Saturday, October 22, 2005

IS RUSSIA DOOMED?

Mark Steyn thinks so:
Russia has all the EU’s problems to the nth degree, and then some. ‘Post-imperial decline’ is manageable; a nation of psychotic lemmings isn’t. As I’ve noted before in this space, Russia is literally dying. From a population peak in 1992 of 148 million, it will be down to below 130 million by 2015 and thereafter dropping to perhaps 50 or 60 million by the end of the century, a third of what it was at the fall of the Soviet Union. It needn’t decline at a consistent rate, of course. But I’d say it’s more likely to be even lower than 50 million than it is to be over 100 million. The longer Russia goes without arresting the death spiral, the harder it is to pull out of it, and when it comes to the future most Russian women are voting with their foetus: 70 per cent of pregnancies are aborted.
Read the whole thing.

2 Comments:

Anonymous J F Beck said...

Debated whether to link to this piece because I seem to remember having a bit of a problem registering at the Spectator. Thought it was a good enough article to warrant the hassle.

10:59 PM  
Anonymous The_Real_JeffS said...

It sounds very good, but the Spectator "free registration" process is a pain. I'll wait for it to get posted at his web site.

1:09 AM  

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