Reshaping America’s Critical Materials Strategy

The Arlington Doctrine is a demand-driven approach to securing defense-critical supply chains.

David Argyle is co-creator of the Arlington Doctrine and a builder of integrated allied supply chains, with expertise from midstream processing to upstream assets. David is CEO of Arlington Innovation Partners, founded to secure America’s critical materials.

Hanna Tomory is an engineer and head of Palantir Technologies’ Canadian commercial practice, as well as an advisor to Arlington Innovation Partners.

Imagine the development of America’s next fighter jet, submarine, or quantum computer grinding to a halt—because its supply chain is controlled by a geopolitical rival. This isn’t a hypothetical—it’s the reality of America’s current critical materials supply chains.

For decades, the United States has relied on foreign-controlled sources for both critical materials and products made from them. These materials power our most vital technologies. This vulnerability isn’t just an economic risk. It’s a direct threat to national security.

Large programs to onshore all or most mineral production may be a worthy investment over the next 10 to 20 years. However, opening new, large mines in the United States requires billions of dollars of capital expenditures per mine and arduous permitting timelines that can last decades. The resulting ore for many minerals would still need to be shipped to China for processing unless the buildout of domestic processing facilities massively accelerates.

There is a faster way, feasible in months and years, not decades.

The Arlington Doctrine: A Demand-Driven Strategy

The defense industrial base and related markets, including nuclear, robotics, aviation, and critical infrastructure, consume only 3 to 5 percent of critical materials in the United States. By focusing on the much smaller demand for these markets, what we call the “Arlington Doctrine,” named after our firm Arlington Innovation Partners, offers a timely roadmap to onshore the entire value chain for critical materials.

The Arlington Doctrine is a downstream, demand-driven strategy. It starts with the end-product, such as advanced magnets critical for fighter jets, submarines, and next-generation technologies, and works backward to secure every link in the supply chain. It leverages existing, installed, and nascent U.S. and allied capacity, ensuring that critical manufacturing capabilities, such as magnet production, are the focal point. From there, the doctrine locks in the necessary midstream processing and upstream resources, with a focus on small-scale, recently decommissioned or mothballed projects that sidestep the environmental and regulatory obstacles associated with large-scale projects. The end result of this cascading approach is an integrated, resilient supply chain to meet the needs of the most important markets and that is fully onshore—away from China.

In a world characterized by geopolitical tension and supply chain vulnerabilities, the Arlington Doctrine offers a paradigm shift in how America secures its most essential resources. The Arlington Doctrine isn’t just about mining more intensively or sourcing more raw materials, although both have their place. It’s about securing outcomes: the critical end products that keep America prosperous and free.

The doctrine also prioritizes speed, accelerating traditional supply chain timelines by leveraging existing and nascent capacity. By focusing on downstream demand and utilizing and expanding already-installed infrastructure, the doctrine delivers results in months, not years, ensuring that critical end products reach the defense industrial base and other critical industries faster than ever before.

Thinking From End Products to Raw Materials: A Demand-Pull Approach

The Arlington Doctrine’s brilliance lies in its simplicity and its clear focus on outcomes. Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential for many advanced technologies, such as high performance magnets that are the critical enablers of U.S. defense and technological superiority. But simply securing REE supplies isn’t enough. Issues continue downstream, in the refining and production of REEs.

The distinction between sourcing REEs and producing an end product is crucial. It shifts the conversation from the volatility of global commodities markets to the certainty of domestic manufacturing capacity for critical materials. By starting with the product and building backward, the Arlington Doctrine ensures that every upstream and midstream investment serves a clear, understandable, strategic end. There’s no capacity building for the sake of it; instead, investment and policy are targeted directly at the heart of the problem.

This approach stands in stark contrast to past policies, which often prioritized raw material extraction without a clear path to end-product manufacturing. The result? Fragmented supply chains, foreign dependencies, and a host of strategic vulnerabilities. The Arlington Doctrine corrects this by asking a simple question: “What do we need to build, and how do we ensure we can build it here in America?”

Reindustrializing: Using Existing Strengths and Leveraging Installed and Emerging Capacity

The Arlington Doctrine leverages existing infrastructure to the greatest extent possible. Rather than advocating for costly new mining ventures with decade-long timelines, the doctrine focuses on using and building upon what already exists, driving cost-efficiency and speed.

The United States already has downstream facilities and excellent pilot-scale knowledge of both manufacturing and processing that can be scaled rapidly. By expanding midstream processing, such as refining and alloying, and aligning upstream mining to the smaller demand represented by the defense industrial base, the doctrine creates a secure pipeline from raw material to finished product, entirely driven by the pull of the end product.

Contrast this approach with the dominant strategy that has guided Washington for years, without delivering results. For example, the Critical Supply Chain Action Plan was touted as an effort to address supply chain dependencies for REEs and critical materials, yet it has not yet achieved meaningful onshoring steps. The only tangible movement in five years has been the funding of a handful of projects that aim to onshore largescale processing of select rare earths, including a pilot manufacturing facility for MP Materials.

In 2023, when China announced a ban on exports of its rare-earth extraction and separation technologies, U.S. programs to build major processing and downstream facilities onshore were still ad hoc. Today, as China tightens its export-control regime, not a single of the 17 REEs and dozen additional critical minerals required by our defense industrial base has been onshored end-to-end.

