A shot in the dark, but the Malthusian theory of population suggests war is beneficial to local officials and leaders when they think the younger generation is growing at a sufficiently rapid pace that they are about to be replaced (‘vent the testosterone’, so to speak). The absence of such a growth spike is a mark against this explanation.
More generously: if the birth rate is below replacement, losing young people in a war has drastic consequences for the population ~20 years from now, since it will at least for a while drop far below replacement. If the birth rate is higher the consequences of losing a fraction of your youngest people are, in the long run, less severe.
At this moment in time >99% of humans are not at Malthusian limits and majority of wars of the past 100-200 years have been fought between societies not at Malthusian limits.
The simple story that wars are started by a small group of elite insiders driven by ideological commitments, perhaps fanned by larger nationalistic/jingoistic/militaristic/etc sentiments in the larger populace seems far more plausible.
I still don’t get the logic here. It’s not like modern wars cost millions of lives (unless it goes nuclear, in which case nothing matters); how can birth rates ever be a factor.
From what I’ve read, Russia’s stockpile of precision guided munitions is low, so this war may not look very “modern” past the initial stages. If Russia ends up adopting the same tactics it used in the Second Chechen War and causes the same amount of casualties on a per capita basis, Ukraine would end up suffering 2.5 million deaths.
What does the birth rate have to do with war?
A shot in the dark, but the Malthusian theory of population suggests war is beneficial to local officials and leaders when they think the younger generation is growing at a sufficiently rapid pace that they are about to be replaced (‘vent the testosterone’, so to speak). The absence of such a growth spike is a mark against this explanation.
More generously: if the birth rate is below replacement, losing young people in a war has drastic consequences for the population ~20 years from now, since it will at least for a while drop far below replacement. If the birth rate is higher the consequences of losing a fraction of your youngest people are, in the long run, less severe.
At this moment in time >99% of humans are not at Malthusian limits and majority of wars of the past 100-200 years have been fought between societies not at Malthusian limits.
The simple story that wars are started by a small group of elite insiders driven by ideological commitments, perhaps fanned by larger nationalistic/jingoistic/militaristic/etc sentiments in the larger populace seems far more plausible.
I still don’t get the logic here. It’s not like modern wars cost millions of lives (unless it goes nuclear, in which case nothing matters); how can birth rates ever be a factor.
From what I’ve read, Russia’s stockpile of precision guided munitions is low, so this war may not look very “modern” past the initial stages. If Russia ends up adopting the same tactics it used in the Second Chechen War and causes the same amount of casualties on a per capita basis, Ukraine would end up suffering 2.5 million deaths.