

College of Arts and Letters
The Notre Dame International Security Center (NDISC) provides a forum for national security scholars to come together to explore the most pressing issues in national security policy.
September 18, 2023
By Michael C. Desch
In December 2022, Time magazine named the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky its Person of the Year. The reasons seemed obvious: When Russia invaded in February of that year, few thought that Ukraine would survive more than a week, or that its president would remain at his post in Kyiv. But Zelensky, who had been a comedian and actor before his unlikely landslide election victory in 2019, defied Russian airstrikes and mobilized his countrymen, rebuffing Western offers of evacuation: “I need ammunition, not a ride.” His unexpected courage helped to rally Ukrainian forces against Russia’s northern thrust. He also reminded many of the two-time Man of the Year—in 1940 and 1949—Winston Churchill.
August 11, 2023
U.S. defense demand, however, accounts for only a fraction of the country’s total demand for these two minerals. This means that if Washington chose to prioritize defense uses of the minerals, “it would likely find enough non-Chinese material to continue defense production,” Eugene Gholz stressed.