Ahem. Wait just a minute, Lar' - wanna think this one over again? I'd love to hear a plan under which we can force Third Worlders not to fornicate, but that strikes me as just a teensy bit impractical. I'm not sure the motto of the 101st Airborne is likely to be changed to "Helping Poor People Not To Screw Since 2005!" I could, of course, be wrong about that.
There is an inevitability in demographics that is illusory over the long term. I doubt if many would have predicted twenty years ago that the problem with world population would be its decline among certain wealthy nations. I suspect a similar decline may be in store for many of the poor ones as well. No one is really sure where these things originate - it isn't, as predicted, a function of food availability or natural resources such as water or oil running out. It is simply happening.
It happened in Rome during the first four centuries of the last millennium. Fertile migratory peoples simply out-bred, out-marched, and eventually out-fought the enervated Romans and took the place over. The Romans attempted to solve the thing with closed borders and migration policies, freezing of class mobility, and government subsidies for large families. Didn't seem to help a bit.
Close the borders to the First world thus preventing the Third World from exporting its problems. Widely distribute condoms and pills. They'd cry "racism" of course...but we could counter that we're not forcing them to do anything except take responsibility for their own kids. If they don't have the resources to support them then they shouldn't have them.
What would then follow is an attempt by them to prevent export of resources vital to our economy (they would attempt to make us live by our own advice). It could get real ugly...but it could be much worse if we just let things take their course and world population spirals out of control.
Not great or easy choices.
No one is really sure where these things originate...
That's true.
...it isn't, as predicted, a function of food availability or natural resources such as water or oil running out.
But this is only partially true. When natural resources run out population definitely declines...one way or another.
It happened in Rome during the first four centuries of the last millennium.
the Roman parallel is to inexact to be useful. Too many things have changed or are different.
I doubt if many would have predicted twenty years ago that...population would...decline among...wealthy nations
True...and disturbing. What was hoped for was stability. Not decline.
In particular, the demise of the Empire brought about general population decline all over Europe as chaos and continual warfare resulted in outright slaughter, disease, and the breakdown of the food chain. Barbarians did not "simply out-breed, out-march, and eventually out-fight the enervated Romans" as moralists have too often said.
It's also worth looking at the larger picture, at the demise of other empires. In truth, the connection between population size, or growth rate, and military strength is tenuous at best.