Author: Judge John Wilson (ret.)

Daniel Keith was a notorious con man and swindler in Rutherford County, North Carolina.  “His biggest swindle took place in 1879 when he took a sixty-eight pound rock and rubbed it with brass. He sold this ‘gold’ mine to many men in Western Carolina making him one of the most unpopular men in North Carolina. Many swore that they would get even with him; and in January of 1880, a tragedy would give them the opportunity to rid Rutherford County of Daniel Keith once and for all.” 

That year, a young girl was found brutally raped and murdered.  Suspicion fell on Keith when “a witness came forth and said that he had seen Daniel Keith in the area and that he appeared to be drunk and belligerent. A couple of hours later Sheriff (NE) Walker contacted Keith at his cabin. He was sober, but there were bloodstains on his shirt. The Sheriff asked him where the stains had come from, and Keith stated that he had ‘been skinning rabbits.’ His story was not believed even though the carcasses of the rabbits had been found. Keith was arrested (and) was found guilty…in spite of evidence produced in the trial that there was an escaped convict from neighboring McDowell County who had been sighted in the area by several persons. This fugitive had been awaiting execution for the same (type of) crime (of which) Keith was accused.”

After having the appeal of his conviction denied, Keith  “professed his innocence up to the moment” he was hanged, saying, among other things, “a man should be hung for what he’s done, not for what he ain’t done.”  

There can be no doubt that former President Donald Trump is a very polarizing figure.  There seems to be no middle ground with Trump – you either hate him, or you love him.  Unfortunately, the people who hate the former President the most are currently in power.

One of those who clearly “has it out” for Trump is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  While campaigning for the office he currently holds, Bragg “repeatedly touted his experience suing Trump…while serving as the state’s chief deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2018, leading to the shutdown of the Donald J. Trump Foundation and payment of $2 million in court-ordered damages…following his election, Bragg, who took office Jan. 1, 2022, again invoked his experience suing Trump in response to the stunning resignations of prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, who had led the Trump investigation until clashing with their new boss.”

According to the Atlantic News Telegraphic, “(n)o, Bragg did not specifically pledge, ‘If elected, I will indict Donald J. Trump.’ But he promised to pursue Trump and hold him ‘accountable,’ which is progressive code for going after Trump in any way possible.”

No one can say that Alvin Bragg isn’t a man of his word.  As is well known, a Manhattan Grand Jury  recently voted to Indict former President Trump for 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, a violation of NY Penal Law Section 175.10. On April 4, 2023, Trump was arraigned in New York County Supreme Court on this indictment, and entered a plea of Not Guilty.

Let us put aside the unprecedented nature of these events, that is, the fact that a local District Attorney has brought state criminal charges against a former President of the United States for the first time in the history of our nation.  Let us also ignore (for now) the emotional arguments from both left and right as to whether Trump is a martyr, being prosecuted for trying to “drain the swamp” of Washington DC politics, or a villain like Daniel Keith, someone who deserves to go to jail for something, anything, just so long as he is stopped.    

Instead, let us consider this case as if Trump were any other defendant accused of a crime.  Objectively speaking, are there facts sufficient to substantiate the charges brought against Donald Trump?

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) Report concludes tomorrow

Illustration: Pixabay

Top US and Mexican officials are discussing how to address the issues surrounding illegal “economic migrants” and the Mexican drug cartels. The US has considered whether to send into Mexico, American military special operators, law enforcement, or diplomats to handle the mounting challenges the Biden Administration faces in countering the cross-border drug trade and illegal immigration. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley is against sending in US troops to improve border security and stem the flow of drugs like fentanyl into the US. He argues that the military should not lead American counter-drug efforts or operate against the cartels without the Mexican government’s permission. General Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin both testified in Senate and House hearings on the president’s defense budget request and faced bipartisan questioning about the possible use of the military or other possible measures. 

