Whether it’s oil & gas or crucial inputs like gallium or cobalt, import restrictions/high prices rarely produce a complete breakdown. Because markets find alternatives. What’s scary is knowledge-based chokepoints. There’s no easy solution. That’s where GOI should focus
Every few months, a new article sounds an alarm that our adversaries control some material we had never heard of before. Pattern is predictable. First comes the jaw-dropping statistic: Country X produces Y% of the world’s supply of Material Z. Then the breathless conclusion: our supply chains are vulnerable, we must act. Govts oblige, with yet another industrial policy measure. By the time it is operationalised, spotlight moves to the next, obscure chokepoint. This whack-a-mole supply chain geopolitics is a weekly routine.