Under the Spotlight – War in Iran

2026.03.21

We’ve got a couple of articles that we wrote, and there’s a couple of articles on the site that points to the US not having the critical minerals, not having the manufacturing capability and getting almost all of the critical metals it needs for warfighting, either from China, processed in China or both.

US risks running out of missiles in war with Iran – Richard Mills

They’re running out of missiles and are in panic mode to secure rare earths, magnets etc.

What do you think they need the $200 billion for? What do you think they added $500 billion to the Pentagon’s budget for this year?

$1.7 trillion! And that does not include nuclear weapons, VA, perks and pensions. It does not include Special Forces. The published yearly budget of the DoD does not include any of that.

Think about that, about where that kind of money could have been better spent. And they do not yet have the necessary security of supply in the sourcing chain they do have.

They cannot afford the deficit on their debt now with interest rates climbing so much, the ten year is now up above 4% and looks to me like it’s heading to 5%, 30 year mortgages are now +6%. How bad is this ‘excursion’ going to effect the bond market going forward?

AOTH Editorial Assistant:

EA: They’re emptying the cupboards right now, as we speak.

Despite claims Iran’s war making capability has been pretty much destroyed it seems that Iran has the ability to strike back at Israel and US bases and embassies.

The Israelis killed another top official, Iran’s minister of intelligence, blew up Iranian oil production. And then Iran struck back and hit Kuwaiti oil fields and the largest LNG facility in the world.

RM: It’s a tit for tat. They’re not backing down. China’s given them communications equipment. Russia’s giving them satellite targeting information. Pakistan sold them enrichment technology and maybe ballistic missile technology like they did with North Korea.

They’re going to keep going. They’re not going to stop because they know Trump’s on a political timetable. He’s on a money timetable and he’s on a supply timetable.

Iran’s playing a waiting game. Who’s going to run out of patience first?

We know Israel’s not going to stop. This is Bibi’s dream, for 47 years this guy’s been thinking about how to get rid of Iran. Well, now he’s there.

They kill all the leaders, any one of them that might have a chance of stepping up and running the country pops his head up and boom.

EA:  Iran just bombed Kuwait. They bombed Qatar the other day.

RM: 17% of global supply is off line for an estimated 5 years. If this keeps going there’s not going to be any reason to open the Strait of Hormuz except to get food in and emergency aid.

There’s seven or eight countries that rely on the strait for 75% of their food. You start destroying all this oil, LNG and pumping situations. That burning oil is going somewhere; it’s going into the air coming down as black rain, poisoning the sand and of course the ocean where they get the water for their desalination plants.

EA: That’s the other side of this that hasn’t really been talked about in the media is the environmental destruction of the oil fields and the Qatar facility and Kuwait. There’s all kinds of oil facilities that have been destroyed or semi-destroyed and what’s happening with all the oil that’s been blown up?

RM: How long can the water coming into intake pipes stay good enough to use in desalination plants? How long can all those people survive on 30% of normal food supply?

But our talk today is about the US is running out of munitions and they are getting desperate.

And it’s not just troops coming. It’s whole weapons systems. It’s the missiles that are in those weapons systems, it’s the reloads. It’s the drawing down of major stockpiles in place in Asia, only three weeks into the war.

All to shoot down asymmetric weapons. It’s rudimentary. It’s not ground-hugging terrain following Tomahawk missiles. It’s GPS systems. They’re tied into satellite GPS systems.

China’s buying Iran’s oil. Iran gave Russia drones and they reverse engineered the technology.

EA: Let’s switch track a bit, you were musing the other day about the US losing it’s hegemon.

RM: Yes, I said Great Britain lost their empire because they got caught up in the periphery. They didn’t concentrate on the core. Well, that’s exactly what China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are doing, by ganging up on the US they are herding the US into periphery stuff and not letting them pay attention to the core.