The problem with leaving it to Mexico to resolve, analysts point out, is that the country is effectively a failed state and the government, including its military and local law enforcement, are incapable of handling illegal immigration or eliminating the drug cartels. Milley favors training local Mexican police officers and asking the Mexican military to stem the drug trade. Many are paid by the cartels, threatened if they won’t cooperate, and murdered when they do stand up. Restricting the purchase of guns in Mexico has not resolved the problem. There is a single legal gun store in Mexico and the country has issued only 50 gun permits. “Between 70 to 90 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico can be traced back to the US. Drug cartels, in particular, buy those weapons in the U.S., mostly in Texas or Arizona, and smuggle them across the border,” says Lisa Mineo, writing in the Harvard Gazette.

In an exclusive interview with Defense One, Kevin Baron notes that Milley admits “…it’s a serious problem. It’s a huge problem.”  He adds that several Republicans, including Rep. Morgan Luttrell (TX-R), this week asked about or called for the Biden administration to designate Mexico’s cartels as terrorist organizations, instead of transnational criminal organizations. “That’s the same thing, in my opinion,” Luttrell said in a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday. Cartels are responsible for upwards of 100,000 Mexicans who have been “disappeared,” a term referring to the kidnapping and possible killing of people. On average the cartels in Mexico kill a confirmed 20,000 every year. That violence has crossed into the US and the transnational criminal organizations are spreading across our country.

Donald Trump says the problem is out of control and has asked for “battle plans” to be drawn up to “conduct specific military operations to destroy the cartels, according to Rolling Stone Magazine this week. The Trump policy paper reportedly says “It is vital that Mexico not be led to believe that they have veto power to prevent the US from taking the actions necessary to secure its borders and people.” Milley responded to the report saying “I wouldn’t recommend anything be done without Mexico’s support.”  

Milley suggests that the drug trafficking trade has not risen to the level of a national security threat to our country and that it is fundamentally a law enforcement issue, calling it “a crime.” He added that most people coming across the border were “economic migrants” and that the US Government does not know their intent. “ The fentanyl they push is killing thousands on both sides of the border. In Mexico, they torture and kill journalists to silence them, battle law enforcement and the military, and terrorize civilians,” writes Baron.  Last week the Justice Department announced charges against more than 24 members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the three sons of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a fentanyl-trafficking investigation; only one is in custody in Mexico. According to US Justice Department officials, those charges include a broad swath of the Sinloa network with members from China and Guatemala accused of supplying the precursor chemicals needed to make the drugs. Two Chinese firms were also sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control last week. In 2021,a record of almost 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses despite fentanyl seizures by US Customs and Border Protection increasing by more than 400% since 2019.

The Sinaloa cartel, which provides most of the fentanyl available in the US, is an extremely violent group that is known to torture its perceived enemies, including Mexican officials, and have fed many of their enemies alive to the cartel’s tigers, according to US Attorney General Garland. Other senior Biden Administration officials briefing reporters after the announcement of the indictments said Washington is turning to allies in Europe and the Middle East to ask China to do more to solve the cross-border drug problem. It appears that once again Washington is leading from behind.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

The Arctic is heating up, but not in the way you might expect this spring. China’s Polar Silk Road, also known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR), is the subject of a new joint working group between China and Russia. TASS is reporting that at the recent summit meeting China agreed to help Russia finance development of a new Arctic route. Putin views it as a way to obtain the resources he needs while also deepening the Russo-Chinese relationship into one solidly allied against the West. According to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation, however, “…it is becoming increasingly obvious, even in Russia at least among experts, that China’s plans are fundamentally at odds with those of the Kremlin and that these differences, along with China’s development of railway routes south of Russia through Central Asia and the Caucasus, mean that Beijing is more a competitor than an ally vis-à-vis Moscow in the transit sector.” 

