The Russian May Day parade has come and gone without Putin announcing either and end to the invasion of Ukraine, or a mass mobilization. So expect more of the same for the immediate future.
Lots of people have speculated on why Russia invaded Ukraine when it did. One reason floated is that they had to act now before the demographic crash makes such action impossible.
“One hundred and forty-six million [people] for such a vast territory is insufficient,” said Vladimir Putin at the end of last year. Russians haven’t been having enough children to replace themselves since the early Sixties. Birth rates are also stagnant in the West, but in Russia the problem is compounded by excess deaths: Russians die almost a decade earlier than Brits. Their President is clearly worried that he’s running out of subjects.
It’s a humiliating state of affairs because Russian power has always been built on the foundation of demography. Back in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville foresaw that Russia would become a world power, because “Russia is of all the nations of the Old World the one whose population is increasing most rapidly”. The only other country with its population potential was the United States. De Tocqueville prophesised that, “Each one of them seems called by a secret design of Providence to hold in its hands one day the destinies of half the world.” A century later, they were the world’s two uncontested superpowers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia’s population was 136 million, and was still booming, just as those of other European powers started to slow. Germany’s population was 56 million, excluding its colonies, and the threat of ever-larger cohorts of Russian recruits into the Tsar’s ranks haunted Germany’s leadership; historian and public intellectual Friedrich Meinecke fretted over the “almost inexhaustible fertility” of the Slavs while Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg complained that “Russia grows and grows and lies on us like an ever-heavier nightmare”. This pressure was probably the decisive factor in Germany’s 1914 leap in the dark. German Secretary of State Gottlieb von Jagow wrote to the German ambassador in London as the storm was gathering that “in a few years, Russia will be ready … Then she will crush us on land by weight of numbers.”
n the First World War, it turned out, numbers were not enough to compensate for Russian industrial and organisational inferiority. But by the Second World War, Russia’s numeric superiority had exploded. Despite the horrors of Civil War and Bolshevism, the nation’s population grew at about three times the speed of Germany’s in the opening decades of the century. The army had an endless supply of soldiers, the military infrastructure an endless supply of workers, giving the country a decisive edge in the Forties. Vast spaces and appalling weather helped, but ultimately it was the endlessness of Russian manpower which ground down the Wehrmacht in what was perhaps the most epic military struggle of all time. Field Marshall Erich von Manstein complained as he faced Russia’s armies: “We confronted a hydra: for every head cut off, two new ones appeared to grow.”
But if demographic prowess buttressed Russian power then, population decline has undermined it in the years since. Most nations have developed out of the high birth and death rates seen throughout most of human history: as mortality and then fertility falls, first the population expands, then it flattens; eventually, it may contract. But in Russia this process has taken place with a vengeance.
At the time of its dissolution, the Soviet Union was the home of 290 million people, 50 million more than the USA. Today, the Russian Federation has less than half that number — and less than half of the USA’s current total. In large part, this is the result of the loss of non-Russian republics, including Ukraine (which at the outbreak of the current conflict had a population of 43 million). But in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet period, the country also collapsed into an orgy of suicide and alcoholism, particularly affecting the country’s men.
One journalist in Russia at the time wrote about how “the deaths kept piling up. People … were falling or perhaps jumping, off trains and out of windows; asphyxiating in country houses with faulty wood stoves or in apartment with jammed front door locks … drowning as a result of driving drunk into a lake … poisoning themselves with too much alcohol … dropping dead at absurdly early ages from heart attacks and strokes”. By the early years of this century, life expectancy for Russian men was on par with countries such as Madagascar and Sudan.
It’s hard to fight for the future when you’re unwilling to show up for it.
Peter Zeihan (yeah, that guy again) argues that, despite their numerous setbacks, the Russians aren’t going to give up.
A few takeaways:
Since we know that the Russians intention is not to stop in Ukraine and is to go into multiple NATO countries, we know that that fight between American and Russian forces is destined to happen, and we now know how it will end: The Russians will be obliterated and they’ll be faced with a simple choice: A strategic retreat across the entire line of contact all the way back to Russia, maybe even further, or escalate to involve nukes, since the Russians see this as an existential crisis, that’s a fight we have to prevent. And so the United States specifically, and NATO in general is sending any weapon system that we possibly can that can be carried or put in a truck.
