A conveniently leaked memo from the Pentagon a week before the Afghan government landed in London to sell mining rights, and the world is talking about the new giant lithium resource that could solve the potential supply problems if electric vehicles take off on a global scale.
The Pentagon memo, leaked at the end of June, said that a lithium brine resource found in Ghazni province could turn Afghanistan into the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”. Despite this being a term coined and repeatedly used for Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, it is a term that is generally wrong on many levels considering lithium is not a fuel source and one that lacks foundation in relation to Afghanistan.
The first slip by the US Defense department’s The Task Force for Business & Stability Operations (TFBSO) was that while showcasing the value of Afghanistan’s resources to the...