The long-term beneficiary, it appears, will be China. What is most concerning about the deal is that Russia in the near future could choose to exacerbate tensions between itself and the West to signal Beijing that Moscow needs its cooperation in supporting Russian troops in the Arctic to counter Western influences there. Fondsk.ru reports this week that this could mean that Xi Jinping must cooperate with Vladimir Putin to enable China to pursue its geoeconomic and geopolitical goals in the Arctic. 

With Russian military resources stretched thin due to the war in Ukraine, Putin could decide to risk  initiating a military conflict with the West in the Arctic region. Goble argues that the only resource Russia has to keep China in line is to militarize the issue. Over the last five years, Russian specialists on the Arctic and China have repeatedly warned the Kremlin that the two countries’ agenda are not the same and that China is consistently outplaying its Russian counterparts.

China’s position is that the sea route through the Arctic must be open to all nation-states and not under the control of a single country. This is exactly opposite Russia’s position, which insists that the NSR is part of Russia’s strategic patrimony. In recent years Russia has attempted to obtain international recognition of large swaths of the Arctic Ocean as its own based on its reading of undersea maps that it says include its economic exclusion zone. This is not unlike what China has proposed in its South China Sea territorial claims. On April 13, a commentary by Moscow analyst Dmitry Nefedov suggested why Moscow might be inclined to play up the military angle to keep China on its side. Goble says that Nefedov strongly implies that “Moscow must consider that possibility for at least two reasons: On the one hand, China has nominally cut back its use of the NSR because international shipping insurers are no longer prepared to sell Beijing policies for its ships that do utilize the route… On the other, China wants Russia’s backing on Beijing’s insistence of a large exclusion zone in the South China Sea, even as the Chinese refuse to recognize Russian claims to such a zone in the Arctic.”

China could use Russia’s support as tensions over Taiwan heat up and second, Moscow will have every reason to remind China that it needs help in the Arctic to ensure that the Bering Straits and the sea lanes around Wrangel Island remain open to Chinese shipping. Nefedov also argued this week that since Russia is running out of money it risks losing what Moscow says is a key factor in Russian national security. He points out that some fear China will look at Moscow as a steppingstone toward its goal to become the dominant global hegemon. Last month the Jamestown Foundation reported in its Eurasian Daily Monitor that  Putin has no way to stop China from building a new railway, financed by barter arrangements, that travels deep in Russian territory in the Far East. Due to finances, Moscow this week announced a major cut to the expansion of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) railway. This route is one that was expected to expand China-Russia trade. Without it, there will be a bottleneck hurting cross-border trade between the two states. Despite China’s attempt to publicly remain friendly to Russia, tensions are mounting.

If needed, China has additional options to cooperating with Russia to gain access to trade routes. Beijing is rapidly laying down track across Central Asia that will allow it to ship goods to the West bypassing Russia and any sanctions concerns over countries doing business with Russia. China is moving into Russia’s areas of influence in Central Asia. Putin finds himself in a position where there is little he can do to alter the course of China’s expansion and influence, except to create conflict in the Far north.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Photo: Pixabay

The Republic of Karelia is integral to checking expansion of the Western alliance according to leaders inside the Kremlin. Outside Russia few people recognize how much the country’s northwesternmost region presents challenges for Moscow. After Finland decided to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Putin looked at transforming Karelia into a second Kaliningrad-like oblast. Earlier, following the Winter War of 1939-40, the Lutheran dominated region had been split in two with Finland ceding Russia the eastern part of the Karelian province and Finland retaining the west. The Finnic ethnic groups living there are indigenous to the historical region of Karelia although many live inside Russian territory. 

As a potential source of military power, Russian Karelia could be used to check any Western alliance moves into Scandinavia or the Arctic. “…in the event of a crisis, it could prevent NATO from severing the single-track rail line connecting central Russia and the Kola Peninsula, where a large portion of Russia’s strategic arms are located,” says Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. It may, however, be an overreach that sparks the centrifugal forces in the North that Moscow fears.    

