“Water is a huge problem, as you all know, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Tajikistan has one of the greatest water potentials in the world. . . we have got a water resources task force now set up in the Department to examine how we can additionally help the countries of the area, and particularly Pakistan with the water issue.”
Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, Briefing on his Recent Trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Georgia and Germany, March 2, 2010.
For today’s Top 5 list I decided to examine the most prominent energy chokepoints around the world. Since shocks to oil transit systems in any one region can affect prices worldwide, it’s good practice to know the basics of these chokepoints.
The Strait of Hormuz
Perhaps the best-known and most fretted-over chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The reason is simple: about 20 percent of the world's traded oil (between 16 and 17 billion barrels per day) transits this passage, which is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. 
There are also potential dangers specific to the Strait of Hormuz, namely Iran’s oft-analyzed potential to mine the strait to temporarily slow or stop freighter traffic. Caitlin Talmadge’s 2008 International Security article gave an open-source technical explanation (pdf) for how the strait could be mined, and a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence examines Iran’s overall naval strategy in the Gulf (pdf). If you’d like to earn a full certification in my proposed new international relations subfield known as “Hormuz Mining Studies,” there are yet (pdf) more analyses readily available. Many of these analyses, however, are careful to note that Iran would suffer serious economic consequences from shutting the strait down, and analysts tend to agree that an Iranian mining campaign would be an operation of last resort.
The Middle East is rightly seen as a center of global energy supplies and production, hosting several of the world’s top petroleum and natural gas giants. But, as it turns out, oil and gas—so vital to the world’s transportation and electricity—are not evenly spread around the region, and some nations are truly energy poor. With this in mind, I present the top 5 most energy-poor Middle Eastern nations. It’s important to keep in mind that lists like this are a snapshot in time, and the facts and figures themselves are fluid and dynamic. Lebanon may strike a huge oil field in next three months (not terribly likely), or Yemen’s oil may run out in 2017 (very likely, as pointed out by my CNAS colleagues [pdf]). While I consider these the top five, they are not ranked in any particular order.
Today we’re starting a semi-regular series called “Top 5.” You may be asking “Top 5 what?” We will be periodically examining some general background of the larger issues we analyze by looking at major characteristics of the things of which we speak. That might sound vague, but that’s because it is intended to be a flexible device. For example, we may take snapshots of the top 5 oil producers, top 5 reserve holders of certain minerals, top 5 provinces currently negotiating water treaties involving hydroelectric damming of Himalayan water sources, or anything else we think might be helpful to you and for our own research. And we of course welcome suggestions for top 5-style explorations that would provide useful background to any natural security topics.
With all this in mind, today I am examining the top 5 countries that export rare earth elements (REEs) to the United States. These elements—used in products ranging from catalytic converters (pdf) and mp3 players to precision-guided munitions (pdf)—are commonly grouped together because of their chemical similarities, but the name is confusing because they’re not particularly rare. I am choosing to use the term “rare earth elements” instead of “rare earth metals” or “rare earth minerals” because it is the preferred term of the National Academy of Sciences, which issued an excellent report in 2008 entitled Managing Materials for a Twenty-first Century Military. This report notes two different series of elements are often included under the banner of REEs: the lanthanide series (atomic numbers 57 to 71) and the actinide series (atomic numbers 89 to 103), along with individual elements scandium and yttrium. But not all sources (pdf) include the actinide series when talking about REEs. We will keep our focus away from the actinide series for the sake of this post, since the actinides include the radioactive elements, and radioactivity raises special complications.
