Nikolas Gvosdev

DOE is funding $10M–$50M pilots to recover critical minerals from industrial by-products - 🚨 We’re looking for processors/operators to team up on this 🚨 . They want to back novel processing… | Alexan... DOE is funding $10M–$50M pilots to recover critical minerals from industrial by-products - 🚨 We’re looking for processors/operators to team up on this 🚨 . They want to back novel processing facilitie...

The DOE announcement … www.linkedin.com/posts/alexan...

Solving the US military's gallium dilemma requires turning trash into treasure Gallium, a key metal in US defense, mostly comes from China. To ensure war readiness, the United States must diversify its supply.

www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energy...

Yes, we also had a discussion on why recycling matters. Thanks!

Solving the US military's gallium dilemma requires turning trash into treasure | Nikolas Gvosdev Michelle Michot Foss spent a good part of her presentation at Naval War College Foundation Newport #NatSec symposium walking the audience through the importance of gallium.

www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

Why gallium matters …

The post below is a reminder that much of the world’s officials and commentators are posting elsewhere and that engagement across platforms is critical to staying informed …

Vladyslav Vlasiuk 💙💛🇪🇺 on X: "Good meetings at the 🇺🇸Treasury and State Department. We discussed sanctions and other ways to constrain Russia’s economy and military-industrial complex. There’s strong understanding on many points and solid cooperation overall." / X Good meetings at the 🇺🇸Treasury and State Department. We discussed sanctions and other ways to constrain Russia’s economy and military-industrial complex. There’s strong understanding on many points and solid cooperation overall.

x.com/vladvlas/sta...

Find this reporting fascinating because suggests at sub-bureaucratic level policies on Russia sanctions continue as standard operating procedures while at the principals level we get different signals …

Water Security and National Security: A Texas Perspective | Gabriel Collins posted on the topic | LinkedIn Water Security = National Security. JPMorganChase has just unveiled its Security and Resiliency Initiative. Closer to home for us Texans, Bloomberg has a recent piece by Kevin Crowley Faith (Isbell)...

More signs of a shift from viewing the food-water-energy nexus (#trilemma) primarily as a development/human security question into a #natsec challenge even for the developed nations

www.linkedin.com/posts/gabeco...

The Iron-Dollar Crack: BHP’s Quiet Surrender to the Yuan | Nikolas Gvosdev First India settling some oil contracts in RMB, now this. More signs of bifurcation and that we will see emergence of a yuan hedge …

First oil, now iron ore … shift to settlements using RMB helps to bifurcate the global trading system …

www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

So Turkey making it easier for citizens of other Turkic states to work in Turkey. This is very interesting and having read Parag Khanna’s #MOVE Ankara wants to be able to draw on a Turkic human capital pool-encouraging immigrants from similar linguistic/cultural backgrounds.

Another indication of preference both for commercial diplomacy and relying on trusted family members; from Indonesia’s perspective, this is more likely to reflect what POTUS wants than having a deputy Secretary.

A lot of policy initiatives are in the air-Gaza plan being the most notable-but rule of 10+50 says at some point detail development and execution has to be handed off to lower levels. Do we have the people in place and do they enjoy trust of the executive?

Forty years later, we circle back to this: Kenneth Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better,” Adelphi Papers, Number 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981)

The U.S. Department of War is racing to stockpile $1B worth of critical minerals to counter China’s dominance of global supply chains. This is a short term approach. These include cobalt, antimony… |... The U.S. Department of War is racing to stockpile $1B worth of critical minerals to counter China’s dominance of global supply chains. This is a short term approach. These include cobalt, antimony, t...

1) can the U.S. outbid other buyers by offering a better price? 2) will other countries release what they hold and hope to recoup down the road and 3) will the PRC penalize third countries who engage in #roundabout efforts to bypass Chinese restrictions?
www.linkedin.com/posts/alexan...

The latest round of trade escalation between the US and China is the result of serious miscalculation by the US—Beijing takes BIS’s 29 September rule expansion as a unilateral provocation. 1. The… | ... The latest round of trade escalation between the US and China is the result of serious miscalculation by the US—Beijing takes BIS’s 29 September rule expansion as a unilateral provocation. 1. The Gen...

Highlights possibility of major disconnects when leaders conduct personal diplomacy at the highest levels but organizations within government continue to follow their orders and standard operating procedures ...

www.linkedin.com/posts/fengch...