A different approach is needed.

Outcome and Solution Chains: A Blueprint for Resilience and National Security

The Arlington Doctrine isn’t merely about constructing supply chains; it’s about creating outcome chains and solution chains that fundamentally transform how critical materials are secured and utilized. Every link in the chain serves a clear, strategic purpose, driving toward the production of essential end products for Protected Markets.

Outcome chains focus on consistently delivering the right end products, such as advanced magnets and other mission-critical systems. These chains start with the needs of Protected Markets and work backward, ensuring that every upstream and midstream process directly supports the final product.

But the Arlington Doctrine goes further with the concept of solution chains: dynamic, adaptable systems designed not only to secure materials and products but also to actively solve complex supply chain challenges. Solution chains seek to anticipate disruptions, adapt to rising geopolitical shifts, and maintain supply continuity, even under duress. They create resilience within the system, ensuring that supply pathways remain intact and adaptable to evolving demands.

Beyond resilience, solution chains offer policymakers a strategic lens, highlighting weak points in the supply chain before they escalate into critical failures. This proactive insight enables smarter policy decisions, guiding investments to reinforce the most vulnerable links and ensuring continuity under any scenario.

This dual framework transforms how policymakers, investors, and industry leaders view critical materials. Rather than focusing on isolated supply chain elements, like raw ores or single points of production, the emphasis shifts to holistic, results-oriented ecosystems that prioritize both end-product delivery and long-term supply chain resilience.

This paradigm shift also ensures that government investments yield measurable results. Instead of funding speculative projects—whether in mining, processing, or manufacturing—without a clear link to downstream demand, resources should target initiatives that deliver tangible outcomes. These outcomes directly support the defense industrial base and other Protected Markets, while leaving consumer markets to self-regulate.

Artificial intelligence and data-driven decision making are key to the rapid and effective development of both outcome chains and solution chains, serving as an accelerator and trust enabler in upstream, midstream, and downstream projects. Palantir’s ability to accelerate upstream extraction is well known through its extensive AI-powered work with metals and mining corporation Rio Tinto, which has resulted in projects ranging from achieving a 150 percent faster excavation rate at a project in Canada to the safe, effective management of geotechnical risk at the Oyu Tolgoi underground block cave mine in Mongolia. The same software also helps Rio Tinto coordinate the haulage of 53 driverless trains on the world’s largest (and first heavy-haul) autonomous train network.

In today’s volatile geopolitical climate, AI-infused resilience at every step is necessary. By focusing on end products and working backward, the Arlington Doctrine ensures that every upstream and midstream data-optimized decision supports the broader goals of national security. That’s why the doctrine isn’t about better mining—it’s about better outcomes. It’s about ensuring that America can produce what it needs, when it needs it, at sane cost, without relying on adversaries or fragile global supply chains.

REalloys: The First Instantiation of the Arlington Doctrine

Nevada-based REalloys, the first company created in alignment with the Arlington Doctrine, exemplifies the strength of the approach. The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), a midstream lab facility in Canada, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with REalloys to develop a strategic collaborative relationship in which SRC will provide services to REalloys in support of its effort to develop a secure, resilient North American rare earth element supply chain. Both light and heavy rare earths are able to be sourced from the nearby Hoidas Lake Rare Earth Project and other verified sources including recycled magnet material, ensuring supply chain diversity and resilience. This immediate, vertically integrated supply of oxides and metals from SRC enables REalloys to feed these essential materials directly into its downstream magnet manufacturing partner Powdermet’s facility in Euclid, Ohio, creating a fully integrated, secure, and North American supply chain. The rare-earth magnets Powdermet’s patented processes are able to create are destined for applications such as Columbia-class submarines and other critical defense applications.

This supply chain is fully verified, resilient, and free from adversarial control. It stands as the first real-world example of the Arlington Doctrine’s principles in action, transforming theory into practice. REalloys demonstrates how demand-driven, integrated supply chains for the Department of Defense and America’s defense industrial base can be established quickly, efficiently, and entirely within North America, safe from foreign interference and supply disruptions.

The success of REalloys proves that the Arlington Doctrine isn’t theoretical. The next step is to replicate this success across other critical material supply chains, starting with end products and building backward to midstream and upstream processing and sourcing.

From Doctrine to Deployment

The Arlington Doctrine offers a clear, actionable roadmap for securing America’s critical materials. Keeping a laser focus on end products and leveraging existing capacities to serve Protected Markets avoids the pitfalls of past strategies, which overemphasized raw material extraction and large scale production vulnerable to commodity price shocks. It creates short, resilient supply chains and, most importantly, purpose-driven outcome and solution chains that end with the production of essential goods, not halfway points.

This is about safeguarding America’s future, ensuring that the materials fueling our defense, energy, and technology sectors are sourced, processed, and manufactured within our borders or by trusted allies. In an era where supply chain security is synonymous with national security, this demand-driven, outcome-focused approach is exactly what America needs. The time for theory is over. The time for action is now.

You can read more about the Arlington Doctrine here. You can learn more about REalloys’ advanced magnet production here, on LinkedIn, and on X.