Ukraine Versus Russia, the Demographics Picture. Peter Zeihan's False Gap Theory. Did the USA Push Ukrainians into War with Russia?

Both Ukraine and Russia are countries in population decline. The decline looks far worse for Ukrainians than the decline for Russians.

Popular geographer turned geopolitical storyteller Peter Zeihan can be watched all over YouTube pushing his "Plug the Gaps" theory Zeihan claims that Russians had to invade Ukraine now owing to declining demographics picture. Without such an an invasion now, Zeihan claims that Russians would lack enough foot soldiers to win a war in Ukraine, capture it and put military in flat geographic areas or "gaps" through which Zeihan claims NATO / EU armies could advance to attack Russia.

The problem with Zeihan's Plug the Gaps theory is that it is false. Such a theory might have made sense before 26 August 1957, that is, before Russians tested successfully their first intercontinental ballistic missile. Today though and for a long time, nuclear ICBMs plug all gaps that give easy access from EU Europe to Russia Europe. There is no need to have large standing armies to do the work that a few missiles can do.

Ukraine's Desperate Demographics Pushes the US

The real story is the comparatively far worse demographics picture of Ukraine, likely which pushed US geopolitical masterminds to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014 by the so-called Maiden Revolution. In that action, Russian-friendly president Yanukovych was deposed in favor of a EU-friendly, NATO-friendly president. The blowback from that overthrow caused the people of the autonomous region of Crimea to declare their independence (see below for relevant TDJ works on Ukraine).

As seen above, though Russia is in population decline, that decline is mild compared to Ukraine. The Ukraine population declines at a rate of -0.59%, a rate has increased every year since 2015 while the world population growth rate runs at +0.55% a year. Right now, Russians enjoy a slight growth population growth, growing at 0.04% a year.

By 2040 though, while Russians will see a population decline of -6.3%, Ukraine will see a population decline of a much bigger -26.2%. In short, US geopolitical strategists had to act now to push Ukraine into war with Russia, to use its men to fight Russians, in hopes of toppling Vladimir Putin, before the demographics decline in Ukraine made such a geopolitical move impossible.

Since 2014, the US has been arming and training the Ukrainian army. Most Americans simply are unaware of this truth. See:

Since the 1990s, Ukraine’s population has been declining due to high emigration rates, low birth rates, and high death rates. Ukraine’s birth rate is 9.2 births per 1,000 people, which has decreased over 2% every year the past several years, and its death rate is 15.193 deaths per 1,000 people.

Before the current war, Ukraine was losing 741 people a day to death and emigration with 14 Ukrainians a day looking for greener pastures. As the second-poorest in Europe, Ukraine is best by corruption. No wonder why Ukrainians who can vote with their feet, emigrate.