Critical minerals have become a new fault line in global security.
From advanced weapons and defense systems to semiconductors, energy infrastructure, and emerging technologies, access to these resources is increasingly essential to national power and security.
China dominates many of the world’s critical mineral supply chains, creating strategic vulnerabilities for the United States and its allies – and intensifying the global competition to secure the resources that will shape the future.
Gracelin Baskaran, Director of the CSIS Critical Minerals Security Program, joins the Global Security Forum’s Fault Lines series to examine the geopolitics of critical minerals, China’s strategic advantage, and the growing race to secure the resources essential to economic and national security.
The details:
Tuesday, October 20 | 12:00pm ET
Zoom Webinar
Tickets: No charge, RSVP Required
This event is part of the 2026 Global Security Forum Series: Fault Lines.
The international system is under pressure. Alliances are fracturing and new rivalries emerging. Technology, energy, and critical minerals are the now lynchpins of national security. Fault lines are emerging where nations, interests, and competing visions collide.
Join us for GSF2026, where leaders, policymakers, strategists, and experts reveal the pressures reshaping global security – and the choices that will define what comes next.
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Featuring
Dr. Gracelin Baskaran
Director, Critical Minerals Security Program, CSIS
Dr. Gracelin Baskaran is director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is a mining economist and has spent over a decade working on critical minerals globally.
She began her career in South Africa’s platinum belt and later spent five years at the World Bank in South Africa, where she coauthored the book Africa’s Resource Future: Harnessing Natural Resources for Economic Transformation during the Low-Carbon Transition. She recently published a policy playbook, Critical Minerals and the Future of the United States Economy, and is now writing a book on an international strategy for critical minerals engagement for the United States.
Dr. Baskaran is also an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University, where she teaches critical minerals in the Center for Security Studies. She was a Fulbright Scholar and has held positions at the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and the University of Cape Town.
Dr. Baskaran has been cited as an expert in The Economist, Financial Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Fox, CNN, Bloomberg, and BBC, and regularly appears on television. She has authored more than 200 policy reports, white papers, and op-eds.
In 2025, Mining Journal ranked Dr. Baskaran No. 8 on its “Top 50 Most Influential” list—the only woman in the top 12. She regularly speaks at international conferences and policymaker forums and has testified before the U.S. Congress. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
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