiTitaniumsponge: China 70% BeBerylliumUS 53% CuCopperChile 23%

Next in the series: The Body, the metals inside medicine. Before this: The Signal, The Rocket, The Magnet, The Battery, The Mind and The Chip.

Sources

Shares of world output are from USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 via our minerals data; other figures are cited where they appear. The 3D models are illustrations of materials, not engineering drawings; the price lines show reported moves, not price histories. Photos: NASA, public domain.