It’s the topology, not the geography
Post 4 of a series on globalization, concentration, and strategic de-risking.
On July 19, 2024, a flawed software update from a single cybersecurity vendor, CrowdStrike, took roughly 8.5 million Windows machines offline in about two hours:
Hospitals turned away patients. Delta cancelled thousands of flights and later estimated the disruption cost it half a billion dollars. Banks, broadcasters, 911 dispatch centers, and supermarket checkouts went dark across four continents.
The cause was not a foreign attack or a trade dispute. It was one vendor, with one update, that turned out to be installed on the security backbone of much of the modern economy.
Seven months later, in February 2025, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, controlling roughly 70% of the world’s cobalt mines, suspended exports. Prices had collapsed to a nine-year low, and the government wanted to push them back up to protect its mining revenues. It worked. Prices roughly doubled within months, and every battery maker on earth had to rethink its plans. The DRC never made a threat. It didn’t have to.
These look like different stories, They are the same story told twice.
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