In January Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Russia’s intent to expand the Russian army there over the next several years. With Finland joining NATO, Russia’s border with the Western alliance has grown by more than 745 miles. Shoigu says this would involve the formation of a new Russian army corps of some 100,000 men in Karelia.  Goble points out that Artur Parfenchikov, Russian head of the Karelian government, and Russian analysts, such as Vladimir Klimanov, head of the Moscow Center for Regional Policy, are “upbeat about this possibility.” Klimanov suggests in the publication Rueconomics.ru that an army corps in Karelia would become “a driver of economic growth” in the depressed region of 528,000 people. 

Finnish military expert Petri Mäkelä, however, counters it saying he doubts Moscow can achieve its objective as the existing infrastructure in Karelia is in poor shape and the republic has lost many men in Putin’s war in Ukraine. Karelians, in general, tend to hold anti-war and anti-military attitudes that add to Moscow’s challenge in the region. Earlier this year Karelian activists argued that they don’t believe that Moscow will provide promised funds to help economic development in the region. Instead, they see the move to increase Russian soldiers in the area as one designed to create the conditions needed for a final homogenization of the republic and the Karelian Finnic people. 

This week in the Russian online publication Region.expert, one analyst points out that the populace in the Karelian region is concerned that what Putin’s forces are doing in Ukraine could be done to them. In the last 14 months alone Karelia’s economy has contracted by more than 10 percent, which is five times as much as the rest of the Russian economy. Putin has not sent the region economic help and the people are growing angry. By last summer anti-war activism was rampant in the area, with some even  creating a Facebook page to announce their opposition to the war in Ukraine and lack of compensation to Karelians whose incomes have suffered. Russia’s Wagner Group refuses to recruit there, despite the widespread poverty from which they typically get their enlistees. It is out of fear of finding no recruit willing to commit to the war, notes Goble. Russian propagandists also have given up on the area.

Many Karelians have decided to exit the eastern portion of the republic and head for Finland. The result is that today fewer than six percent of all republic residents are ethnically Karelian. Moscow refuses to recognize the language spoken in the area, further infuriating the people. Goble says this makes them the only autonomy in Russia without the titular nationality language. “Moscow’s tendency [is] to treat them as if they are Finns rather than a nation in their own right,” notes Goble. Moscow views the indigenous people of Karelia as close to secessionists. If Moscow does go through with its plans to stage a large army there, it could heighten regional tensions and bring Karelia closer to war. Many in the area were outraged that Moscow is not only attempting to move its soldiers there but also pushing to get the Karelians themselves to bear most of the cost of those occupying forces. It may end up the final blow to what stability remains in the area.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Finland became the 31st member of the NATO Alliance on April 4.  “On this very day, in 1949, the Washington Treaty, NATO’s founding treaty, was signed in Washington and it is hard to imagine a better way of celebrating our anniversary than to have Finland becoming a full member of the Alliance,” said the alliance’s Secretary General, Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg.

Finland provides a substantial boost to NATO. It substantially adds to the amount of territory bordering Russia, in a region where three of the most threatened of the alliance’s members, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania exist. It adds its modern and substantial armed forces to the NATO alliance, including 280,000 wartime strength personnel, modern equipment, including Leopard 2A6 tanks, F35 fighter jets, and other significant equipment, and a substantial defense budget. It’s 700 howitzers, 700 heavy mortars and 100 multiple rocket launchers gives it the largest artillery capability in Western Europe.

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June, Celeste A. Wallander, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for international security affairs stated that “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine caused a seismic shift in public opinion in both countries, and the legislatures of both countries quickly debated and ratified a motion to join the 30-nation alliance.  Both Finland and Sweden are ready to contribute to alliance defense now. Finland maintains general conscription and has a well-manned and trained reserve that can be called up quickly, which is imperative since Finland shares a long border with Russia. Finland’s location on the Baltic Sea, diplomatic experience with Russia and advanced capabilities make it an asset to the alliance

 Wallander added that “Finland spends more than 2 percent of its [gross domestic product] on defense, and possesses unique military capabilities and expertise, particularly operating in the arctic environment.” 

