Demographic disaster may have an unappreciated upside

During the coming decades, it may become increasingly difficult to induce Americans to help defend any of the increasingly numerous countries with birth rates far too low to replace their population, even if a country in question is democratically governed.

There is scant evidence that a country’s having a birth rate far lower than is needed to replace itspopulation now diminishes Americans’ willingness to help it defend itself. US Senator JD Vance, speaking on the Senate floor on February 12 to oppose further US military aid to Ukraine, pointed out that “not a single country – not even the US – within the NATO alliance has birthrates at replacement level.” But did not mention Ukraine’s birth rate, which is lower than that of any NATO country save Malta.

However, American pundit David P. Goldman, in essays about Taiwan and Ukraine published by Asia Times in October 2021 and January 2022, suggested that those polities’ very low birth rates might warrant limiting Western military support for them. That may be a harbinger of things to come.

The global demographic predicament

In recent decades, the birth rate of nearly every country in the world has fallen. Nothing suggests that this trend might be reversed in the foreseeable future.

Starting in the 1970s, more and more rich or middle-income countries have come to have total fertility rates (a TFR is the average lifetime number of live births per woman) much lower than are needed to replace the population. Save for Israel and Saudi Arabia, no rich country now has a TFR above 2.1, which is the rate needed for population replacement if child mortality is low and the female proportion of live births is not artificially diminished.

Countries with TFRs now near or below 1.3