The demographics of the war on terror

Why are Palestinains killing each other? Christopher Caldwell thinks he knows.

In a fascinating column, he argues that traditional explanations may be wrong. Something very simple may be involved - an age bulge.

Caldwell draws attention to the work of German social scientist Gunnar Heinsohn:

In Mr Heinsohn's view, when 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population, violence tends to happen; when large percentages are under 15, violence is often imminent. The "causes" in the name of which that violence is committed can be immaterial. There are 67 countries in the world with such "youth bulges" now and 60 of them are undergoing some kind of civil war or mass killing.

So when the Palestinain youths could no longer kill Israelis, they needed to find someone else to kill. And they started to kill the first people they could find - each other.

It is important to understand that Caldwell is not passing comment on the rights and wrongs of the Palestinian cause here, merely making an observation about the impact of demographics.

In fact, he goes on to suggest that the hearts and minds approach to fighting Islamicism may be pointless, since ideology has got little to do with it.

I don't quite make that leap, but his column is well worth reading.

Comments

[Peter Dunford]

Interesting. Notwithstanding a few of major issues - lets have more recent examples than the Conquistadors pu-leaze; 30% of 550 million Germans 15-29 is a heck of a lot more than 80 million, so the Germans shouldn't be behaving as suggested they might; what is the effect of reduced longevity on this analysis in "olden" times: if life expectancy was, say, 48 then should the bulge band be reduced for that particular period bearing in mind the reduced access to occupation in full time education; and lastly, how do we factor in political stability? There is no information that can be extrapolated indicating that, say, the Conquistadors would have turned on each other if hemmed in like the Palestinians and unable to pillage the Americas - never the less there may be some merit in this.

Countries can only go to total (slaughter their young?) war when they have cannon fodder (that are regarded as such by their society, and aquiesse in their fate) to die. That was easier in earlier more restricted times, but the great Western emancipations and the increase of affluence drove the social need for a smaller family eliminating the problematic youth population bulges (creating different problems).

What an unresolvable can of worms this opens up! But interesting worms, none-the-less.

[Poetry]

We may not solve warfare or famine in your time. But the cure of all disease may be within our grasp. Imagine the if the trillions spent on "Wars of Choice" or "Wars against a concept" was spent testing every natural and artifical substance known to man against every disease known to man. Imagine if we spent the remainder on determinine the molecular structure and sequencing the genes of every disease so that we could construct cures that while harmless and inert to ourselves, are deadly and irrestible to the viruses, anti-viruses, and bacterias that plague us. War is not the triumph of God. War is the failure of men. Though there are necessary wars such as World War II, most wars could be prevented. For instance, if we stopped buying oil from Saudi Arabia, the money that finances terrorism would dry up and the so called "War Against Terror" would be over. It is instructive to note that no major politician has as his chief goal, destroying terrorism in this way. Perhaps they don't really want it to stop....And besides, every major politican is getting bought by foreign oil interests and domestic big oil. We could easily use things such as coal and nuclear energy to be free of those who fund terrorism. Unfortunately, the politicians have yet to find a way to get paid if we switch to domestic energy sources. Every pundit who says we can't switch to domestic energy is also on they pay roll of big oil and foreign oil interests.