Amidst a brutal wave of imperialist violence, Climate Vanguard and Energy Embargo for Palestine argue that resisting rearmament should be at the heart of ecosocialist strategy in Britain¹. Their new brief shows how this struggle can weaken imperialism while providing material gains for the British working class. They point out that the vast sums spent on the military could be used to fund an ecosocialist programme instead. But the tension between militarisation and ecosocialist transition runs far deeper than money alone – the military directly competes with energy systems for critical materials, threatening the energy transition.

Before a missile can be dropped from the air, it must be torn from the earth. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 involved 1,800 aircraft dropping over 29,000 bombs, powered by millions of litres of fuel. Their tanks and bullets were coated with 116 tonnes of depleted uranium². To make the invasion possible, a colossal quantity of metals, minerals, and hydrocarbons first need to be mined from sites the world over, then manufactured into missiles, jets, and drones. Information on where weapons manufacturers get their raw materials is extremely limited, but “conflict mineral” laws have forced some transparency for so-called 3TG minerals (tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold). For example, Israel’s flagship drone manufacturer, Elbit Systems, disclosed a web of 327 smelters and refiners spanning 49 countries and six continents³. This figure does not include the mines themselves; for instance, there is a decent chance that metals smelted in Rwanda crossed over from DRC⁴. Remember, this is just four minerals – making a drone’s sensors, propulsion, and electro-optical systems requires upwards of 25 distinct minerals⁵.

There is no militarisation without extraction. The British Ministry of Defence already has half a million tonnes of equipment on order; that is half a million tonnes of aluminium, copper, platinum, cobalt, titanium – and much more – that must be extracted to feed the war machine⁶. In fact, militaries are some of the most significant consumers of minerals worldwide, devouring 33% of global chromium production, 18% of antimony, and around 10% of cobalt, titanium, and tungsten. The US defence sector alone consumes 17% of global beryllium output and 5–7% of all copper⁷.

However, many of the raw materials that the military depends on are also essential for renewable energy. The European Commission has examined this in several reports, finding that “there will be an increasing competition between all sectors for the same raw materials.”⁸ We can see this principle in action in the US, where the Defence Logistics Agency is stockpiling up to 57,000 tonnes of cobalt and graphite. While this could be used to build over 100,000 electric buses, it will instead be ploughed into tanks, missiles, and munition systems⁹. 

Energy transition minerals are not infinite: their supply is constrained by social, ecological, and geopolitical limits¹⁰. This means that every tonne consumed by the military is one that cannot be used to build out renewable energy infrastructure – or must be extracted at additional social and ecological cost¹¹. Rearmament therefore stands in direct conflict with rolling out affordable renewable energy. 

Integrating raw materials into our analysis clarifies the stakes: resisting rearmament is a struggle for the very basis of the energy transition.

1.  Climate Vanguard and Energy Embargo for Palestine, Resisting Rearmament: A Unified Path Forwards for the British Left, Brief (2026) <https://www.climatevanguard.org/publications-briefs/resisting-rearmament>. ↩︎
2.  Mark Griffiths and Kali Rubaii, ‘Late Modern War and the Geos: The Ecological “Beforemaths” of Advanced Military Technologies’, Security Dialogue, 56.1 (2025), pp. 38–57, doi:10.1177/09670106241265636. ↩︎
3.  Elbit Systems Ltd., ‘Conflict Minerals Report’, 2020 <https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1027664/000162828021011080/eslt2021sdexhibit101.htm&gt;. ↩︎
4.  Kali Rubaii, Mohamed El-Shewy, and Mark Griffiths, ‘When “Conflict Free” Minerals Go to War’, Political Geography, 123 (2025), p. 103425, doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103425. ↩︎
5.  Daniel Selwyn, Martial Mining: Resisting Extractivism and War Together (London Mining Network, 2020) <https://londonminingnetwork.org/2020/11/martial-mining-report-out-now/&gt;. ↩︎
6.  Selwyn, Martial Mining. ↩︎
7.  Phil Johnstone and Anabel Marín, ‘Beyond the Twin Transition: Military Drivers of Critical Minerals’ Expansion’, The Extractive Industries and Society, 26 (2026), p. 101836, doi:10.1016/j.exis.2025.101836. ↩︎
8.  European Commission: Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs and others, Critical Raw Materials for Strategic Technologies and Sectors in the EU: A Foresight Study. (Publications Office, 2020), p. 76 <https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2873/58081&gt; [accessed 19 March 2025]. ↩︎
9.  Lorah Steichen, Mining for War: Assessing the Pentagon’s Mineral Stockpile, Briefing (Transition Security Project, 2025) <https://transitionsecurity.org/mining-for-war/&gt;. ↩︎
10.  Richard Bärnthaler, Sebastian Mang, and Jason Hickel, ‘Toward a Post-Growth Industrial Policy for Europe: Navigating Emerging Tensions and Long-Term Goals’, Globalizations, 22.6 (2025), pp. 1124–48, doi:10.1080/14747731.2025.2501821; Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, ‘Eco-Imperial Tensions: Decarbonization Strategies in Times of Geopolitical Upheaval’, Critical Sociology, 11 May 2024, p. 08969205241252774, doi:10.1177/08969205241252774. ↩︎
11.  Alexander Dunlap and Mariana Riquito, ‘Social Warfare for Lithium Extraction? Open-Pit Lithium Mining, Counterinsurgency Tactics and Enforcing Green Extractivism in Northern Portugal’, Energy Research & Social Science, 95 (2023), p. 102912, doi:10.1016/j.erss.2022.102912; Lorah Steichen and others, Redirecting Energy Transition Minerals from the Pentagon Fleet to the Public Good, Briefing (Transition Security Project, 2025) <https://transitionsecurity.org/redirecting-energy-transition-minerals-from-the-pentagon-fleet-to-the-public-good/&gt;. ↩︎