🚨 The Real Tomahawk Story Is WORSE Than You Think (For US Warmongers).

The recent exchange unpacks a striking paradox at the heart of contemporary U.S. strategy: grandiose public postures about unlimited military support and deterrence collide with an increasingly brittle industrial base and fragile supply chains. What emerges from the conversation is a case that the celebrated restraint over a potentially escalatory weapons move was less a moral or diplomatic recalculation than a pragmatic response to hard limits — dwindling inventories, thin production pipelines, and an emergent global leverage over the materials that make modern munitions possible. The implications reach far beyond one missile type: they force a re-evaluation of escalation politics, procurement realism, and what neutrality means when military logistics shape the choices of great powers. ## The Tomahawk episode: rhetoric, escalation, and the optics of restraint The discussion begins with a widely reported episode in which Washington flirted with a dramatic step-up in the Ukraine conflict by contemplating the use of long-range cruise missiles. Public narratives framed any retreat from such a move as an act of caution — a leader supposedly checked by geopolitical prudence. The conversation, however, reframes that story: the choice to hold back was not merely about preventing escalation or heeding a worried counterpart, but about confronting an awkward supply-side truth. This reinterpretation turns conventional readings on their head. Instead of showcasing statesmanship, the episode could equally be read as revealing the limits of a strategy that has for years relied on continuous, large-scale materiel transfers to proxies and partners. Those exchanges also exposed a broader pattern: policy swings between maximal rhetorical support for allies and sudden hedging when the practicalities of equipping them become visible. The interlocutors trace a string of such episodes where high-minded pronouncements about supporting a partner morph into more cautious, sometimes abrupt, policy reversals. These oscillations matter because they signal to adversaries, allies, and domestic audiences that political will and material capacity are not the same thing — and that material scarcity can discipline political rhetoric. ## What the conversation says about the military-industrial reality At the center of the analysis is a blunt distinction between stockpiles on hand and the capacity to produce more. The conversation underscores two simultaneous constraints: inventories have been drawn down by sustained transfers and operations, and the industrial base possesses limited surge capacity. Modern weapons are not commodities that can be mass-produced overnight; they require specialized components, complex supply chains, and long lead-times. The idea that any country with a defense budget can instantly replenish sophisticated munitions is, the discussion suggests, a comforting fiction. Examples offered in the exchange illuminate how the United States has deployed large quantities of munitions across multiple theaters in recent years — not only in one conflict zone but also to partners facing separate crises. Each deployment chips away at reserves. When manufacturing lines are already optimized for steady-state production rather than wartime surges, redeeming depletion demands years of investment. The conversation’s emphasis is that strategic planning must therefore internalize industrial limits: wars are won not only by decisions around targeting and diplomacy, but by the health of mines, refineries, smelters, and assembly lines. ## China’s rare-earth leverage and the foreign-direct-product rule A critical pivot in the discussion is the announcement by a major supplier nation that it will apply an export-control framework to minerals and refined materials used in defense manufacturing worldwide. Under those rules, foreign firms seeking those inputs must certify non-military end uses or face license denials. The exchange treats this as a watershed: it is less a surprise weapon than a long-gestating strategic leverage point finally wielded. Rare earths and associated specialty metals underpin a surprising number of defense technologies — from avionics and precision guidance to missile control systems and submarine components. The conversation unpacks the mechanics: many of these materials are not lightly substitutable; alternatives often demand different chemistries, retooled designs, and fresh certification processes. What looks like a single choke point is in reality a cascading set of vulnerabilities — refining capacity, skilled labor, energy intensity, and decades of applied know-how. The new export-control posture tightens those vulnerabilities by making even indirect links to foreign military users a basis for refusal, thereby constraining both procurement and production for nations that had been relying on open commercial flows. ## The production trap: why scaling rare-earth supply is not quick or cheap The dialogue turns from geopolitics to metallurgy and economics, stressing that “rare earth” is a misleading shorthand. The conversation explains that many critical metals are produced as byproducts of larger mining operations. Gallium, for instance, is largely a byproduct of aluminum refining; substantial gallium output thus presumes a vast primary industry. Scaling extraction and refining is not merely a matter of mining more ore; it requires energy-intensive smelting, waste management, skilled labor, and decades-long investment horizons. The analysts stress the concept of “patient capital”: building a resilient domestic supply chain for these materials demands acceptance of decades of low or negative returns before payback. It means aligning education, regional industrial policy, and political stability to sustain long-term projects. Those are precisely the kinds of commitments that many economies moved away from during a period of financialization and offshoring. The consequence is structural: even if a government decides tomorrow to re-shore critical production, the clock to meaningful output runs in years, not months. The conversation thus frames current constraints as not temporary hiccups, but as embedded outcomes of economic choices made over decades. ## Strategic implications: constraint as a new variable in foreign policy If constraints on rare materials and weapons production shape immediate choices — like whether to permit the use of certain long-range systems — they also reshape longer-term strategy. The discussion makes the case that resource power now directly informs