China’s grip on rare-earth magnets could crush US drone industry before it grows

Modern battlefields consume drones the way 20th-century conflicts consumed artillery shells: by the thousands, every day, with no end in sight. Ukraine built 5 million drones last year. Russia launched 805 in a single night against Ukrainian cities. In this kind of warfare, victory doesn’t go to the side with the most sophisticated weapon but to the defense industrial base that continues manufacturing at scale. And production, in the age of drone warfare, starts with a permanent magnet. Every mo