I am not an expert on China and I don’t pretend to be one on TV. That said I’m probably more an expert on China than 97% of Americans. I wanted to call attention to this op-ed at the Washington Post by Nicholas Eberstadt:

China is in the midst of a quiet but stunning nationwide collapse of birthrates. This is the deeper, still largely overlooked, significance of the country’s 2022 population decline, announced by Chinese authorities last month.

As recently as 2019, demographers at the U.S. Census Bureau and the United Nations were not expecting China’s population to start dropping until the early 2030s. But they did not anticipate today’s wholesale plunge in childbearing.

Considerable attention has been devoted to likely consequences of China’s coming depopulation: economic, political, strategic. But the causes of last year’s population drop deserve much closer examination.

China’s nosedive in childbearing is a silent alarm. It signals deep disaffection with the bleak future the regime is engineering for its subjects. In this land without democracy, the birth collapse can be read as a landslide vote of no confidence in President Xi Jinping’s rule.

My immediate reaction to the piece was “now do the United States”. Here’s the U. S. birthrate:

and the U. S. marriage rate:

The statistics for the native born are actually somewhat worse than that—the birthrates of immigrants are slightly higher than for the native born.

If declining birth and marriage rates signal pessimism and a loss of confidence in the government in China, what do they signal here in the United States?

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has made history again. She is the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to fail to be re-elected. Now Paul Vallas will face Brandon Johnson in the runoff to be held in April. That will be a contest between the anointed candidate of the Fraternal Order of Police and the candidate endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union who has run on a platform of defunding the police. We’ll see.

Lori Lightfoot was elected four years ago largely on the basis of not being Toni Preckwinkle. She is still not Toni Preckwinkle but that wasn’t enough to be re-elected—she needed to be an effective mayor and has not succeeded at that. In addition to not being Toni Preckwinkle she prevailed in the primarily election last time by getting votes from the Northwest Side. She forgot the old dictum, “Dance with the one what brung you”.

Update

At the Sun-Times Fran Spielman quotes Joe Ferguson’s reasonable take on what happened:

“At the front end, she did not govern the way she ran. And at the back end, she ran the way she governed,” Ferguson said, apparently referring to Lightfoot’s recent warning that any South Side vote for “somebody not named Lightfoot is a vote for Chuy Garcia or Paul Vallas.” At that same campaign stop, she declared: “If you want them controlling your fate and your destiny, then stay home. Then don’t vote.”

“Her greater interest was in holding the power in a transactional way,” Ferguson said, “and not governing as the times called for and that she promised she would.”

Pressed for specifics, Ferguson pointed to Lightfoot’s own campaign themes and 2019 transition report. He argued the “vast majority” of promises made in that report “never got implemented and, in critical areas, she did the opposite of what she said she would do.”

Exhibit “A” was reforming the police department. It was supposed to be Lightfoot’s greatest strength. She served as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Board president. She co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability, which championed a series of reforms laying the groundwork for a federal consent decree in the furor following the shooting of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police.

“She brought in, as the interim [police superintendent], the person in the United States who had successfully transformed a big-city police department under terms of a consent decree,” Ferguson said, referring to Charlie Beck, the retired Los Angeles police chief.

But then, “she brought in a permanent superintendent who undid all of that in a matter of two weeks, then never held him to account,” Ferguson added, referring to CPD Supt. David Brown, whom Lightfoot lured from Dallas.

All of Mayor Lightfoot’s opponents in the primary vowed to remove that permanent superintendent.

Update 2

Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown has residnged, effective March 16. ABC 7 Chicago reports:

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown will resign his position on March 16.

Lightfoot made the announcement in a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying Brown informed her of his resignation today.

“I accepted his resignation and want to commend him for his accomplishments not just for the department but the entire city, including setting a record number of illegal gun recoveries for two consecutive years; leading a double digit reduction in violent crime in 2022; significant, consistent progress on the consent decree; standing up a full time recruitment team that yielded over 950 new hires last year; significantly expanding the resources for officer wellness; and promoting more women to the senior exempt ranks than ever before in the history of the department,” the statement read. “I personally want to thank him for his service to our city.”

