Vlad the Impaler and population

turns out actions have consequences

We are all aware the war in Ukraine is now into a second year, perhaps ninth if one goes back to 2014 when Vlad the Impaler seized Crimea and shot down an innocent Malaysian airliner. It remains a brutal, bloody ground war of attrition as Russians have waged war for centuries.

We discussed demographics in Asia week before last in the context of Northeast Asia where aging is a real problem but there is not current war underway. Many stories focus on the Middle Kingdom’s issues in particular, as did a piece just this week again pointing out younger Chinese are reluctant to have more children for the very reasons we have discussed before: costs, aging parents, women working, etc.

Far less focus considers the even more troubling question of Russia’s population collapse. I first heard a speaker in the fall of 1992 predict uninterrupted problems for the Kremlin resulting from demographic collapse. I had been aware that Russia suffered some real negatives for their society, including ever more drinking among the population and a drug problem imported by troops returning from the disastrous