https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2022/03/01/on-ukraine-comedians-nato-america-and-environmentalists-n2603946?utm_campaign=inarticle

The total fertility rate in Russia was in 2019 1.5 children per woman per lifetime. That in the U.S. was 1.7. Russia’s has fallen off in the last few years (it was 1.84 in 2016, the same as ours), but is much improved from what it was in 2000 (1.16). The mean for the EU is 1.5. South Korea’s is 0.9 and has been below replacement level for > 40 years.

Art Deco, thanks for your usual economic research. Data is one thing, seeing the facts on the ground is another. I’ve been there. I have contacts who go there frequently. No western European citizen or American would move there for the standard of living, to say nothing of the corruption. Why aren’t the Russians having children? Because there is little optimism about the future, and they can’t afford the cost. Vlad has not succeeded as a populist – only as an oligarch.

Again, Unz hosts a blog of street-level Russian nationalists. This is what they tell themselves. They’re all literate in English, a number are expatriates, and the moderator lived in the United States for 26 years.

Russia is a high-middle income country which has seen handsome improvements in economic and social conditions over 20 years. They’re as affluent as they have ever been vis a vis the west. It is the Ukraine that is severely underperforming economically. Russia underperforms in public health.

What we’re facing is a function of Russia’s prosperity, intermediated through the madcap desires of a controlling section of their political class.

Good point.

I think what this neglects, however, is the social border. The Rio Grande isn’t a consequential impediment to the movement of troops. The Polk Administration sought the area north of the Rio Grande because it was bereft of Mexican settlement. Texas had about 3,000 Mexican settlers in 1836. The native born population of California in 1850 was less than 7,000, similar to the population of the Spanish missions at the close of the 18th century. New Mexico had about 60,000 residents. The rest of the territory was populated with aboriginal bands.

The analogue to American (and Canadian) expansion is not any activity in Europe. It is the Russian settlement of Siberia, which was contested by just whom? That area you say Russian nationalists want has 120 million people living in it and a domestic product of around $3 tn (Russia’s population is about 150 million and its domestic product is around $4.3 tn). And you’re going to take it over and stomp ’em all into submission. That’s Hitler-level lunacy.

It’s a very comprehensive and detailed (for its conciseness) view of how Putin likely sees the world.

I think at this point, it’s best for Ukraine and allies not to respond directly to anything that comes out of there.

Just DO what they think fit and issue an accompanying blurb: “What we are doing is for the interests of peace and the well-being of both Ukrainians and Russians.” PERIOD.

Otherwise, one gets caught up in the “framing” and “shaming” game—and given Russian pre-eminence in that department, one ends up ALWAYS playing defense.

The natural borders of the United States are the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Great Lakes, and the Rio Grande. The Roman Empire’s natural borders were the Sahara Desert, the Atlantic Ocean, the Rhine, and the Danube.

Many Russian nationalists see Russia’s natural western border being the Carpathian Mountains, the Baltic Sea, and the Gulf of Bothnia.

Pull out a map of Europe and look at Russia’s current western border. It starts in the north near the North Cape and meanders southward along the borders of Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine until it reaches the Sea of Azov. Nowhere along that border is a natural feature that would stop a modern army. It’s just a curve on a map.

Now draw a line from the North Cape to the Gulf of Bothnia, another one from the Gulf of Gdansk to the northern tip of the Carpathian Mountains, and finally one from the southeastern tip of the Carpathians to the Black Sea. The length of those lines is much, much shorter than Russia’s current western border — only about a third as long. The rest of the border comprises natural features difficult for armies to cross.

If you were tasked with defending a border against a rich and increasingly united people to your west, all other things being equal, which border would you rather defend?

This is the border nationalist Russians want. It’s also why they are threatening Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria in addition to Ukraine (they’re already all but annexed Belarus). To tie this back to a previous thread, NATO expansion doesn’t threaten Russia’s existing border. It threatens the border they really want.

I also pulled together some references on Zelenskyy that paint a very intriguing picture of the newest Hero of the Age.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/02/27/reading-putins-mind/#comment-2610288

And more questions than there are answers at the moment.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/02/27/reading-putins-mind/#comment-2610260