escalation ladders. When a state cannot reliably replenish a class of weapons, its appetite for using them diminishes, irrespective of political rhetoric. That creates a paradoxical effect: scarcity can act as a brake on escalation, but it can also incentivize riskier behavior in other domains as policymakers seek leverage without expending scarce ordnance. Moreover, the conversation suggests that scarcity reshuffles alliances and supplier relationships. States dependent on outside sources may press allies for stockpiles or demand shared production initiatives, and they may pursue diplomatic hedges that prioritize access to supply over other policy goals. Conversely, the supplier nation gains leverage that stretches beyond classic sanctions: by controlling the flow of the raw materials for advanced arms, it gains influence over the strategic calculations of major powers. For scholars and advocates of neutrality and nonalignment, these developments complicate doctrine. Neutrality is conventionally examined through diplomatic posture and military abstention; the conversation points to a third dimension: the industrial capability to act. A neutral state’s choices are not only moral or legal but also technical and material. Conversely, a powerful state’s decisions may be less a function of intention than of what its factories and mines enable it to do. ## What to watch next: policy ch

The Real Tomahawk Story Is WORSE Than You Think A lot of PR going on again about Trump being "swayed" by the Putin phone call to not escalate the proxy-war against Russia to the Tomahawk level. But there is another side to this. Probably the real reason why (for now) Selensky was rebuffed: The US is running low on all kinds of missile Systems, including the Tomahawks. These systems are not only ridiculously expensive, but also notoriously hard to produce. And that got just much worse since China announced its rare-earth ban for foreign weapon manufacturing. Have a look at just how big this problem is for the USA. Arnaud Bertrand's Article: https://substack.com/@arnaudbertrand/p-176378705 Our Shop: https://neutralitystudies- shop.fourthwall.com #Pascal So the United States has apparently decided, at least for now, not to provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. And when I say “provide Tomahawk missiles,” what I mean is that they decided against firing Tomahawk missiles into pre-2022 Russia. By now, it’s also circulated enough in the media that the United States was actually considering using its own contractors—no longer even pretending they were training Ukrainians on these systems—but saying outright that it would be U.S. contractors going to Ukraine with these weapons and then, from there, from unknown locations, firing those long-range missiles into Russia as a way to pressure Russia into peace negotiations. But really, what this was, was the U.S. toying with the idea of using an even higher and more potent weapon category directly by themselves—using Ukraine, as has happened over the last two and a half years, as the excuse to directly attack Russia, right? We know the HIMARS and so on were operated by Americans. The data gathering, the intelligence, the satellite imagery, the guidance systems, and even the targeting systems and targeting decisions were done in Wiesbaden, Germany, by NATO and U.S. command. The New York Times articles said as much. And what we’re talking about here, then, is exactly the same thing, just with a higher weapons category. Now, in the media, this was spun, of course, from the pro-Ukrainian side as a way of the United States supporting poor, victimized Ukraine. But in the blogosphere, it’s been well understood that this is just the latest version of a really, really dangerous escalation, because the Tomahawk missiles are, of course, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. And this is one of the biggest taboos ever—that the superpowers would target each other with nuclear-capable missiles. So overall, this was, of course, a very large escalation. And the way the narrative is now presented to us by articles like this one on CNN is that Donald Trump somehow -- 1 of 11 -- decided not to escalate—that Trump decided it would be one step too far and too dangerous. But I’d like to draw your attention to another aspect of this, which I think is the real reason why this decision was taken. It's not that the United States wouldn’t want to escalate, or that the Trump administration is afraid to escalate. I believe, based on what has happened over the past couple of weeks—and actually the past couple of years—that we’ve reached a point where the administration, or at least one part of it, has had to come to terms with a new reality: their stockpile and weapons manufacturing capacities are not unlimited, and they’re now running low. We have other articles, and I’d like to point to this one from The New York Times, when Trump was actually considering providing missiles. This back- and-forth we’ve seen over the last three weeks—the Tomahawk missile story—is really just the latest version of other such stories, escalation upon escalation in the Ukraine proxy war. What we’ve seen time and again is that these escalatory steps were taken—especially by the Biden administration, but also by Donald Trump, who has this history of trying to tough-talk one day and then, the next day, saying something like, “No, I want to stop the bloodshed.” Now, I’ll show you the reasons why I say it’s not a de-escalation factor, but actually a military production factor that informs his decisions. I’d like to show you one of several comments Donald Trump made over the past week, where he cast serious doubt on whether Tomahawks would be provided. And at least for now, the decision seems to be no. And again, by “provided,” I shouldn’t use that jargon—I should say “fire Tomahawks into Russia.” Trump said no firing of Tomahawks into Russia. Now, look at this exchange here. This was during Mr. Zelensky’s visit to the White House two or three days ago, on Friday last week, at the press conference. Just listen to Mr. Trump’s framing of the situation—the predicament the United States is in when it comes to these weapons, the Tomahawk system. What’s going to happen if the United States is in a conflict and we need the Tomahawk? #Donald Trump Well, that’s the problem. We need—and we need a lot of other things that we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine. You know, we gave them a lot. Now we have a different situation. We sent it to the European Union; they pay for it and all that, and they have plenty of money. But it’s beyond the money. You know, we need Tomahawks. We need a lot of other weapons that we’re sending to Ukraine. One of the reasons we want to get this war over is exactly that—it’s not easy for us to give. You’re talking about massive numbers of very powerful weapons. So that’s one of the things we’ll be talking about. Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks. #Pascal -- 2 of 11 -- So you see how Donald Trump keeps flip-flopping—from the position of “we have all we need, we can win this war, Ukraine can win this war.” And of course, he said very famously a couple of weeks ago, in this very ironic, almost cynical post, that Ukraine can obviously win and even win back all the territories it lost in 2014, including Crimea. But while we know now that this probably wasn’t meant seriously, we constantly need to wonder how the United States assesses its own capabilities. And you know, the neocons are notorious—absolutely notorious—for not giving a damn about reality and just assuming unlimited capacity, unlimited capability, and hence pushing for unlimited escalation. But we know there are other wings inside the U.S. administration—especially the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, the Department of War, and the intelligence community—that do, as part of their jobs, try to keep track of real-world affairs, constraints, and assessments of situations on the ground. And it seems to me that by now Mr. Trump, much more than through a conversation with Mr. Putin on the phone, was actually convinced in the background, hearing this statement, that, well, we’ve actually got a problem. We’ve got a weapons problem. We have a production problem. And I’d like to show you this now. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this turnaround on the Tomahawk story is coming about ten days after China announced rare earth curbs on basically everyone in the world—but especially on U.S. weapons manufacturers. I talked about this in another video a week ago, saying this is one of China’ s biggest power moves so far. Very briefly, they’ve now said they’re going to use what’s called the foreign direct product rule for their rare earths, meaning any company that wants to buy rare earth products from them has to certify that those materials won’t be used for weapons manufacturing. That is weapons manufacturing anywhere, but especially, of course, in the United States. And these rare earth minerals are extremely, extremely important. Let me read you from this article here by CSIS, the U.S. think tank that actually summarizes this very well—what that means, just very briefly, so we’re up to speed. Rare earths are crucial for various defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Joint Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs. The newly announced restrictions represent China’s most consequential measures to date targeting the defense sector. Under the new rules, starting on December 1, 2025, companies with any affiliation to foreign militaries, including those of the United States, will be largely denied export licenses. The Ministry of Commerce also made it clear that any requests to use rare earths for military purposes will be automatically rejected. Even before these latest measures, the U.S. defense industrial base faced significant challenges, with limited production capacity and limited ability to rapidly scale to meet rising defense technology needs. The new restrictions will only deepen these vulnerabilities. Now, this is a real problem. -- 3 of 11 -- And to me, in my mind, that’s what’s now winning out in Washington. Realism is setting in that the capacity of the United States—the sheer weapons manufacturing capacity—might be a problem. And, you know, we have two aspects to this. On the one hand, we have the stockpile, the weapons that have already been produced and are just around, in case, or ready for export. On the other hand, we have the ability to reproduce these weapons. And for the longest time—for the last 50, 60 years—it looked as though the United States, if it decided to produce weapons, could basically do so at more or less any scale it wanted. It’s just a question of how much time it will take until these weapons are produced. Hence, any kind of war in the world could basically be fought at will. But it now looks as though this game has seriously changed. And this is the point where I’d like to draw your attention to a wonderful article by a regular guest on this podcast, here on *Neutrality Studies*—Arnaud Bertrand, the French analyst, previously residing in China and now in Southeast Asia. He has a wonderful Substack—Arnaud Bertrand has a great Substack—and I encourage all of you to subscribe to him because he provides really high-quality analysis time and time again. He recently wrote a very long piece titled *How Long Can China Play the Rare Earths Card?* In this article, he takes the example of gallium, one of these now-restricted rare earths—although, as I understand it, gallium itself isn’t technically a rare earth element; it’s a bit different. But anyhow, it’s one of the metals that will be under restriction, under export licensing. And the problem with that one—and we need to understand this—is why these rare earths are not only important for U.S. manufacturing, but also why it’s not easy to suddenly get them from anywhere other than China. Another article really summarized it very well, because “rare earths” is kind of a bad naming convention for these metals. This article puts it nicely—they would be better called “troublesome earths.” The problem isn’t that there aren’t many of them in the Earth’s crust; there’s plenty. But the extraction process is really, really tough. And Arnaud Bertrand does a wonderful job showing the, what do you call it, the “rat’s tail”—all the little steps required to extract them. Because on the face of it, you’d think, okay, it’s a rare earth, right? You find a deposit—a gallium deposit—then you take a backhoe and a couple of drillers. You take out the stones, add a little bit of heat, and then gallium flows out. Well, turns out that’s not how it works. And that’s not how it works with most of these troublesome earths. What you have to do— and there’s a very good paper that describes this—is that most of these rare earths are actually byproducts of extracting other, more common metals. The example of gallium is that, in order to produce it—at least for large-scale production—you have to produce aluminum. Gallium is a waste product, or a side product, of aluminum production. So if we follow this little graph here, you do the mining, and then with t