Chapter 4, Part 2 of the edited volume Industrial Open Strategic Autonomy in the Indo-Pacific offers a timely analysis of a challenge that sits at the very core of defence preparedness: secure access to critical raw materials (CRMs).
Authored by Irina Patrahau and Benedetta Girardi, the chapter ‘Key technologies for Open Strategic Autonomy in Korea and the Netherlands: Critical Raw Materials for Defense’ makes clear that modern defence capabilities, from sensors and missile systems to space, cyber, and AI-enabled platforms, are strongly dependent on a small set of materials characterised by high geographic concentration and growing geopolitical risk. For technologically advanced but resource-dependent countries such as the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea, this creates structural vulnerabilities that traditional defence-industrial planning often overlooks.
The chapter highlights the explicit linkage between CRM dependency and defence readiness, situating raw and processed materials firmly within the concept of open strategic autonomy. Rather than advocating isolation or self-sufficiency, Patrahau and Girardi argue for managing dependencies through diversification, cooperation, and strategic coordination, especially among like-minded partners in the Indo-Pacific and Europe.
This perspective strongly aligns with earlier HCSS work on critical raw material for defence, which has consistently shown that the most acute defence bottlenecks increasingly lie far in the mining and especially processing of minerals, beyond prime contractors and Tier-1 suppliers. HCSS research has also underlined that these vulnerabilities tend to surface precisely when defence demand spikes during crises – when markets are least able to adjust.
By bringing critical raw materials into the defence supply-chain debate, this chapter reinforces an important policy message: CRM governance is no longer a peripheral industrial or sustainability issue, it is a core defence policy concern. Integrating raw material strategies with defence planning is becoming essential for maintaining credible, resilient defence capabilities in an era of systemic competition.
Authors: Benedetta Girardi and Irina Patrahau
Partner institution: Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
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