August 4, 2026
Gallium? More like galli-YIKES
Gallium: Why the US Cannot Produce Precision Missiles and Fully-Functional F-35s
America’s super-jets hit a metal snag — and commenters say the article is the real malfunction
TLDR: The article says the US is dangerously reliant on China for a key metal used in military electronics, worsening delays in F-35 radar systems. Commenters, however, mostly roasted the piece as clickbait and “AI slop,” arguing the bigger problem may be hype — not just supply.
The big claim in this Sonar21 piece is pure geopolitical panic fuel: the US depends on China for gallium, a little-known metal used in advanced electronics, and that dependency is helping jam up weapons production, including newer F-35 fighter jets. The article says some planes are even being delivered with counterweights in the nose while they wait for the proper radar system — an image so absurd it practically wrote the internet’s jokes for it.
But in the comments, readers were far less interested in patriotic alarm bells than in dragging the article itself. One camp argued the piece wildly oversold the story, with critics saying the headline screamed “missile crisis” while the article mostly described a delayed fighter-jet radar program. The hottest accusation? That this was just clickbait with extra doom. Others piled on with the now-standard online insult of 2026: calling it AI slop, with one commenter saying they wished the publisher had at least tried to hide it.
Still, not everyone was just there to sneer. One of the more substantive replies pushed back on the scarcity narrative, arguing gallium isn’t some magical rare treasure chest material — it’s spread around widely, but hard to extract economically. That sparked the real nerd fight underneath the snark: is this truly a China chokehold, or a self-inflicted industrial mess dressed up as a thriller? Either way, the community verdict was brutal: the metal story was interesting, but the comment section thought the article itself was the real crash landing.
Key Points
- •The article says the United States has had no primary domestic gallium production for decades and is 100% reliant on imports.
- •It states that China controls roughly 94% to 98% of global raw gallium production because of its dominance in bauxite and zinc processing.
- •The article says China banned exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the US in December 2024, including to US military end-users, and later shifted civilian exports to a licensing regime while keeping military restrictions in place.
- •It reports that F-35s from Lot 17 onward have been delivered with counterweights in their nose cones instead of radars.
- •The article attributes the immediate F-35 issue to delays in the AN/APG-85 radar program, a gallium-nitride-based system requiring major aircraft cooling, power, and structural changes.