A quiet concern is circulating inside defense and intelligence circles as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East consume weapons at a pace not seen in decades. The issue is not simply the number of missiles or bombs fired. The deeper problem lies further upstream in the industrial chain that replaces them.
Officials familiar with defense production planning say the United States and its allies are confronting a structural reality: every weapon expended must be rebuilt through a supply chain that begins with raw minerals, passes through specialized industrial processing, and ends on tightly regulated production lines. When the system is stressed by multiple conflicts at once, its narrow points begin to appear.
Recent estimates from analysts at the Payne Institute illustrate the scale of the problem. In the opening phase of the latest Middle East operations - roughly the first thirty six hours - US and Israeli forces expended hundreds of precision munitions and missile interceptors. American forces alone used large numbers of JDAM guided bombs, Tomahawk cruise missiles, HARM anti radiation missiles, small diameter bombs, and HIMARS rockets. Israeli operations drew heavily on SPICE guided bombs, Rampage missiles, Delilah loitering munitions, and air defense interceptors.
On the defensive side, the numbers are equally revealing. US naval forces fired large quantities of SM 2, SM 3, and SM 6 interceptors through Aegis systems, alongside Patriot and THAAD missiles. Israel expended Iron Dome Tamir interceptors, Arrow ballistic missile defenses, and David’s Sling systems. Gulf partners contributed additional Patriot interceptors.
The immediate operational effect is manageable. The United States maintains large stockpiles, and allied arsenals were designed to sustain operations. The longer term question is how quickly these weapons can be replaced.
Defense officials say the replacement process often takes far longer than policymakers assume. Manufacturing a missile or precision guided weapon requires hundreds of components sourced through multi layered supplier networks. In many cases the constraint is not the final assembly line but a small upstream facility that produces a single material or component.
One example frequently cited by supply chain analysts involves rocket propulsion. The United States relies heavily on ammonium perchlorate as the oxidizer in solid rocket motors. Nearly all domestic production comes from a single plant in Cedar City, Utah. Expanding capacity requires environmental approvals, specialized infrastructure, and long lead times.
Other bottlenecks appear in less obvious areas. Capacitors used in guidance electronics depend on tantalum supply chains that trace back to central Africa. Infrared seekers depend on germanium optics. Radio frequency components rely on gallium arsenide semiconductors.
But one mineral appears repeatedly across the entire weapons ecosystem: tungsten.
Tungsten rarely appears in strategic debates, yet it plays a central role in modern munitions. Its extreme density makes it essential for armor piercing penetrators, missile ballast systems, and kinetic energy projectiles. It is also used in high temperature alloys that withstand the intense heat of rocket engines and turbine systems.
Analysts estimate that replacing the munitions expended in just the early phase of recent Middle East operations would require more than eleven metric tons of tungsten in penetrators, ballast, and related components. The same analysis suggests smaller but still meaningful demand for cobalt, rare earth magnets, and semiconductor materials.
What makes tungsten particularly sensitive is the structure of global supply.
China dominates the market. Roughly eighty percent of global tungsten production and a large share of processing capacity sits within Chinese industrial networks. Even when ore is mined elsewhere, it is often shipped to Chinese facilities for conversion into intermediate products such as ammonium paratungstate or tungsten carbide powders.
China Just Cut Off Tungsten! Pentagon SCRAMBLES
A potentially important counterweight to this dependency is beginning to emerge from within the Western mining sector. One example now appearing on the radar of defense supply chain planners is Allied Critical Metals, a Canadian listed company developing two past producing tungsten deposits in northern Portugal known as Borralha and Vila Verde.
According to publicly available technical disclosures and open source due diligence assessments, the Borralha project already carries a modern Mineral Resource Estimate and a Preliminary Economic Assessment indicating potentially attractive project economics under current tungsten price assumptions. The project has also progressed through key stages of the Portuguese environmental review process, positioning it as one of the more advanced undeveloped tungsten resources inside the European Union.
While the company still faces the normal execution risks associated with development stage mining projects - including financing, engineering, and full permitting - the strategic implication is notable. A Western owned tungsten supply emerging inside a stable European Union jurisdiction could provide the United States and its allies with an alternative source of tungsten outside Chinese industrial control, an outcome that defense planners increasingly view as essential for long term supply chain resilience. The development of projects such as Borralha and Vila Verde illustrates how rebuilding secure mineral supply chains will likely depend not only on domestic mining inside the United States but also on trusted allied production across North America and Europe.
The United States once maintained domestic tungsten mines and processing capacity, particularly during the Second World War and the Cold War. Most of those facilities closed during the 1990s and early 2000s as Chinese production drove global prices down.
Today the United States imports the majority of its tungsten.
Officials involved in defense industrial planning say the strategic implications are becoming harder to ignore. As global demand rises, supply concentration increases the risk that geopolitical tensions could disrupt access to key materials.
Some steps are already underway. The Pentagon has begun using Defense Production Act authorities to support the development of new tungsten projects in North America. One such effort involves the Pilot Mountain deposit in Nevada, which could eventually become a major domestic source. Another involves Canadian deposits such as the Mactung project in the Yukon.
Defense planners increasingly view these projects not as commercial mining ventures but as strategic infrastructure.
At the same time, policymakers are confronting a broader lesson emerging from the Ukraine war and Middle East operations. The modern arsenal is not limited by engineering design or military doctrine. It is constrained by the physical supply chains that sustain it.
People familiar with Pentagon discussions say the concern is not immediate depletion. The United States retains substantial stockpiles and strong industrial capacity. The concern is the trajectory of demand if multiple conflicts continue simultaneously.
If weapons expenditures remain elevated, replacement timelines could stretch. Industrial expansion is possible, but building new mines, refining plants, and specialized factories often takes years.
This dynamic places pressure on alliance coordination. European and Asian partners depend on many of the same supply chains. Competition for materials could emerge even within allied systems if demand rises sharply.
Intelligence analysts say the situation also creates opportunities for strategic leverage. Countries that control key minerals or processing capacity may gain influence over defense supply chains during prolonged conflicts.
For now, the United States and its partners appear focused on gradual diversification rather than rapid restructuring. Efforts are underway to expand domestic mining, develop processing capabilities, and reduce reliance on concentrated foreign sources.
Whether those efforts move quickly enough remains uncertain.
Wars have always tested industrial capacity as much as battlefield strategy. The lesson emerging from current conflicts is that modern arsenals depend on supply chains that are global, specialized, and sometimes fragile.
If the pace of weapons expenditure continues, the decisive constraints may not appear on the battlefield. They may appear upstream, in the quiet corners of the global industrial system where the materials that make modern weapons possible are produced.
And in that system, tungsten sits near the center of the map.