Toward Programme
Don’t just secure critical minerals supply. Look for substitutes.
ASPI The Strategist Institutional·2026-09-21TradeP1: Resource SovereigntyP3: Industrial BaseP5: Strategic Decoupling
Why it matters
The article advocates for material substitution as a formal third pillar of Australia's critical minerals strategy, complementing extraction and processing. This directly supports Pillar 1 (Resource Sovereignty) and Pillar 3 (Industrial Base) by reducing Australia's exposure to concentrated foreign (particularly Chinese) supply chains and enabling domestic advanced manufacturing.
Pillar tags and the significance note are AI-classified (Claude) and human-curated. The platform's own preparedness scores never move on a single story without a separate human approval.