Bangladesh, May 30 -- The world has spent decades understanding conflict through the lens of oil. From the Middle East to Central Asia, strategic resources have shaped alliances, wars, and the global balance of power. Yet as the twenty-first century advances deeper into the digital age, a new geopolitical reality is emerging. The critical resources that power artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, advanced semiconductors, renewable energy systems, drones, and modern weapons are no longer oil and gas alone. Increasingly, they are rare earth elements and critical minerals.

Few places illustrate this transformation more clearly than Myanmar.

What began as a brutal civil war following the military coup of 2021 is gradually evolving int...