Russia Nears a Milestone

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 5 December 2012 | LUKAS I. ALPERT

[MinorityRepublican]

MOSCOW—Russia is on target to register its first natural population growth since the fall of the Soviet Union, with a slightly higher number of births than deaths being recorded so far this year, the labor minister said Wednesday.

Through the end of October, Russia had recorded 790 more births than deaths—a minute advance, but one that could mark a potential turning point in a troubling demographic trend that has seen the country's population on the decline since the early 1990s.

"Cumulative natural growth was recorded from the start of the year for the first time in many years," Labor Minister Maxim Topilin said.So far, Russia's birth rate in 2012 has risen 7% rise on the year with an increase seen in 80 of the country's 83 regions. Meanwhile, Russia's death rate has fallen 1.5% in the same period, the ministry said. In all of 2011, Russia saw 132,000 more deaths than births, the state statistic service said.

The figures stand in contrast to predictions made by many demographic experts in recent years—including the United Nations Population Division—that Russia faces a serious demographic crisis, with the potential of seeing its population fall by as much as 30% by 2050. But those who have kept a close eye on the situation warn that despite the signs of a turnaround, Russia faces a long road ahead.

"Demographic trends are like oil tankers—you cannot turn them around immediately," said James Nixey, a Russian policy expert at Chatham House in London. "What seems to me to be important is the working-age population—and actually that is something we do know 18 years ahead of time and it is rather depressing news for Russia."

Russia's demographic decline was so steep in the 1990s that the country was losing more than one million people a year.

[nathanbedford]

"a troubling demographic trend that has seen the country's population on the decline since the early 1990s. (Emphasis supplied)"

Why this obsession with fecundity? We no longer live in the Edwardian age, we do not need upstairs help or downstairs help, stable help or nursery help; we have electricity, modern conveniences, robots etc. We actually live much better than the nobility of the late Victorian or Edwardian age.

Oh, you mean we have to have more babies so that we can sustain Social Security and Medicare? So you think that the way to ameliorate Ponzi schemes is inveigle more participants?

"Russia's demographic decline was so steep in the 1990s that the country was losing more than one million people a year."

If the United States were to lose 1 million people a year it would take more than a century and a half to restore the country to the condition it was in when I was born. At that time, on the few superhighways we had, there were considerably fewer traffic jams, taxes were lower, schools were better, crime was less, culture was higher.

Please explain to me why we need now to go from 310 million inhabitants to 400 million? Why is the gain of population a good thing and the loss of population necessarily a bad thing?

[JoeProBono]

[cunning_fish]

Russia is an absolute different case. There are more than two times fewer of them, they have 10 time zones and billions of angry people on the south who hate and want to kill them.

[nathanbedford]

So do the Israelis. Do you suggest their survival lies in increasing manifold their population?

[cunning_fish]

Absolutely.

[nathanbedford]

Actually, Russia's economy is almost entirely limited to extraction industries, oil minerals and so forth. Therefore, every new mouth in the population reduces or dilutes the original population's share of the value extracted-assuming anything like an equitable distributive share.

One can say that I have lost one half of my ownership in America Inc. as a result of the dilution of my stock by more than 50%. It may be that some new members of the population have increased overall wealth but they have also made increasing demands on that wealth, certainly they have made increasing demands on the natural resources, not excluding national parks for example, which waters down my share. Additionally, new members of the population have caused my taxes to increase to fund infrastructure and schools etc. which further depreciate the value of my stock and reduces my dividends.

Neither Israel nor Russia will be the stronger for increasing their populations. Each might well be weaker. Wars are going to be fought by robots and satellites not by World War I him masses of infantry or even World War II masses of infantry. Israel cannot possibly free increase its population of less than 10 million enough to cope on a man-to-man basis with its enemies in the Arab-Muslim world which amount to more than one and a half billions.

Israel's answer, like Russia's and ours is to increase efficiency, exploit technology, and improve the lifestyle of a static population, hopefully a shrinking population, to make the job easier.

If you have an increasing population, you will have socialism, I repeat, you will have socialism. It is inevitable that citizens will turn to the government to protect them against the encroachment of their neighbors. I Just heard on the news a few moments ago that the EPA is going to regulate at great expense freshwater, by defining it to be a pollutant. All of this is inevitable not just because of the mindset of the left but because the left will exploit the press of humanity to get its way and there will be no option for the beleaguered individual but to turn to the government for protection.

[BobL]

“Please explain to me why we need now to go from 310 million inhabitants to 400 million? Why is the gain of population a good thing and the loss of population necessarily a bad thing?”

It’s called China. Yes, we can stick our heads in the sand, just like we did in the 1930s, but that doesn’t mean the bad people in the rest of the world will go away and never bother us.

Life isn’t that easy - sorry.

[BobL]

“Wars are going to be fought by robots and satellites not by World War I him masses of infantry or even World War II masses of infantry.”

We tried your scheme in late 1990 in Iraq, only to be laughed at by them. It took boots on the ground to actually win that war. We tried the same stunt in Kosovo...same results.

I keep hearing your prediction, and keep seeing it proven wrong.

[nathanbedford]

It’s called China. Yes, we can stick our heads in the sand, just like we did in the 1930s,

I assume you are referring to the 1930s invasion by the Japanese of Manchuria and China, an example of a numerically inferior population easily conquering a numerically superior population by having resort to technology and organization. Do you suggest that, 80 years later, we attempt to match the Chinese in population? I think it might be better to resort to technology.

