In this weekend's Washington Post, columnist George Will penned an Op-Ed on Russia's deteriorating demographics. The main target of the article was President Obama's offer to renew nuclear arms cuts -after all, why should the world's only superpower negotiate with a nation that may not even exist in fifty years? Will may or may not be right in this assertion, but he is certainly correct about Russia's population crisis.
It's amazing to consider that despite its gargantuan size, today's Russia is only two thirds the size of the Russian empire in 1866 (which included Alaska, Finland, most of Poland, parts of China, and all of the former Soviet Union). So in reality, Russia has been shrinking for over 100 years. Still, since the destruction of the Golden Horde in the 15th century, the Russian heartland has been predominately Slavic. The immigration of workers from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Caucasus will soon change this. Not only do these new immigrants have bigger and more stable families, but while the Slavic population of Russia suffers from drug and alcohol abuse, the predominately Muslim workers manage to largely avoid this scourge. FP covered this trend in 2007 and two years later there are no signs of reversal.
Equally important is what's happening in Russia's remote Far East (RFE). Since 1989 the population of the RFE, an area almost the size of all of China, declined by over 15% and now stands at 6.5 million. Meanwhile, just across the Amur river is China's Heilongjiang province with a population of 108 million. Anatoly Karlin is right in arguing that this disparity doesn't mean that conflict is inevitable, but the recent gang fights in Vladivostok, maritime disputes, and the proliferation of Chinese Triads throughout the RFE, have brought ethnic tensions to a boiling point. Rife corruption and Moscow's disregard of the region doesn't help either.
Moscow and Beijing ostensibly promote their strategic partnership, but both sides are very aware of the geopolitical situation. While Dmitry Medvedev warns of Russia losing the entire Far East, the lebensraum-esque term "Great Northern Virgin Land" has appeared in Chinese Communist Party literature.
The long-term trends are not in Moscow's favor, but it's highly unlikely that Kremlin will go down without a fight. Wouldn't it better for everyone if this fight didn't involve nukes?
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