[nradov]

Their society is rapidly stagnating with a disastrous demographic profile. And since it's now a dictatorship the decision ultimately comes down to one man: Chairman Xi. No one knows what's going on in his head so we have to assume the worst.

[roenxi]

Them having very few youths is hardly an indicator of war is it? I was more concerned when they had a big excess.

[shiroiushi]

Russia is pretty short of young people these days too, and they're all too happy to throw the ones they still have into a pointless war.

[roenxi]

Yeah but the Russians didn't declare war because of their demographics. In fact, if you ask them why this happened Putin gave a whole speech [0] on this when he sent the troops in, which can be neatly summarised:

> We are talking about what causes us particular concern and anxiety, about those fundamental threats that year after year, step by step, are rudely and unceremoniously created by irresponsible politicians in the West in relation to our country. I mean the expansion of the Nato bloc to the east, bringing its military infrastructure closer to Russian borders.

It isn't obvious that China is dealing with the same sort of pressures in East Asia.

[0] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-putin-s-declar... - although technically I suspect he was declaring Special Military Operation.

[PoignardAzur]

I think it's well-established that Putin's posture on the subject isn't sincere or an accurate assessment of their government's actual motive for war.

If NATO anxiety was the primary factor for the war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't be so blasé about draining troops and hardware from its borders with NATO countries to throw them into the meat-grinder.

They would still probably do it, mind you, but it would be a huge scandal and a subject of existential dread for Russian media and elites.

The fact that they've been stripping their NATO borders bare with barely anyone noticing or caring shows that nobody views the prospect of a NATO invasion as realistic. It was always a fig leaf.

(Although maybe there were scandals and I never heard of them. My exposure to Russian media is filtered through Western media. But I heard about other scandals and anxieties.)

[roenxi]

> The fact that they've been stripping their NATO borders bare with barely anyone noticing or caring shows that nobody views the prospect of a NATO invasion as realistic.

Nobody has ever suggested that there was a prospect of a NATO invasion of Russia. That is crazy talk; it'd be the end of civilisation in the northern hemisphere. They aren't deploying troops to ward off a NATO invasion, that is what the ICBMs are for.

[AnimalMuppet]

Right. But why is NATO "bringing military infrastructure closer to Russian borders" a concern to Russia if they aren't worried about a NATO invasion?

So what's really going on? Well, Putin said "rudely". Russia feels insulted because everybody wants to be in NATO, and nobody wants to be Russia's buddy... if you take Putin's words at face value.

If you don't, then I think Putin is terrified of Ukraine's revolution against a Russia-friendly leader. He doesn't want a western-friendly revolution in a culturally-Russian-adjacent country to succeed - there's too much chance that Russians might decide that they like the idea.