The strategic race India can't lose

A resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war seems imminent. The contours of the peace may depend on Volodymyr Zelenskyy's final offer of American access to his country's considerable critical mineral resources. Not long ago, America's involvement in foreign wars or conflicts centred around the geoeconomics of oil. The technologies of the "future" — electric vehicles, renewable energy, high-tech semiconductors, etc — all are critical-mineral-intensive. Critical minerals — copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, rare earths among others — are the new oil with great influence on not just economics but over war and peace. India must take note. In the second half…