Browsing by Subject "demographics and conflict"

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    Birth Rates Determine Life Expectancy in Theoretical Equilibrium Populations: Implications for political demography and conflict early warning
    (American Intelligence Journal, 2018-04) Andregg, Michael M.
    Executive Summary This paper examines implications for political demography of a theoretical population that is in complete equilibrium. By “complete equilibrium,” we mean that the population neither grows nor shrinks, there is neither immigration to nor emigration from it, and that the age structure has stabilized so that it no longer changes over time. These are all important elements of complete equilibrium, as opposed to stability in just absolute numbers. This condition is found in some natural populations of animals and plants, but it has not obtained in most human populations in recorded history. Reduced to basics, this theoretical population has the following characteristics: 1. In complete equilibrium populations, birth rates will equal death rates so the population neither grows nor shrinks. 2. In a complete equilibrium population, death rates determine life expectancy, expressible as: LE = 1000/DR. 3. Since, in a complete equilibrium population, birth rates equal death rates, this can also be expressed as: LE = 1000/BR. 4. This implies that fundamentally, birth rates determine life expectancy in complete equilibrium populations. This paper has two goals. The first is simply to check the accuracy of the theoretical formulas identified above. Since they are quite simple and likely accurate, I invite others to identify any errors. The second goal is at least as important. How do human populations evade this limiting outcome? Or do they really? I fear the short answer to these questions is a) genocide and war, and b) no, they do not really escape an iron law of biology. However, they often do displace the high death rates to marginal or weaker populations. If correct, this has significant implications for conflict early warning as illustrated by several real-world examples.
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    Building Bridges Between Cultures
    (Busan National University, South Korea, 2002-03-18) Andregg, Michael M.
    1. Why? Building bridges between cultures can involve many challenges, so the first subject I will address is: Why do this work? Answers important to me include: human survival, achieving prosperity through trade, compassion (especially for those who suffer, like refugees of war and relatives separated by politics) and achieving “the good life” spiritually as well as materially. All of these objectives benefit from a principle of living systems called “hybrid vigor.” These concepts will be illustrated by a few examples. Human civilization is facing a terrible crisis. It is a crisis of population growth combined with excessive consumption by the rich, which results in serious environmental problems and severe competition for the means of survival. Combined with other strains of politics, both normal differences of opinion about how to organize social life and more serious issues of corruption of governance and tyranny, this results in many wars (about 25 – 30 each year during the 23 years I have studied that subject). On the average half a million people die each year directly from these wars. Suffering from dispersed effects like refugee migrations and malnutrition related to the economic costs of these conflicts affects hundreds of millions every year. Human civilization is groaning in pain, but powerful psychological and social defenses exist that keep most people from hearing that pain clearly. It is the business of biologists to attend the living system. I testify before you that the living system itself is in danger because of these problems. If you need convincing I will gladly spend another hour or a day on that alone, because in my country at least, there are always excuses for taking just a little bit more from the living system despite its obvious distress. But our business today is building bridges between cultures, so I will return to that now with the simple observation that if the living system of earth is in trouble, human beings are in trouble. Human survival may even be at risk. So one reason to build bridges between cultures is to restrain people from blowing up the world with nuclear weapons, or despoiling it with endless conventional wars and the new, exotic biological and chemical weapons. Long ago I was a medical geneticist at a major University hospital. One reason I switched to why wars begin was what I knew about biological weapons 25 years ago. We have come a long way since then, and it is not a pretty picture. But even without such exotic weapons, the annual death rate from ordinary bombs and bullets should be plenty to inspire us to build some bridges to a better future for us all. A positive reason for building bridges is the prospect of increasing prosperity through trade. Now, I will venture a small observation on Korean politics. I apologize if I offend anyone. It is very sad to read about starvation in the North at the same time we read about fear created by Taepo-Dong II missiles, and a million-man army. Therefore, it was a happy day when we read about a new “sunshine policy,” and I was pleased when your President Kim Dae Jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelong work for a better future.
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    Demographics and Conflict
    (American Intelligence Journal, 2016-04) Andregg, Michael M.