Liquified Natural Gas Risks Becoming a Bridge to Nowhere The conventional wisdom says liquified natural gas is the future of energy — bridging the gap between the world abandoning fossil fuels and renewable supplies coming online. But that rosy outlook face...

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Energy Common Sense The AC Gap and Back to Nuclear: Japan’s Nuclear Power Politics

One of the markers of a middle class lifestyle is being able to live and work in comfortable climate-controlled spaces. Delivering the energy to power AC will become part of the #prosperity_legitimacy_equation but will exacerbate the energy leg of the #trilemma. open.substack.com/pub/carolynk...

#orbis | Nikolas Gvosdev Put this observation in context at the Waverly Heights international relations forum: the political crises all throughout the post-industrial democracies reflect that the post-Cold War cycle in domest...

All throughout the post-industrial democracies we see weak governments and exhausted political parties ... making it less likely we will see decisive action to address the challenges of the day ... www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

Opinion | The Chinese robots are coming | Selina Xu Read our piece on Chinese robots in The Washington Post! Robot dogs. Humanoid helpers. Entirely automated dark factories without human workers. These might seem straight out of a sci-fi novel, but t...

Geo-technological mandate for national security ... infrastructure, supply chains, energy, partnerships .... www.linkedin.com/posts/selina...

So it seems Aliyev did to Putin what Putin did to Erdogan: kept up the pressure until Putin offered an apology for the downing of the Azal jet ...

The announcement: www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/ar...

Discussed this last night with "alumni" of the USS Massey gathered for their annual reunion ... that PRC is in a position to use its export controls to impact U.S. manufacturing ... | Nikola... Discussed this last night with "alumni" of the USS Massey gathered for their annual reunion ... that PRC is in a position to use its export controls to impact U.S. manufacturing ...

China’s export controls on critical minerals can be used to impact U.S. manufacturing … www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

This is an important development to track. First we had the Saudi petro-yuan possibility; now we have India using yuan to settle Russian oil purchases--moving away from the cumbersome efforts to… | Ni... This is an important development to track. First we had the Saudi petro-yuan possibility; now we have India using yuan to settle Russian oil purchases--moving away from the cumbersome efforts to conne...

Canary in the coal mine? India settling some purchases of Russian oil in Chinese yuan (RMB) ... per @vtchakarova.bsky.social ... www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

Wondering extent to which checkbook/commercial diplomacy akin to what Saudis did for Taif settlement for Lebanon in 1989 is playing a role in current Gaza talks.

Per @massdara.bsky.social Russia is adapting, passing lessons to partners ... is NATO adapting as well? www.linkedin.com/posts/nikola...

My professional timeline right now is made up of four distinct silos wrt the principal global threat/challenge we face, in roughly this order:

1. AI

2. Russia

3. China

4. Climate

I'd reverse the order and eliminate the silos.

But most notably, Trump II has no plan for dealing with any of them.

Preparing for the Death of Putin Vladimir Putin turns 73 on Oct. 7. That's old for a Russian, but even if he is fanatical about his health, he cannot continue indefinitely. Strategic stability in Europe's future depends on treating P...

Because of the interruption of track 2 encounters between American and Russians, we are less familiar with the political dynamics in Russia, and the rising generation of leaders is better known in Asia than here ... www.rand.org/pubs/comment...

How Russia Recovered What the Kremlin is learning from the war in Ukraine.

Very important analysis from @massdara.bsky.social
… Russia learning from its mistakes and adapting …
www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/how-r...

For all the talk about Tomahawks to Ukraine, on top of surging demand elsewhere, components and labor remain critical bottlenecks to scaling up production. 2/

Great discussion by @soliman.bsky.social at @fpri.bsky.social. Even with increases in defense spending, it is the capacity to produce at scale which is going to matter. Do you have the supply chains, raw materials and components in place and the industrial capacity and the requisite labor force? 1/

#china #iran #sanctions | George Voloshin, CAMS CGSS The WSJ has an interesting story out about how #China and #Iran use multi-billion-dollar barter schemes to conduct bilateral trade, in this particular example bartering Iranian crude oil for Chinese e...

A great discussion (and graphic) on how China operates its #roundabout system to obtain Iranian oil to circumvent sanctions. www.linkedin.com/posts/george...