Countries with Low Birth Rates Are Allowed to Have Foreign Policies

By Dominic Pino

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

 

Yesterday, Noah wrote a piece about how J. D. Vance thinks you will believe anything with his rhetoric about aid to Ukraine. Noah focused on Vance’s comments about Ukraine aid somehow being a plot against Donald Trump. After Noah’s piece was published, Vance gave remarks in the Senate that made just as little sense.

 

“At the same time that world leaders play armchair general with the Ukraine conflict, their own societies are decaying,” Vance said. It does not seem to have clicked for him that some of those leaders are actual generals, or defense ministers or diplomats, whose job it is to care about such things.

 

Vance’s evidence that those societies are decaying is that the U.S. and NATO allies have low birth rates. Never mind that Russia and China have lower birth rates than the United States does. This is a peculiar standard by which to judge foreign policy.

 

“We don’t have enough families and children to continue as a nation and yet we’re talking about problems 6,000 miles away,” Vance said. If countries with fertility rates above replacement level are the only ones allowed to care about foreign affairs, most of the developed world is out. China, Russia, and Iran all have fertility rates below replacement level, yet they continue to agitate U.S. allies and interests with active, interventionist foreign policies. In foreign affairs, the enemy gets a vote, which makes for a lot of undesirable choices that nonetheless need to be made.

 

Vance said that illegal immigration is a problem, which it is. But he said nothing of legal immigration. From other statements he has made in the past, we know he wants legal immigration to be reduced. If he’s so concerned about U.S. demographics relative to those of U.S. adversaries, he should take comfort in the fact that millions of people around the world want to move to the U.S. legally and become Americans. China, with its consistently negative net migration, wishes it was so desirable a destination. Yet Vance doesn’t want to let as many new Americans in, while he complains that the Americans who are already here aren’t having enough kids.

 

Vance listed other U.S. problems, such as fentanyl overdoses, mental-health problems, and rising suicide rates, which are certainly real and pressing. But they were just as real and pressing last month, when Vance was writing to the secretary of state about public broadcasting in Poland. The U.S. fertility rate was also below replacement level two months ago, when Vance was raising concerns about speech restrictions in Ireland. Vance can advocate on issues in other countries while still caring about the U.S., and other senators can do it as well.

 

“China and Russia, if we want them to fear us, we need to rebuild our own countries,” Vance said. “We need to rebuild a civilization that can support conflicts instead of just run away from them.” Never mind that Vance is the one advocating running away from the conflict in Ukraine, or that China’s economy is in deep trouble and Russia’s is isolated from most of the developed world at this point. China’s economy was at various times forecast to become larger than America’s in 2019, 2021, or 2024, none of which happened. Despite China’s having more than three times as many people as the U.S., it’s possible that China’s economy will never be larger than America’s.

 

“We do not have a country, and we do not have a NATO alliance, that is strong enough to do the things that need to be done,” Vance said. This is controverted by the fact that Ukraine, with support from the U.S. and other NATO members, has successfully prevented Russia from taking it over. The Russian government thought it would be able to conquer Ukraine quickly.

 

Since the war began, NATO has seen new applications for membership from Finland and Sweden. Both of those countries are repudiating traditions of neutrality to join the alliance, and they are both increasing defense spending as they join. They clearly believe that NATO is a worthwhile organization. To the extent they see a need for rebuilding, they want to contribute to it, not bemoan it.

 

“Our message to the Europeans needs to be simple: Fix your own country, share your own burden, spend more on defense, fix your own problems, and that will deal with the problem in Russia far more than a $61 billion check to Ukraine will,” Vance said. His characterization of the U.S. spending as a “check to Ukraine” is incorrect. Most of the money would never leave the U.S., and aid comes with provisions about how it can be used, with multiple layers of oversight from Congress and inspectors general.

 

Europe has been providing most of the assistance to Ukraine so far. According to the Kiel Institute aid tracker, through the end of October, EU countries and institutions have given 133.2 billion euros, compared to 71.4 billion euros from the U.S. Total U.S. aid is equivalent to 0.3 percent of U.S. GDP. Lithuania and Estonia have given about six times as much as a share of their GDPs. Germany has given 0.9 percent of its GDP, three times more than the U.S. has as a share of its economy.

 

Even countries with fertility rates below replacement level are allowed to have foreign policies. If Vance wants to change people’s minds about supporting Ukraine, he will need to do better than this.