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Notes -
As someone pointed out below, rare earths aren't valuable. Furthermore, the largest mining company in the US that does them operates a single mine in California; a concession in a war zone probably doesn't appeal to them too much. But even if all of the above didn't matter, so what? I don't see how a mining concession is different than any other business interest or how the presence of a mining operation is supposed to be some kind of deterrent. If Russia wants to attack Ukraine, the miners aren't going to start shooting at them. The US isn't going to start a war against Russia over potential disruption of an unprofitable mining operation that's probably mostly Ukrainian workers anyway. If this is what counts as 3D chess, consider me unimpressed.
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