"Life isn’t that easy - sorry."

No need to be condescending, Bob, specially since your condescension is wide of the mark. Nowhere in my original or in any subsequent post did I suggest that we ignore China or anyone else. I suggest we defend ourselves by being smart, not numerous. Hydrogen bombs,like Sam Colt's revolver are great equalizers and have no respect for numbers.

[Moltke]

bmfl

[BobL]

“Do you suggest that, 80 years later, we attempt to match the Chinese in population?”

You remind me of the people in college saying that if we had 10 nukes and the Soviets had 10,000, they couldn’t do anything to us, since we could (maybe) hit Moscow. So why did we need the other 9,990 nukes. Luckily we had adults in charge then.

Well you can keep with your depopulation dreams, even you know it ain’t happening, and we are going to have more and more people (and, unfortunately, of the wrong type).

[nathanbedford]

Actually we used technology in the Balkans as we did in Libya and very few boots on the ground in either place.

As to Iraq and Afghanistan, in our quest to fight smart we might ask ourselves why do we have boots on the ground in either place? A misplaced fear of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? A misplaced notion that occupying Afghanistan will somehow make us safe from 19 fanatics with box cutters? Perhaps we should reevaluate what we are trying to accomplish in the war on terror. Maybe we should just bomb the hell out of them, that seem to work in Libya. Putting boots on the ground and pouring blood and treasure into the Sands of Iraq and Afghanistan are sequelae to 9/11 but how do they advances the war on terror, they merely impoverish us and make our citizens even more resistant to combat. The result? A caliphate from the border of China to the Atlantic shores of Africa and Iran stronger than ever and soon to have the bomb. For this you want to put more boots on the ground?

Have we actually won the war in Iraq? A lot of people do not think so. Many of them live in Iran.

Whatever your views on these specific engagements, you still have not demonstrated a nexus between our security and a growing population.

[cunning_fish]

Israel has efficience, Russia has a room to increase it as well, it was a #2 industrial power just 30 years ago after all.

[nathanbedford]

I dream many dreams, like a country devoted to its constitution, a federal government which taxes little and spends less, a land where liberty thrives, dreams that are no more likely than a dream of a stagnant or shrinking population.

You apparently not only have given up on these dreams but you relish the prospects of a swarming of population and a shrinking of liberty. You can have a swelling population or you can enjoy your Second Amendment rights but, ultimately, you cannot have both. You can have a swelling population or you can have liberty of disposition over your own real estate but you cannot have both. The list goes on and on.

For the record, I have never advocated a reduction of nukes. I have been on the side of Eisenhower on that matter since the 1950s. Without nukes, population means a great deal, with them, population becomes targets.

[BobL]

“Actually we used technology in the Balkans as we did in Libya and very few boots on the ground in either place.”

It was surrogates in both countries, but it was boots. We didn’t conquer one square meter of territory ourselves there.

Look at Afghanistan - we stuck in a bunch of forts. Taking one step out gets us shot at (or worse). The women there ARE STILL having to dress like astronauts to go outdoors - we influence nothing in that country. The Taliban own it, just as they did before we invaded. We’d need half a million troops there to have any control over it. Drones just don’t cut it. Sorry.

[nathanbedford]

Israel has efficience, Russia has a room to increase it as well, it was a #2 industrial power just 30 years ago after all.

I do not think that was the case.

[BobL]

“You can have a swelling population or you can enjoy your Second Amendment rights but, ultimately, you cannot have both.”

The population has practically doubled in my lifetime and now I can carry guns around and buy 50 cals. Seems to me that both is possible - provided that the makeup of the population is correct (which I pointed out earlier). The idea that there is some upper limit to population bothers me - in theory there might be (and there probably is), but that limit is defined by the capability of the people and is likely very, very, high. When the indians ruled, 2,000,000 was the most this land could sustain, and no doubt that there were some chiefs worried about “over active” squalls, even then.

[cunning_fish]

Imagine California had a population of only 5 million Americans in 1990. It could be effectively Mexico. I agree with you about explosive population growth. It is not good, really. It is not the case for both Russia and Israel anyway.

[nathanbedford]

Look, you may say the British won the war in Afghanistan in 1898, by 2010 they were out. You might say that we won the war in Iraq but there is no guarantee that Iraq will not revert into an Islamist state. You are quite right about Afghanistan, but what is your point? Do you want to fight a war in Afghanistan man for man? What happens if you win it? One year later after we are gone the women will still be in burqas and the men will still be walking around with Kalashnikovs and they will be superstitious and as primitive as ever.

My point is that if a country poses an existential threat to the United States, we should react in a manner that is congruent with our national interests. We have not done that in Iraq or Afghanistan. But that has nothing to do with the necessity to maintain 400 million people instead of 300 million people so we can fight these kinds of wars. Can you honestly say that if we had 500 million people living in America that the outcome in Iraq or Afghanistan would have been different? The first question you have to ask yourself, do we want to fight these kinds of wars? Second, if we are forced into such a war, do we fight it the way we fought Iraq and Afghanistan or do we change the rules of engagement?

I believe that these wars have made us less safe because they have impoverished us, they have put Barack Obama in office, and they have foreclosed wars on the ground from being waged when and where they are necessary, as might well be the case in Iran.