PATTAYA, Thailand – In the 21st century, global power is no longer measured primarily by troop numbers or nuclear warheads. Instead, it is increasingly defined by control over scarcity energy, critical minerals, and the semiconductor supply chains that underpin modern economies. The United States, as the world’s dominant power, is actively reshaping the global order by redesigning supply chains to secure strategic advantage. The objective is clear: reduce dependence on geopolitical rivals, particularly China, while locking access to key resources within trusted alliances. This is not economic policy in the traditional sense. It is geopolitics by other means.
Critical Minerals: the quiet weapons of the modern economy
Rare earth elements and other critical minerals lithium, gallium, antimony, cobalt are not necessarily rare in nature. What makes them scarce is that mining, refining, and processing are highly concentrated, overwhelmingly in China. Today, China controls close to 90 percent of global rare-earth processing capacity. This concentration has turned minerals into strategic chokepoints. Electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, satellites, advanced weapons, and semiconductor manufacturing all depend on materials whose supply can be disrupted with a regulatory decision or an export restriction.
That reality explains why, in 2025–26, the United States and its G7 partners elevated critical minerals from an industrial concern to a national security priority. Washington has proposed multi-billion-dollar funding mechanisms to boost domestic production and build strategic stockpiles, while expanding cooperation with allies such as Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. The Pentagon’s direct investment in gallium production underscores how blurred the line has become between economic policy and defence planning.
Silver and Gold: signals from the physical world
Financial markets may still treat precious metals as speculative instruments, but the physical world tells a different story. Silver, in particular, is no longer just a store of value. It is an industrial metal essential to semiconductors, solar panels, and high-precision electronics. In 2025, silver prices surged dramatically in some periods rising by more than 150 percent reflecting genuine supply stress rather than mere financial speculation. New sources of silver are increasingly difficult and costly to develop, while industrial demand continues to accelerate. Gold, too, has reasserted its geopolitical role. In an era of sanctions, currency weaponisation, and fragmented financial systems, physical metals have regained strategic importance. What trades endlessly on digital platforms is becoming harder to obtain in reality.
Semiconductors: a war without gunfire
If minerals are the raw materials of power, semiconductors are its final product. The United States has moved aggressively to re-shore chip manufacturing through policies such as the CHIPS Act, while restricting the transfer of advanced technology to strategic competitors. This is not simply about economic competitiveness. Control over semiconductors means control over artificial intelligence, advanced weapons systems, telecommunications, and the digital infrastructure of modern life. It is a silent war, fought through subsidies, export controls, and industrial policy rather than armies.
Thailand and ASEAN: outside the battlefield, inside the shockwaves
Thailand and Southeast Asia may not possess large reserves of critical minerals, but they occupy a strategic position in the reconfigured supply chains. Manufacturing, assembly, and logistics hubs in the region are increasingly drawn into great-power competition, whether they seek it or not. The consequences arrive quietly. Currency volatility, energy costs, investment flows, and production expenses fluctuate not because of local policy decisions, but because of strategic calculations made thousands of kilometres away. This is the downstream impact of geopolitics invisible on diplomatic communiqués, but highly visible in electricity bills, consumer prices, and business costs.
Expats at the end of the geopolitical supply chain
Foreign residents living and working in Thailand are among the first to experience these downstream effects. Income earned abroad is exposed to currency swings. Savings and investments are influenced by movements in gold, silver, and energy prices. Decisions about property ownership, business investment, or long-term residence increasingly reflect global instability rather than purely local considerations. At the same time, expat movements themselves have become a ground-level indicator of geopolitical stress. Where people choose to live, invest, and relocate often signals shifts in global confidence long before they appear in official economic data.
A New Order, already arriving
The reordering of the global system is not taking place solely at summit meetings or through grand declarations. It is unfolding through mines, refineries, chip factories, and everyday economic decisions. In a world where resources have become instruments of power, distance from decision-making centres offers no immunity. For Thailand, ASEAN, and the expat communities embedded within them, the new geopolitical battlefield is not a future scenario. It is already shaping daily life quietly, persistently, and often unnoticed until the consequences are impossible to ignore.
