First things first : WAR is abhorrent and by no means do we want to glorify or give the impression that violence is ever “needed” but while humans still play the power projection game, the currency of which is Blood, it will still continue to be true that War is part of life.
It is why we so strongly want to have a Bitcoin Standard for earth as we believe it transfers most kinetic war into the Digital realm with electrons not blood being the currency. If you don’t understand what we are going on about then a good starting point would be this Article.
Demographics
The Russian demographic landscape is facing some serious long term issues that we feel are not being covered by the Media as it arguably provides justifications and explanations as to why Putin is doing what he is doing. Rational justifications go against the official Western narrative (Putin is bad, we are good).
To accept the official narrative is one thing but to believe it is another. As cynical as it sounds, there is no good and evil at the nation state level, only winners and losers, with the winners writing the history with themselves as the goodies. Each nation is in competition with the others to obtain the resources it needs to survive and thrive. To survive, anything is permissible. Thriving is where the moral waters can get a bit murky. We do not aim to justify them or glorify them but to better understand the action rather than just assume Putin is a raving nutcase. He has significant national security reasons along with “logical reasons” for taking his most recent actions.
Don’t shoot the messenger, just read and consume for reference.
Basics
WW1 decimated the male population for a whole generation. This damage was so significant that the numbers of men left were insufficient to regenerate the population after 1920 before they then ran straight into WW2 in 1940.
WW2 was no kinder on the young male Russian population after which modern living under communism pushed vast swathes of Russians into City / Town living in High Rise buildings which in turn reduced the birth rate significantly.
You have more kids when working the farm with lots of land and not being killed. You have less kids when you live in a 650 square foot apartment.
We then see huge economic stagnation in the Cold War (50’s-80’s) leading to the collapse of the USSR in the 90’s, all of which hugely affects the future outlook and prosperity of the populous who again stop birthing children for obvious reasons. Why bring a child into Hell and Hunger. In the 90’s the birth rate halved while the death rate doubled 🥴
This created a massive demographic Bomb in Russia which is being felt today. It is so stark that the Russian ethnicity has a very real chance of disappearing in this century.
Compare Russia to Mexico (similar sized population) and you can see the issue.
So now you have a quasi Dictator who could see the destruction of the entire Russian civilisation happen on his watch if he does not act. Fixing this demographic time bomb requires action TODAY in order to attempt to prevent the slow death of the Russian civilisation.
Ukraine
The Ukraine conflict is not simple as there are a myriad of reasons for the conflict. One of the many problems Russia has is that they are on the clock. Courtesy of their ageing population the longer they wait the lower their military power because in 50 years time they simply will not have enough young men to draw upon to fight. If they didn’t act now to achieve their own internal “goal” planning for the future they wouldn’t be able to in the future. They wouldn’t be able to yield the forces required or train them fast enough.
Geographics
At the same time as facing population collapse the Russians are also facing a Geographic and Access war for many channels that are key for both prosperity and security. They see Nato as a threat (correctly) to that security as they push closer to the border of Russia trying to include Ukraine which is also a “threat” of article 5.
The key section of the treaty is Article 5. Its commitment clause defines the casus foederis. It commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in Europe or North America, to be an armed attack against them all.
This is extremely worrying for Russia because it raises the stakes to nuclear levels and prevents them from engaging in even simple border disputes or skirmishes with much smaller nations.
To put it the other way around imagine if Russia made the Isle of Wight a “Russian, China North Korea Treaty article 5 island” meaning any attack by Britain on the isle of white would mean an instant retaliation by Russia / China / North Korea. The risk of escalating to Nuclear war would be drastically increased.
Do you think we would let the Isle of White join that Alliance? Or do the same for Cuba next to Florida…
No, we would bomb the shit out of the Isle of Wight until it was a broken state with no leadership or infrastructure to insure it was not a viable candidate to enter the treaty as it is a current “war zone” and keep it that way indefinitely.
If we follow this logic path we begin to see the pieces here and why Russia was so insistent, for the last 20 years may we add, that Ukraine does not become a Nato member.
Does it justify invasion, who knows… but what if it stopped a Nuclear war escalation?
Again not for us to speculate or pontificate what is accurate but it certainly is food for thought against the day to day brain washing of the the “Support the current thing” narrative in our Media
In summary and with some sad realisation for many of you reading, this war does not end well for Ukraine!
It is going to go very badly against the “support Ukraine” narrative when you finally realise that you are supporting the imminent death of hundreds of thousands of “hold out for Ukraine” citizen hero’s… encouraging them to dig in 🥴
Russia will increasingly bomb Ukraine destroying most of the strategic locations. They will keep the nation broken because they HAVE TO!
This will potentially also include use of low yield tactical nuclear strikes if it needs to escalate that far.
Poke the Bear and Get Bitten
Until next time
The Wealth Gap