People have said if the US loses its democracy, it’s because it rots from the inside out. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening. And China and Russia know that. It’s what they’re doing.

They look at it long-term, 50, 75 years while we can’t think past the next election. It’s exactly what’s happening. All this needling. It’s like getting one bite from a mosquito. You don’t think anything of it. 20, that’s just an evening outside. But what happens when you get bit 200 times? That is exactly what the US is doing, scratching hundreds of itchy bites.

And it’s all for one thing. It’s to break up all the Western alliances and friendships and trade deals. What that the saying? United we stand, divided we fall. Carve out the US from the group.

Here is a snippet from a good read, Project Syndicate:

“As tensions rise around Iran and oil prices spike, the Trump administration has pleaded with allies to help secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important waterways in the global economy. Nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the narrow channel connecting the Persian Gulf to international markets, giving allies a direct stake in keeping it open. 

Yet the response from America’s security partners has been muted, hesitant, or negative. Several major allies – including Spain, Italy, and Germany – have rejected participation. Australia has said it will not send ships, while Canada has ruled out offensive operations. France, Japan, and South Korea have not committed warships to the US-led mission. Britain says it is discussing options with partners, but it has not yet announced a deployment. 

The pattern is unmistakable: Allies that once mobilized alongside the US now appear increasingly reluctant to bear security risks under its leadership. Part of this hesitation reflects the cumulative cost of years in which Trump and his MAGA followers have publicly disparaged allies, questioned security commitments, and treated the alliance system as a burden rather than America’s most valuable strategic asset.” 

EA: Trump starts a war with Iran without working with, or briefing, any of the US’s NATO allies or making sure the Gulf States are ready for it. And then he dismisses the NATO allies for not coming to his aid. That’s not the way these things are supposed to work.

RM: No, it isn’t.

EA: Earlier this morning I was reading a post by a French general who just berates Trump on his whole plan. That was one of the things he said, you just don’t do that. What do you expect your allies to back you for? You never asked them if they wanted to be involved.

RM: Trump was the one who ‘fixed’ something that wasn’t broke in his first admin. Iran was locked in a deal, and it was being monitored, where they were not going to be able to make a bomb. Trump ripped that up.

EA: Is there a point when allies, friends and trading partners just say enough is enough, we’re done with you?

RM: When the US causes so much pain that people start to realize, breaking away and taking away the reserve currency and having a basket instead, that’s going to cause us pain, but not as much as he’s causing us right now.

That’s a breaking point, or a tipping point and we are right at the cusp of China ascending and the US losing its hegemon.

EA: What’s going to happen when the Democrats gain control of at least the house in the midterms? He’s not consulting Congress anyway, but it’s got to make some kind of difference.

RM: With an approval rating of just 38% Trump is meddling in the mechanics of the November midterm elections, he understands the implications to his presidency if he loses the house. I think he’s searching for a way to cancel them. Because of war or something else, perhaps an American Spring.

EA: The problems are really starting to line up.

RM: Well, an American Spring could be set off by the unbelievable coming summer heat and massively rising food and energy costs for the average American. I mean, hey, when you can’t feed your kid and the kid’s crying because it’s hungry and you can’t stay in your apartment because it’s baking, you haven’t got a/c, people will take to the street.

EA: Look at what’s going on right now. Food inflation, electricity costs, and El Nino. You put all that together and then you put together the war and your future economic uncertainty.

American Spring — Richard Mills

RM: Everything that you’re doing is saying that you don’t have critical minerals and metals. Your digging a hole, you don’t have magnets, you don’t have the graphite processing capability, you don’t have the tungsten, you don’t have a lot of the stuff you need to sustain aggression or even a defensive posture.

Modern warfare seems to be morphing into who has the most missiles and drones wins. I can already see the writing on the wall as far as the US coming to Taiwan’s rescue when China blockades the island and starves them into submission.

And your country, it’s so divided, all social norms and expectations are being destroyed. And here you are dug in over your head, why are you still digging?