I have significant doubts that Zeihan’s “plugging historical invasion gaps” is the driver for this conflict, mainly because such terrain gaps came be overcome in a more modern, dynamic geospatial war envelope by use of air, land, heliborn and remote-piloted combatants. Tactically still very significant, strategically less so. I think Russian chauvinism despises the very idea of a free and independent Ukraine, and lot of Putin decisions seem to be driven by ego. Pro-natalist policies like tax and welfare incentives seem a much better way to deal with their looming population crash than a risky invasion. But Putin makes all sorts of stupid calculations. And seeing his army’s performance in Ukraine would cause a sane man to back away from open conflict with NATO.
But Zeihan’s theory that the U.S. and NATO see this as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to defang Russia short of a direct conflict with NATO countries strikes me as correct.
Tags: Crimea, Crimean War, drone, Military, MQ-9A Reaper drone, NATO, Peter Zeihan, Predator Drone, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukraine, video, World War I
The professional politicians (republican and democrats) wants perpetual war because it’s good for business. It’s part of the reason that they hate Trump, because he ended their wars. Biden’s puppet masters want a prolonged war in Ukraine.
Biden recently asked for $33 billion for aid to Ukraine. Imagine how much of that will be redirected to the “big guy” (a.k.a. Biden)?
“Pro-natalist policies like tax and welfare incentives seem a much better way to deal with their looming population crash than a risky invasion.”
Uh-uh. Only force and cultural change work.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/the-return-of-patriarchy/
Zeihan is a fool if he thinks Russia can try the same tactics in Ukraine that they did in Syria or Chechnya. Ukraine is four time larger than either of those countries. It is almost as large as Texas. The Russian don’t have the munitions to Flatteni all the civilian structures in the major cities in Ukraine. They are having trouble doing it in Mariupol which is a city of about 100,000.
To put that in Texas terms Waco is larger than Mariupol. Beaumont is about the same size. So, imagine Russia steamrollering through Texas, starting at Beaumont. It takes them two months and a good chunk of their ready ammo to flatten Beaumont and take it. How much longer do you think it would take them (at the rates of advance seen in Ukraine) to get to Houston, much less San Antonio?
BTW, Texas has a population of 28 million, Ukraine 44 million, Russia 160 million. Russia’s economy is the size of Italy. It requires foreign imports to manufacture munitions, let alone tanks. Where is Russia going to get the wherewithal to conquer a nation just smaller than Texas if the population of that country is willing to fight the Russians the way the Ukrainians have?
Russia did full on natalism . It pushed the rate by .3 or so from 1.3 to 1.6
This is about the same as the US where we do the same and no ethnic group other than Pacific Islanders has replacement fertility.
Simply, you can’t raise, goose or nudge fertility up in any meaningful way with economic measures.
Adding citizens through conquest and creating a stouter border makes some sense strategically but in the long run isn’t effective.
Only fairly extreme patriarchy and probably a religious revival will work and no one in the West , East or Russia is willing or able to go down that route.
I read that the U S was sending superior artillery fuses to Ukraine. With the anticipated artillery duels will these be game-changers, as they allow far more potent air-bursts?
I might well have something on that tomorrow…
Animated demographic pyramid for Russia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrX-cTaKSl0
It’s … no bueno.
In the wars in which Russia / the Soviets overwhelmed by their manpower they were supplied with arms and equipment by Great Britain (WW I) and the US (WW II). Obviously that isn’t going to happen this time around. Moreover the US has 14 million men of military age while Russia has 4 million. In the US the low birthrate is countered by the huge illegal Hispanic immigration. These immigrants have some education, come from a European Christian background, seek to found small businesses and serve bravely in the military. So the manpower edge is gone as well.
No one has ever found a way to maintain or increase the birthrate in modern times except the presence of a group believing in a traditional religion allied to a traditional family. Certainly Putin will not change this situation. His support for the Russian Orthodox Church has not altered the Russian birthrate.
“I read that the U S was sending superior artillery fuses to Ukraine. With the anticipated artillery duels will these be game-changers, as they allow far more potent air-bursts?”
That’s late-WWII-era thinking. Today’s artillery is enhanced by intelligence, accuracy, speed, and flexibility. Drone oversight and use as forward observers probably matter more. The video of artillery strikes I’ve seen seem to be relying on accurate, quick delivery of two or three rounds per tube, then wrapping up and going away. Counterbattery fire is a big enough worry that you want your initial and follow-up rounds to count. No more walking rounds onto the target, or massed battery stonks.
