If there is anything truly rare about rare earths, it must surely be the number of times any one of us ever thought or talked about them, until just a few months ago. But for some, rare earths have been front of mind for decades. China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who in 1987 visited Baotou in Inner Mongolia, noted later: “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.” In the United States, it seems rare earths has been a cottage industry for security strategists for decades. The more you think about national security, the more you come to think about rare earths. In broad economic terms, for those of us ... (full story)