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The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Demographic Change Could Foster Instability, Says CIA Director Michael Hayden

    May 13, 2008 By Liat Racin
    Rapid population growth “is almost certain to occur in countries least able to sustain it, and that will create a situation that will likely fuel instability and extremism,” warned CIA Director General Michael Hayden in a recent speech at Kansas State University, where he identified demographic change as one of the three global trends most likely to influence world events and challenge American security.

    The UN mid-range world population projection for 2050 is 9.2 billion people, an approximately 40 percent increase over today’s population. This population growth, especially in developing and fragile states, may easily overwhelm state capacity. “When basic needs are not met,” explained Hayden, people “could easily be attracted to violence, civil unrest, and extremism.” Such civil unrest can spread across borders, destabilizing regions and impacting both developing and developed countries.

    When their governments cannot meet their basic needs, people also often choose to emigrate. A dramatic influx of migrants—legal and illegal—from developing countries to developed ones poses significant challenges for the destination country, as governments must allocate resources for facilitating immigrant assimilation and, in some cases, countering extremism. Many European countries have struggled to integrate Muslim immigrants into their societies.

    It’s interesting to note that the estimate of a 40 percent increase in population growth by 2050 is primarily based on the assumption that current levels of funding for family planning services will continue, which is far from certain. Promoting access to family planning has been a proven mechanism in reducing fertility. With growing populations threatening to overwhelm fragile states’ capacity and harm the environment, funding voluntary family planning programs could well be considered an investment in global security.


    Topics: conflict, demography, migration, population
    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/07430391562374233505 Meaghan Parker

      For more on Muslim integration in Europe, see Eric Kaufman’s paper, “Eurabia? The Foreign Policy Implications of West Europe’s Religious Composition in 2025 and Beyond,” which is available from the International Studies Association’s paper archive:
      http://www.allacademic.com/one/isa/isa08/

    • RF

      “Despite an unwarranted complacency among many, humanity’s central problems today include, among other things, (a) the impending arrival of our 7th, 8th, and 9th billions by mid-century, along with (b) the extreme levels of overpopulation and the environmental impacts that we already exhibit. As a result, a continuation of today’s demographic tidal wave may constitute the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken.”

      “Throughout history, we have always been able to count on the functioning of natural systems as a given. As this book will show, however, earth’s population has already become so large, and is growing larger so rapidly, that such presumptions are no longer warranted.”

      “We submit that there exists a specific and fundamental repertoire of scientific information that every citizen should know about our planet and that this information includes thresholds, tipping points, and unintended consequences; carrying capacities, limiting factors, delayed feedbacks, and overshoot; exponential mathematics and J-curves, as well as demographics and world population levels past, present, and future.”

      As excerpted from: WECSKAOP – What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet (Anson, 2007)

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