The big kills seem to be against headquarters, with their easily-pinpointed communication footprints. Since the RF are doing a punishingly large percentage of their communications in the effective clear, they’re very vulnerable to quick, nasty artillery concentrations. This was apparently how Gerasimov was wounded, in a strike that also killed a large number of officers.
Kind of crazy that women’s lib and birth control is all it took to destroy the West and much of the modern world demographically, leaving their lands ripe for invasion from the third world—as we see happening every second of every day—which ultimately may lead to a reversion to the sub-Saharan fertility levels which presently have Africa bursting at the seams, as the immigrants bring change to their new homes after the fashion of their old homes.
A variation of the hard times / hard men / weak times / weak men cycle.
The Russians are pretty much screwed, and have been screwed since the Germans let Lenin go home from Switzerland through their territories. Had Russia managed to avoid WWI and even saddled with the idiot Nicholas II, there’s no telling where they’d be today. That “industrialization miracle” that the Communists made happen would have happened just the same, naturally, and it would have grown into a much different class structure and history than the current lot of Russians are stuck with. Communism destroyed Russia’s potential, there’s no two ways about it. First, it utterly ruined any chance of a middle class developing, and second, it put idiots like Lenin and Stalin in charge. The millions of dead from all the purges and pogroms would have been handy to have around, when it came time to actually develop the country, but with the Communists having killed all of them…? Imagine WWII happening without Stalin’s little gifts to Hitler, and still having all the staff personnel and leadership cadres he killed off in the purges…? D’ya think that the Soviet Union would have still suffered 20 million dead in that war?
Communism was a straight-up disaster for Russia. More than likely, it’s killed them dead, and they just don’t know it. Criminality, amorality, and an utter disregard for human life is baked into Russian culture, these days, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. I’ll lay you long odds that if Putin is crazy enough to push the button for a nuclear war, the resultant “surprise” when most of their weapons turn out to have been compromised or outright stolen will leave a lot of people speechless. And, I’ll guarantee you that even Putin’s yes-men don’t know the real answers about nuclear readiness…
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“Paradoxically, casualties in war may lead to baby booms when families decide to have more kids to ensure survival of at least some even if there is another war.”
Your typical post-war baby boom happens when you’ve either won a war, or when the end of that war includes hope for the future. Post-whateverthehellwe’regonnacallit for Russia? I don’t see the populace having a hell of a lot of “hope for the future” after it is all over. More than likely, it’s going to be “ignominious defeat”, and collapse of Russia as we know it. Ukraine? Oh, yeah… There’s gonna be a baby boom there, supposing the place isn’t radioactive. Russia? Screwed.
And, I say that as someone who likes and respects some Russians and some aspects of their culture. The sad thing is, Putin has perfectly exploited a cultural weakness in the Russian psyche, their love for having some “strongman” type tell them how to run their lives. They loved the Tsar, no matter how despotic he was, so long as he kept them above a certain misery level. Same with the Communists, same with Putin. Hell, you can still find actual victims of Stalin out there who’ll tell you that he was a great man, never mind the fact that he got them into a huge war and killed at least 20-30 million people in the former Soviet Union. Russians are schizoid about that whole thing; if you ever point out how Stalin enabled Hitler, and supplied all the resources he needed to pull off France 1940, never mind what they did to Poland together, then they’ll just stick their fingers in their ears and go “NA-NA-NA, NOT LISTENING, Great Patriotic War, Germans bad…” There is zero recognition of what Stalin did, or their own personal culpability as Soviet citizens was. In the final analysis, the things that Stalin enabled Hitler to do to France and the rest of Europe got revisited tenfold on the Soviet Union. Average Russian, however? Refuses to even entertain the idea, or acknowledge that other people see things differently.
[…] As this other article (which references that first) points out, one of the real, unspoken reasons for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may have simply been the prospect of instantly adding 40 million Russian speakers to the Motherland: […]
Intent: Weaken NATO.
Actual effect: Finland and Sweden join NATO. Defense budgets in several formerly less-enthusiastic NATO members go up. Cooperation goes up. Everyone sanctions Russia.
Intent: Bring in more Russophonic people.
Actual effect: Ukraine gains more of a national identity under pressure and threat. Russian-speaking Ukrianians abandon Russian as a language, seek to identify with Ukraine rather than Russia. Emigration of Russians with transferable skillsets increases. Net effect: Fewer Russians, and the remaining ones are all the sort you don’t want, anyway–Gopniks, as they’re termed.
Should be an educational shitshow to watch, like the organic farming idiots in Sri Lanka…