Many factors have been floated to explain Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and a desire to restore Soviet power.
But Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Bulgaria, and Stephen Holmes, a law professor at New York University, argue that President Vladimir Putin’s decline in Russia may be important.
In analyzing in Foreign Policy of December 6, compared the “crying wars” in the 17th and 18th centuries, when Native American tribes stole the women and children of other tribes to make up for losses in war or disease.
“In many ways, it is like a modified version of such a war, an attempt to replenish the dwindling population by forcing people closer to Russia,” Krastev and Holmes wrote. “Although the attack was undoubtedly fueled by imperial ambitions, Western anger, and a desire for Great Power recognition, it may have been offset by Russia’s rapidly declining, aging, and emigrating population.”
(For his part, Putin cited the lies of a “neo-Nazi government” in Ukraine, led by a Jewish leader, as his justification for the invasion.)
Russia has faced a population crisis for years, prompting the Kremlin to try to boost fertility by offering tax breaks and increasing child care for low-income families.
But this has not prevented the birth rate reaching its lowest level in the last 25 years. Coupled with recent war deaths and a similar exodus of young people, the population appears to be dwindling at an alarming rate.
It currently stands at around 146 million, up from 148 million in the early 1990s, and the United Nations has predicted that it could drop to 74-112 million by 2100.
This has become top of mind for Putin, even before he starts his war in Ukraine. In a 2021 speech to Russian schoolchildren, he preached the importance of increasing population, which he sees as more important for national security than landmass.
“Putin understands that, in the world of tomorrow, Russia will be a land giant and a small population,” Krastev and Holmes said.
Unfortunately, Russia’s war in Ukraine has involved the abduction of many children, adopted by Russian parents, they say.
After failing to increase Russia’s fertility rate through pro-natalist policies and increasing life expectancy, Putin “seems to have concluded that the only way to achieve a significant increase in population is to integrate and subjugate culturally related neighbors, by force if necessary.”
Putin also sees a huge amount of need to use resources in the Arctic that are increasingly available from climate change, Krastev and Holmes added.
Meanwhile, he sees Western feminism and LGBTQ-friendly laws as reasons for Russia’s declining population and as part of a strategy to make the country childless, they explained.
To be sure, some countries, especially in the developed world, are experiencing low birth rates and declining or outright decline in population. In Japan, for example, the Tokyo municipal government is already replacing the four-day work week with childcare to encourage people to have more children.
And as bad as Russia’s demographic trends look, Ukraine is getting even worse, potentially influencing how and when Kyiv might reach the end of the conflict, according to Krastev and Holmes.
But even when the war ends, it may be followed by similar conflicts in other places.
“The loss of life experienced by the most prominent groups in history seems to be preparing the way for end-time violence, fueled by fear of global extinction,” they warned.
This story was originally posted on Fortune.com