Cartoon 767: Critical

A Malthusian like specter was presented in the Economist magazine. It was sounding the alarm over the imbalance in the ratio of females to males. In cultures such as those in Asia and even Africa, a preference exists for male offspring where they have taken steps to guarantee the result. Infanticide is the method most often used. 

In Western societies females are having children later, fewer children, or forgoing having children at all. In most Western countries they now have negative birthrates or not enough new births to replenish the population at current levels. America is the exception, primarily driven by the higher Hispanic birth rate.

Japan is a society pressed on both sides. There is a strong preference for male off spring and they already out number females. The alarm has been sounded by the government because females are avoiding marriage and child birth. The Japanese children population has plunged over the years. Japan has one of the highest negative population rates in the world.

The two most populous nations of China and India are moving toward increased social strife driven by gender imbalance. Only war can normalize the gender ratio when there is such a of people magnitude involved. Governments will embrace war to stabilize the domestic situation.

During the Korean War the stories abound of the nightmare of a seemingly unending stream of Korean fighters coming at the American troops. The enemy bodies would pile up. The enemies would climb over their dead and keep coming. American troops exhausted their ammunition in the killing. Can you imagine today nations fielding million man armies? The only solution for a western nation like America would be nuclear weapons, and if they have nuclear weapons too!!

World War III anyone?