Brown said in a statement he has accepted a job as COO of Loncar Lyon Jenkins, a personal injury law firm in Texas.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to work alongside the brave men and women of the Chicago Police Department. I will continue to pray that all officers return home to their families safe at the end of their shift. May the Good Lord bless the city of Chicago and the men and women who serve and protect this great city,” Brown said in a statement.

I’m not sure which cliche desribex his action best: the hand writing on the wall, getting out while the getting is good, or the rats leaving the sinking ship. Both Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson had said that if elected they would fire Supt. Brown and one of them will, indeed, be elected.

While I was puttering around on RAND’s site, I came across this document which I found interesting: “Russian Grand Strategy: Rhetoric and Reality”. I materially agree with their findings. Here is a summary of those findings:

• Russia’s actions are materially aligned with what they have declared as their grand strategy. The alignment is not perfect but largely perfect.
• The Russians believe that the global order is in transition. The “unipolar” world with the United States a the sole superpower has failed and it collapsing and will be replaced by a multipolar world. Imagine the U. S. as a “soft empire”. Several rebellious provinces of which Russia is one are seceding from that empire.
• Russia sees itself as major power.
• Russia should be recognized as a major power.
• Russia sees itself as the natural leader of the Eurasian region, essentially a bridge between Europe and the Far East.
• Russia intends to forge partnerships with other “rebellious provinces”, the “new centers of power”. Those include China, India, and Brazil among others.
• Russia is open to selective cooperation with the West.
• Threats to Russia include NATO force posture enhancements, Western use of non-military measures to promote instability, terrorism, cyberattacks, etc.

By “agree with their findings” mean that I agree that’s what the Russians think rather than I think that what the Russians believe is necessarily true.

It should be noted that their observation about Russia, to the effect that Russia’s words are consistent with its pursuit of its grand strategy, places Russia in stark contrast with the U. S. We have a grand strategy but it is an emergent strategy. Consequently, the statements of our political leaders may or may not be aligned with that strategy. Shorter: you can’t place too much weight on what we say. We don’t do what we say.

When I started doing the election judge thing, thirty some-odd years ago, the turnout in our precinct for elections including primary elections was around 90%. Citywide the turnout was 70% or higher. In this year’s mayoral primary the total turnout including early voting, mail-in votes, and voting in person appears to be around 30%. Why so low? Here are some possibilities:

1. Fatigue
2. Disinterest
3. Despair
4. It wasn’t actually that high years ago but deceased voters don’t vote as regularly as they used to
5. It isn’t actually that low—a lot of the voters presently registered don’t exist, i.e. died, moved away, etc.
6. The people who’ve moved to Chicago come from places where they just aren’t accustomed to voting

I’m guessing some combination with a heavy emphasis on despair.

BTW the turnout among voters aged 18-24 is estimated at less than 3%.

The primary election for Chicago mayor is today. Nine candidates are vying for the job including the incumbent. Unfortunately, the top two finishers today will go on to the run-off.

I was reading a piece at Vox.com and one sentence jumped out at me:

The CFPB, however, is unusual in that its funding first passes through a different federal agency, the Federal Reserve.

What’s wrong with that sentence?

Answer (highlight to view)

The Federal Reserve is not a federal agency. It receives no money appropriated by Congress.

When COVID-19 first emerged all sorts of speculations were flying around, fast and furious. Was it zoonotic as had been the case for other viruses? Was it an attack by a bioweapon? Was it the result of an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Holding a view other than the one approved for your tribe was apostasy. Then the FBI decided it probably was spread by a lab accident. And now the Department of Energy has decided the same thing. At the Wall Street Journal Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel report:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

I guess I’m in the same camp as the two intelligence agencies that are undecided. Although the persistence theory would lead you to suspect that COVID-19 was zoonotic in origin, that theory is only good until it isn’t. I don’t think we know yet and may never know.

