The geopolitics beneath our feet

This article is authored by Debika Dutta, columnist, Mangaldai, Assam.

For much of the 20th century, the world’s strategic map was drawn around oil. Nations competed for reserves, protected sea lanes, built alliances around energy security and discovered, often at considerable cost, that dependence on a vital resource could become dependence on the power controlling it. The next great resource contest is already taking shape, but its geography will be different. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and rare earth elements are becoming indispensable to electric vehicles, batteries, semiconductors, renewable-energy systems, advanced electronics, aerospace and modern defence. What lies beneath our feet is, therefore, no longer simply a geological resource. It is becoming an instrument of geopolitical power.

Lithium (HT)

The recent BRICS Summit in New Delhi brought this emerging reality sharply into focus. India's emphasis on resilient and diversified supply chains and the dangers associated with the weaponisation of technology and critical minerals should be understood as part of a much larger transformation in international affairs. The issue is ultimately about sovereignty in an age when economic security, technological capability and national security are converging. When access to a particular mineral can influence a country's ability to manufacture batteries, sophisticated electronics, aircraft systems or defence equipment, the supply chain itself becomes strategic. A disruption that might once have been dismissed as a commercial inconvenience can today affect industrial production, military preparedness and technological ambition.

The crucial point is that mineral power is not determined simply by who owns a mine. The real contest is over the value chain. Exploration and extraction are only the beginning; processing, refining, separation, advanced materials, component manufacturing, recycling and technological innovation determine where strategic leverage ultimately resides. A country can possess mineral deposits and still remain vulnerable if it lacks the capacity to process them. Conversely, a country that controls critical processing stages can exercise influence far beyond the geographical boundaries of its own mineral reserves. China's substantial position in several critical-mineral processing chains illustrates how industrial capability can become geopolitical leverage, even as the US and its partners accelerate efforts to diversify global supplies.

This reality also demands a more substantive understanding of strategic autonomy. Strategic autonomy cannot mean strategic isolation, nor can it mean replacing one external dependency with another. India should deepen cooperation with the US, Japan, Australia and Europe, build durable partnerships with mineral-rich countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, and maintain necessary engagement with China and other major powers. The objective should be diversification, not dependence; partnership, not vulnerability. Every major power will pursue its own national interest. India's strategic strength will lie in ensuring that its economic and technological interests are sufficiently diversified, and its domestic capabilities sufficiently strong, that external pressure does not dictate its choices.

But diplomacy cannot compensate indefinitely for technological weakness. India, therefore, needs to approach critical minerals as an integrated national-security and industrial-policy challenge. Geological mapping and responsible domestic mining must be accompanied by investment in refining and separation technologies, advanced materials, recycling and research. Universities, laboratories, public institutions and industry need to work much more closely. Private investment and technological entrepreneurship must be encouraged wherever they can expand domestic capacity. Overseas mineral assets and long-term supply agreements can strengthen resilience, but they cannot substitute for building India's own processing and technological capabilities. The objective should be unmistakable: India must participate across the entire value chain rather than remain primarily a buyer of raw materials or finished technology.

The green transition makes this imperative even more urgent. The world is attempting to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but the technologies driving that transition are themselves resource-intensive. Batteries require minerals; renewable-energy systems require specialised materials; advanced electronics require rare elements; Artificial Intelligence requires increasingly sophisticated computing infrastructure; and modern defence platforms depend on high-performance materials. The energy transition may reduce the strategic centrality of oil, but it will not end resource geopolitics. It may simply shift the centre of competition from oil fields and shipping routes to mines, refineries, ports, processing plants and technology laboratories.

For the Global South, this transformation presents both an opportunity and a warning. Countries rich in mineral resources cannot afford to reproduce an old economic pattern in which raw materials are exported while high-value manufacturing takes place elsewhere. The green and digital economies should not create another cycle of extraction without industrialisation. Mineral-rich countries need greater participation in processing, technology, manufacturing and value creation. BRICS can contribute meaningfully if its cooperation moves beyond declarations towards practical collaboration in exploration, financing, processing technology, recycling and resilient supply chains. The credibility of such cooperation will ultimately be measured not by the number of communiqués issued but by the capabilities created.

India's National Critical Mineral Mission and its efforts to strengthen domestic exploration, processing, recycling and international mineral partnerships demonstrate that New Delhi has recognised the strategic importance of this emerging challenge. The direction is important, but implementation will determine its ultimate impact. Critical-mineral security is not a project that can be completed through a single policy announcement. It requires patient investment, technological innovation, institutional coordination and a willingness to think decades ahead. Countries that begin preparing only when a supply disruption occurs will invariably be negotiating from a position of weakness.

The larger lesson is that strategic autonomy is ultimately built through capability. The next geopolitical crisis may not begin with a military confrontation or a naval blockade. It could begin with an export restriction, a disrupted shipping route, a shortage of a processed mineral or a technological choke point thousands of kilometres away. By the time such vulnerability becomes visible to the public, the strategic choices available to a country may already have narrowed. India therefore has little reason to wait for the next crisis to reveal the cost of dependence.

The 20th century taught the world that energy dependence could become geopolitical dependence. The 21st century is delivering the same lesson through critical minerals, but with a far more intricate chain of power. The countries that possess resources will matter; those that control processing will matter more; and those that command technology, innovation and complete value chains will possess the greatest strategic leverage. India must therefore stop viewing critical minerals merely as commodities to be procured and recognise them as foundations of national capability. The most consequential geopolitical contest of the coming decades may not always be visible on a map. Some of it will take place beneath our feet—and India's strategic future will depend on how successfully it turns that hidden wealth into enduring strategic strength.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Debika Dutta, columnist, Mangaldai, Assam.