If negotiations are successful, Finland will soon be joined by Sweden. The U.S. Dept, of Defense notes that Finland and Sweden would provide additional security and stability in Europe. The two Baltic nations already have close bilateral defense relationships with the United States, and have close working relationships and military interoperability with NATO militaries. 

Wallander noted that “The fact that Sweden and Finland petitioned to join the defensive alliance is a sign of how much the security environment has changed with Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Both nations have been partners with NATO for decades, but really saw no need to join the treaty organization.  Sweden’s accession into NATO would bring “a first rate and rapidly growing military with a principled foreign policy that ardently defends democracy and human rights.  Sweden also maintains a world class defense industry. Sweden’s military expertise in the Arctic and undersea environments would substantially advance alliance capabilities.”

At the April NATO meeting of foreign ministers, other key matters were discussed, headlined by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

An issue that continues to be a controversy within the Alliance is the amount of each nation’s contribution. Secretary General Stoltenberg wants to have a “more ambitious defense investment pledge where we regard 2% of GDP for defense not as ceiling but as a floor, a minimum that we need to spend more in a more dangerous world on our security.”

Reflecting the accelerating global threat to NATO nations, the foreign ministers also discussed security challenges emanating from the Middle East and North Africa, the importance of increased defense investments, and NATO’s Indo-Pacific partnerships.

On that issue, NATO’s Asia-Pacific partners, including New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and South Korea were present at the meeting. Stoltenberg noted that “Security is not regional, security is global. What happens in Europe matters for the Indo-Pacific, for Asia. And what happens in Asia matters for Europe… when you see that China and Russia are coming more and more closely, that they stand together, work together, it makes it even more obvious that we need to stand together with our partners in the Indo-Pacific.”

The current “woke” Pentagon leadership has adopted and force-fed policies that weaken the morale and capabilities of America’s armed forces. Rather than allowing our fighting men and women to concentrate on deterring Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and terrorists, they, under Biden’s leadership, have made military preparedness a secondary consideration, emphasizing instead political partisanship.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tx) have produced a deeply disturbing report, “How Political ideology is weakening America’s Military.”.  

On February 5, 2021, shortly after Biden became President, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed a memorandum directing all service members and DoD civilian employees to conduct a “one-day ‘stand- down” to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.

Rubio and Roy observed that foreign adversaries like China and Russia loved the stand-down. Their view was simple: the stand-down sowed further divisions in the United States and allowed them to tell their people that America’s government is a failure. Chaired by Democrat Jack Reed, the Senate Committee on Armed Services’ (SASC) bipartisan report on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) points out that this is “a case rate of .005 percent, one service member out of every 21,000.” The Biden Administration’s “Countering Extremist Activity Working Group” found that “cases of prohibited extremist activity among service members were rare.” In fact, in a force of more than 2.1 million active and reserve forces, there were only 100 cases.

The SASC report goes on to note that more than 5,359,000 personnel hours were spent on the extremism stand-down ordered by Secretary Austin. The SASC report did not mince words on this absurd working “Spending additional time and resources on extremism in the military is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, and should be discontinued by the [DoD] Immediately.”

This man who was in charge of the CEAWG was a rabid partisan who routinely denigrates conservatives.

This weakening of the armed forces may continue long after Biden leaves office, since he has mandated teaching race hate in the service academies.  The Report found that “The Biden Administration wants to indoctrinate a new generation of military leadership at the U.S. Service Academies with Critical Race Theory.”

One example: An admiral told midshipmen at the Naval Academy that they need to read How to Be an Antiracist – a Marxist book that teaches that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination,” that capitalism is racist, and that people by virtue of their race are inherently oppressive or privileged.