As I’ve said before I think the greatest likelihood of the Chinese government being forthcoming with their best evidence against the lab leak hypothesis is for a civil suit against the Chinese government for damages related to COVID-19 to proceed. That doesn’t require proof beyond reasonable doubt, only a preponderance of the evidence.

The RAND organization has convened a panel of 27 experts who weighed in on the war in Ukraine and provided some guidance on what to look for in the coming year.

Their expertise is various: history, economics, international relations, Russia, public policy, and so on. Most of their remarks are pretty noncommittal which I suspect is part of what makes them experts. I agreed with many of them but disagreed with some. For example, I think this is a pretty succinct encapsulation of the situation by defense analyst Clint Reach:

In a protracted fight, time tends to favor the larger side. The question going forward for Ukraine will be the extent to which its superior will to fight and Western support and can overcome the numbers challenge.

but I disagree with this observation by David Shlapak:

Continued U.S. support for Ukraine will be more contentious with a new Congress. Since Europe will only follow where the United States goes, Washington may be where the outcome largely is decided.

or, at least, I would phrase it differently. A major question is whether our notional European allies are actually committed to opposing Russia in this war. Germany, for example, has been rhetorically strong but pragmatically weak. At this point it looks unlikely to increase its own defenses to any material degree. I don’t think U. S. leadership is at issue so much as European followership. If, as we stand up, Germany, France, and Italy stand down, we will weaken ourselves without increasing actual opposition to Russia. I thought the observation that by admitting Eastern European countries to NATO we simultaneously weakened the alliance and provided evidence to Russia that we were threatening them was insightful.

The piece in the Washington Post is characterized as “seven opinions on the war in Ukraine”. In actuality it’s the same opinion expressed seven different ways: Ukraine will win its war with Russia. How could it not with the morale of the Ukrainians as high as it is and the West providing whatever weapons they need? If the views of the retired general staff as quoted by Daniel Davis at 1945 are being represented accurately, they hold the same view. Here’s a sample snippet:

Earlier this week in a Washington Post op-ed, Hertling plainly stated Ukraine “will win the war.” The reason for his declarative optimism? Russia won’t make the changes necessary to win “simply because it can’t.”

The Russian military, the former general claimed, “reflects the character and values of the society” from which it was drawn, and Russians are incapable of learning lessons. The good general seems to have forgotten that Russia, when sufficiently threatened, destroyed France’s Napoleonic armies in 1812 and Germany’s vaunted Wehrmacht in 1945.

Lt. Col. Davis disagrees:

Too many of today’s retired general officers seem to still believe they are dealing with a foreign head of state like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad, none of whom had or have the power to do any meaningful harm to the U.S. or NATO. Vladimir Putin, regardless of how much many in the West may detest him and blame him for the war in Ukraine, is not in that category by virtue of his nuclear arsenal.

Moreover, as has been graphically demonstrated over the past year of war in which Russia has struggled to possess even a fifth of one bordering nation, Moscow does not represent any credible conventional threat to the NATO alliance. Even with a major mobilization, Putin will be hard-pressed to capture all the Donbas; there is presently no chance for him even to capture all of Ukraine. It is concerning that our generals don’t seem to grasp this clear military reality.

If the objective is, as Ukrainian President Zelensky has averred, a restoration of control by Ukraine of its territory prior to 2014, it’s unclear to me how that can be made to happen without direct involvement by NATO. Ukraine and Russia are presently engaged in a struggle which both parties consider existential. The gravest question to my mind is what is actually existential for each side? I am convinced that Russia believes that holding Crimea is existential for it; they are not bluffing or posturing. Do they see Donetsk and Luhansk the same way? If recovering Donetsk and Luhansk existential for the Ukrainians? Crimea?

Without some change in the objectives of both combatants, I can only imagine that the war will continue for a long time.