    Demographics and Conflict (written April, 2016, by Michael Andregg for the American Intelligence Journal, of the NMIA) Introduction to an Ancient Paradigm: population growth, environmental degradation, rising death rates and conflicts; exodus, war or genocide. People have been killing each other since before the beginning of written history, as recorded by the broken bones of people massacred long before writing was invented. One of the quiet reasons for the large scale killings called genocides and wars is demographics, the statistics of birth rates, death rates, growth rates and migrations into or out of territories. This dimension is under-covered by those who focus on the statements or acts of key leaders. Politicians and commanders of war typically describe their reasons in political, religious or military terms, not demographics. But they were also often driven by forces they barely understood and could not control. The Mayan Empire probably fell that way. Easter Island certainly did. And the deserts of North Africa are filled with ruins from cities and empires that thrived … before the forests and farmable land turned into desert. The Kenyans have a saying: “First came forests, then man, then the deserts.” Therefore this chapter will show how simple births, deaths and migrations lead to an iron law of biology. This law observes that all living populations eventually achieve equilibrium with their environment, which means birth rates equal death rates and the population neither grows nor declines, or they die. Populations that try to grow forever suffer catastrophic death rates or become extinct. The modern case of Syria disintegrating after 2010 will be considered in some detail, because it also shows how other global factors like climate change can trigger chaos. Syria’s population growth rate in 2011 was 2.4% per year, but when half of its population was displaced by civil wars and about 6 million fled, its growth rate became sharply negative. At least 450,000 people died by violence alone. This will be followed by a short section on “Human Nature, Nurture, Free Will and War” because that topic has generated much commentary over centuries, with large implications if one accepts the simplistic conclusions that people are either born “innately” warlike, or rather “innately” social and cooperative. Truth is that people can be either one or the other depending on circumstances, and that much neglected factor “free will” or personal decisions. Finally, we close with how a few more complicated demographics like “pyramidal” vs. “columnar” age distributions, and distorted sex ratios may influence the probability of organized armed conflict on earth today and in the future.
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    Intelligence and Migration: Cases from North America
    (Polish Institute of Public Remembrance, Need to Know VI (6), 2016-11-16) Andregg, Michael M.
    Intelligence and Migration: Cases from North America By Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas and University of Minnesota, mmandregg@stthomas.edu For the Sixth “Need to Know” Conference, 17-18 November, 2016, at Karlskrona, Sweden, for the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland, the Swedish Naval Museum, and BISA Introduction The USA and Canada receive migrants from every part of the world. Many are legal immigrants and some are illegal or undocumented (about 11 million in the USA of a population of about 324 million, or ~ 3.4% of the total US population in 2016). Syrians, North Africans, Afghans and Iraqi refugees are the biggest immigration demographics in Europe, but in North America other ethnicities predominate, especially Latin Americans and Asians. 21st century terrorism has increased concerns about immigrants, especially undocumented or “illegal” immigrants. There is a long history of such concerns in North America beginning with Native American fears of the tidal wave of Europeans entering after 1492. What happened to them is one lesson security professionals must consider. The natives were nearly wiped out over a period of centuries, often by direct aggression, but more by disease and exile to harsh and barren lands. If large numbers of immigrants with aggressive birth rates come, they can take over entire continents in just a few centuries. But our vigorous and interesting continent has also been “built by immigrants” who remain very important to national economies today. Immigrant populations of special interest to modern US intelligence services have included: Cubans (who enjoy a special immigration status and intelligence significance). Somalians (targeted for recruitment for foreign wars by Al Shabaab and ISIS). Colombians (and other South and Central Americans, of special interest in drug wars). Mexicans (the same except that Mexicans and their descendants are also very involved in domestic US agriculture, construction, health care, and every job description). Chinese (of special national security concern for economic and technical espionage). Poles, Romanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Slovenes, Czech’s, and all Eastern European ethnicities (of special relevance during the ‘Cold War,’ now warming up again). We will survey these ethnic groups with respect to three broader themes: A. National security concerns like counterterrorism and counter proliferation (of WMD). B. The drug wars. C. Economic espionage and cybersecurity concerns (related, but also quite different). After this review, a small section will deal with the special problem of sea routes for smuggling drugs, human beings, and weapons. One oddity is immediately obvious. US coastal surveillance can detect the smallest raft carrying people from Haiti or Cuba toward our shores, but typically misses over 90% of drug shipments. An historic case involving the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) CIA and cocaine during the Iran-Contra period (mid-1980’s) will be presented based on public records and less well known, but very detailed testimony and publications of an agent who worked for both of those agencies and the US Army over a long career. Bradley Earl Ayers had extensive knowledge of sea routes and Cuban operations going back to Operation Mongoose in 1962 when he worked for the CIA at Miami Station, focused on national security concerns. Then he worked for the DEA on drug trafficking during the 1980’s in south Florida. Some missions overlapped during Iran-Contra, which led to problems then and now.