Biden is not content to merely weaken the military through promoting racial division. The report notes that “Focusing on what is different among us, rather than that which unites us, only serves to foster division and discontent among service members. We need look no further for evidence of this than the recent egregious example of an attempt to use taxpayer money and DoD property to host a drag queen story hour for children at the library on Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany to promote ‘inclusivity’ during pride month’.”

Rational opponents of those seeking to abuse the military for political goals are subjected to swift retribution. The Biden Administration has a disturbing track record of punishing those who object to woke ideology and giving license to those who agree with it.  It promulgates a strict oppressive standard for those who share its opinions but no consequences for those who toe the party line. This breeds resentment and allows loyalty to an ideology, rather than to competence, or the Constitution,  to determine success in our military.

The emphasis on politics over defense has produced a crop of leaders who have replaced traditional values of obedience to civilian authority and combat competence with politics. The report notes that “General Mark Milley admitted he had ‘directly and intentionally undermined the will of the sitting President of the United States, promised to leak highly classified information to the People’s Republic of China that would endanger the lives of American service members, and injected himself inappropriately into the nuclear chain of command.” Miley faced no punishment for his misdeeds.

Photo: DoD

Our nation’s motto used to be “E Pluribus Unum,” meaning out of many, one.  Different points of view, different ethnicities, different faiths came together in a melting pot to form a uniquely American and a truly wonderful society in an unprecedented experiment. That society hasn’t always been perfect, it has made many missteps, but it strives to constantly improve, and it has indeed drastically improved.

But for some, the melting pot that brought Americans together has been replaced by what former New York City Mayor David Dinkins liked to call the “gorgeous mosaic,” in which what was once an attempt to have a unified nation has been downgraded into a warring collection of tribes separated by race, gender, and anything that disunites Americans from one another.

As a result, the core unifying concepts of America have become subjected to challenge by an intolerant faction.  Individuality, the sanctity of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and the right of the American people to their own culture have been under constant attack.

There is a new national motto promulgated by that intolerant faction. That motto is “Don’t.”

Don’t bring up history, such as how the socialism so beloved by the Left and the uninformed generally ends in tyranny and ruined economies.  Don’t confront college students with points of view they may disagree with.  Don’t point out the obvious, such as a president who takes cash for no services from his nation’s worst enemy isn’t fit to serve. Don’t question the (official version of) science. Don’t question the logic of keeping recidivist criminals out of jail. Don’t object to the nonsense of saying a man should be allowed to compete in women’s sports or be allowed to use the ladies’ room. Don’t object when the federal government conspires with social media to censor news stories. Don’t disbelieve reporters who say that burning buildings, looting stores, and attacking passers-by is a “peaceful protest.” Don’t protest when the Department of Justice describes parents who want a say in their children’s education, or Christians who believe in traditional values as “domestic terrorists.”

Those who question any of the above will be called a fascist homophobic racist misogynist by both the biased media, and subjected to threats of violence by poorly taught university students and the armed wing of the intolerant faction, Antifa and its numerous unofficial adherents.

Unlike so much else that has been unique in the extraordinary experiment that is America, the intolerance movement bears a sharp resemblance to the extremist movements of the past century. Intolerant groups in several nations overthrew existing governments by using verbal and physical violence to intimidate those who opposed them, and went on to establish nightmare regimes. From the Russian Bolsheviks to the Nazi Gestapo, we have seen political intolerance grow into totalitarian governments repeatedly.

As mayors who subscribe to intolerance have taken control of the nation’s great cities, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and others, these once magnificent metropolises have seen their economies weakened, their citizen’s safety imperiled, and their residents flee to more traditionally American states. Government budgets have swelled but basic services have deteriorated. Schools in those beleaguered locales have failed to adequately instruct pupils. Police officers have retired or transferred elsewhere. Businesses large and small have fled in unprecedented numbers. Far too often, priority has been given to non-American illegal immigrants over the needs of the citizenry.  The abomination of providing $400 a night hotel rooms to illegals while homeless veterans continue to suffer is an affront to common sense and common decency.