I wanted to ask that question because I know they haven’t stopped digging. 5,000 marines are heading to the Middle East; there’s many reports the 82 Airborne division have cancelled training and are on standby or deploying in response to tensions in the Middle East.

Trump hasn’t felt it in his bones yet. Everybody else is feeling it. Because this is driving up prices, forget about affordability.

EA: Trump sat there at the president’s desk and he said, “I had no idea they would bomb other countries and close the Strait of Hormuz.”

RM: Did he think it was going to be as easy and bloodless as kidnapping Maduro and his wife? Well, if he did it was because look who’s in charge of his terrorism and intelligent experts. Tulsi Gabbard got up in the senate and said it’s not my job to brief the president.

Excuse me? Yes, it is. That’s exactly your job. Your the United States Director of National Intelligence (DNI), overseeing the U.S. Intelligence Community. It’s right in the job description, ‘brief the president about known and suspected security risks, threat levels, immediacy.

How could anyone miss the part about Iran’s drones? Or their ability to close the strait for 6 months or strike their neighbors and American bases in the region?

It seems to be that no analysis from outside the White House actually reached Trump. If it did it was ignored. Gabbard recently admitted Iran had not restarted it’s nuclear program after the 12 day attack in 2024.

EA: They’re begging their neighbors to help now because they realize they can’t do it on their own. They’re begging Congress for money because they realize they don’t have enough munitions.

RM: This whole thing about the helping, it’s tied into a lack of resources to continue the fight. “Oh, we can do it on our own.” What the US wants is some countries to come in and clean up the mines Iran already has laid in the strait; they had somewhere between 3 and 5,000 navel mines.

But if Iran’s leaders start to think it’s over for them, and they are a long ways from that, they will mine the 4 very narrow shipping lanes. The US does not have much mine clearing ability, others like Denmark, remember Greenland, do, and are very capable.

President Trump denies he needs help, he denies he needs money for missiles and rare earths and magnets. He’s denied them both, so it’s official, the US is up shit creek and looking for paddles. It’s never official until it’s officially denied.

That’s why they needed $500 billion added onto the Defence Department 2026 budget, the $500B was asked for because they knew they were going to attack Iran, that’s my take, and it’s why they need another $200 billion now because they are burning munitions faster then can be replenished.

There is no easy solution for the US. To pretty much start from the ground up, without the refining and manufacturing technology is almost impossible. A decade and a half, 15 years, to get anywhere near security of supply.

So, in my opinion, they always had plans for boots on the ground because the ultimate goal for the US is exactly what they did in Venezuela; top leadership change and take over oil production.

EA: That’s a stretch Rick and certainly would result in many more Americans killed.

RM: China has critical metals, they control most of the critical metals needed for war fighting, up to 100% in many cases. For example, China will not sell REE’s or magnets to the US DoD, neither directly, nor let sales happen indirectly through another country.

But China has weakness, energy and food insecurity, they got oil from Venezuela, 600,000bpd in 2025 that they no longer receive, and they get much more from Iran. By the end of 2025, China was importing 1.4 million barrels per day (mbd) from Iran, this oil is still flowing at a reduced rate of 1.25mbd but for how long if the US occupies Kharg Island, Iran’s shipping center for it’s oil? China could be looking at being threatened with losing 2mbd!

Between stoppage of oil from the 2 countries China loses 15% of it’s oil supply. That’s a big irreplaceable hit and there is also sulphur – 47% of it’s supply – phosphate fertilizer production in China is essential for China’s spring planting season. Sulphur is also critical in the processing and recovery of copper and nickel, 50% of the Seabourne traffic in sulphur was through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center published an interesting read on how the closure will hurt, and might, at the same time advance China’s interests in East Asia.

Part II, about inflation and gold will be published next week.

Let’s end this here.

EA: Thanks Rick. 

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com

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