There is no mystery on how to resolve these dilemmas. Reject the verbal and physical violence perpetuated by the intolerant faction, and return to the principles that made America the greatest political success in human history.

Illustration: Pixabay

One, two, three, or eleven…. 

How many children are born into the average Indian family depends heavily on the region in which the family resides and the level of that state’s economic development. This month India’s total population will surpass that of China making it the most populous country on earth, according to demographic experts at the United Nations. China first became the most populous country in 221BC when Qin rulers unified the territory. Although it lost the title during the height of the Roman Empire, and again for a short period during the British rule in India, it appears that China’s “One Child Policy” has doomed its future generations to long-term secondary status. India, a democracy, reformed its more extreme population control policies in time, long before China recognized its downward trajectory and relented on its draconian rules. Although India’s population curve is flattening like that of many developed countries, it appears to have escaped the dire demographic future facing China.

“This demographic milestone, however, masks dramatically divergent trajectories inside India, with fertility rates varying sharply from state to state,” says Gerry Shih and Karishma Mehrotra in a Friday Washington Post story. In Tamu Nadu, India’s southernmost state, the population rate is similar to that of the United States and Sweden. Families have an average of 1.8 children. The area is known for its factories, car manufacturing plants, and iPhones. The story is quite different in northeast India’s agrarian Bihar state where women have an average of three children and 40% marry as teenagers. 

India’s bifurcation between north and south, rural and urban, and small and large families has transformed the country into two very different looking places and frustrated Indian leaders and policymakers. The demographic gap has grown larger over the last 40 years. Today, Indian leaders are addressing the issue.

In the southern region there are more high paying jobs which help provide an improved social status for women and increase the average family’s wealth and living conditions. There is better access to family planning services, too. “The India of the south already resembles East Asia. It’s actually in the early stages of aging. But the Hindi heartland is still very much booming,” says Arvind Subramanian, India’s chief economic adviser between 2014 and 2018. He sees the divergence between north and south as an opportunity for India to apportion its federal spending to provide jobs for the poor in less developed areas. The result, he argues, will grow the Indian economy. 

Within the next seven years India is expected to overtake Germany’s economy in size. The European state still faces a gender gap in salaries with women making almost one-third less than men, despite its 1.58 birthrate and developed economic status. India is facing a similar situation. Economic modernization in southern India in the late 1980’s flourished. By 1990’s fear of a population bomb in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala had ended as the region dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family. by 2021, all of India dropped to a rate similar to that of the United States, which has 1.8 children in an average family. India’s population problems are easing. It is not expected to experience a decrease in total population until after 2060. In comparison, it is expected that China’s population by that same time will be less than half of what it is today and with a higher percentage of it retired and not actively contributing to economic production.

Gerry Shih and Karishma Mehrotra note that Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the nonprofit Population Foundation of India, says “Where governance has been good, where women’s education and literacy are better, where public health services are better, you’ll see naturally lower population growth rates.” India’s richer states also pay women to use IUD’s and be sterilized. The argument is that this encourages a woman to become educated rather than married at a young age. Is it working? A 2021 national family survey indicates that in the wealthier states 84% of women are literate, compared to 55% in the poorer northern state of Bihar. The gender preference gap is also narrowing as Prime Minister Modi’s administration created a large campaign to discourage sex-selection abortions. 

Today 19.2 percent of married Bihari women are employed outside the home. The government sees education as a major part of the effort to reduce poverty in the future and expand the economic wealth across the country. Cultural change regarding attitudes toward family size takes time, something China ran out of several years ago. Although conservative values still dominate northern India, it appears that there is some hope the government’s message is getting through as family size has decreased over the last five years. Closing the North-South economic gap may be creating short-term contentious domestic politics, as workers in the south dislike their tax dollars leaving the region. In the long run, however, India’s decision to reduce poverty in the north and improve education for women bides well for aiding India’s modernization.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department

Photo: Pixabay