The Demographics of Central Europe || July 17, 2026
Central and Eastern Europe are undergoing major demographic decline. We're talking low birth rates, aging populations, and decades of youth emigration to Western Europe. So, what does this all mean?
We're seeing a broad emptying zone with shrinking labor forces and weakening state capacity. In the past, this brought about systemic change or uneven regional power shifts. And we'll likely see some version of the latter, as control over the region begins to fragment.
Since most European powers won't be able to project power eastward, Turkey is really the only viable option to become a dominant regional actor.
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Comments (35)
The Turks are already expanding, because leftist open all borders. The second or third biggest Turkish city TODAY is Berlin. What Europe fought for centuries against, leftist and their anti-western ideology undoes happily. Europe is falling, France’s "healthy demographics" are Islamist immigrants, Germany’s not completely disastrous demographics are due to Turkish, Syrian, Afghani immigrants, and Turkey at the edge of Europe is pushing in. So, just looking at numbers doesn’t do the situation justice, we also need to look at it from a civilizational angle: 80 million immigrants may populate the area where there once was Germany, but it won’t be Germany, not in language, education, culture, or economic power. Marco Rubio’s warnings to Europe were dead on, and of course just as much ignored as when Trump1 warned Europe about its dependence on ruᛋᛋian gas.🤷🏻♂️
kind of disagree--Germany historically will fill the void and industry wise already has been buying manufacturing sites there for decades
it's impressive to see an American with such a deep knowledge of European cultural, military history
why didn't you run for the white house? and we ended up with the opposite of you there :(
One piece that I am missing in this analysis is how the Central Asian countries, especially Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, play in this. The influence of Turkey in these countries is very noticeable. They also have much younger populations than almost all of Europe.
Hi Peter, question for you. Eastern and Central European demographics have been in decline for some time, and no one has offered any practical solutions. Every country (coming from there myself) wanted to become Germany, and demographically, its dream came true... but on the other side you have the South Korea and Japan have been ageing too, but the economy there seems extremely strong in complex sectors. so what is the secret sauce central/eastern europe do not have? thanks
@Peter GREAT Video today would LOVE to see one of your series here! Hearing this for a variety of other regions globally (especially North America & South America). ☺️ 🌎 🙌 💪 🙏 It’s all going to be SO damn fascinating to live through. Hard, but the response & tech developments make it such an interesting beautiful mess.
I found the general premise of Peter's talk depressing... Turkey may rise and need to be stopped???? Need more weapons. I know that I am naive to question why we must assume that future wars of aggression are guaranteed to take place and we must always be preparing and investing in the tools of warfare. Every country must invest a huge chunk of spending, say 4% +, on their military. This is instead of more humane investments like education or healthcare, etc. The whole world must be ready and waiting for another Putin type leader to attack. Be prepared for the likes of North Korea to blow us all up. Militarize space ahead of China. Trillions and trillions of dollars. I use to think it was just the Military Industrial Complex gaslighting everyone to fear the evil boogyman. Then, to the surprise of millions we find even an advanced industrial country like the USA can start a war and threaten to wipeout a civilization.... we are the boogyman?! Is there any chance humans can stop going to war? I assume not. We should just keeping building our militaries for a future guaranteed to be filled with wars? On the other hand we can do a heart transplant.... Anyone have an idea how there could ever be a different path forward for humanity. BTW, as always, the video was very good.
This is the real question. Humanity can try to put out fires, try to dominate one another but it cannot end well unless we change course dramatically. Barring some kind of benevolent change agent (Wise Aliens? Some form of God?) coming down to earth, I don't see it happening. At least not before another world war takes place. Sad but humanity as a whole has little to say for itself. Dwight D. Eisenhower summed up this perspective on how we choose to live: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said. “This world in arms is not spending money alone. “It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. “The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.” “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense,” he said. “Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Economic issues aside, I seems like there might be some positive aspects to reductions in populations.
anyone here listens to Ryan Mcbeth? he’s more accurate and better in geopolitics
Don’t rain on Peter’s parade!
In ten or so years when about one third of the people on this planet die off with no replacements it would seem that it would help global warming
It turns out that women are NOT having "fewer" children; it is that a growing percentage of women are having NO children. Of those mothers who have a child, the average is still the same as in decades past. Two, three, or more kids per mother. The number of women who either decide not to have a child or wait too long and get too old to safely have a child is growing fast. It's as high as one out of three women in some countries. A lot try to adopt in their later years, but the number of foreign/domestic adoptions has fallen dramatically to just a few percent compared to, say, 25 years ago. Even poor countries realize that children are IMPORTANT to their future.
Female 74 yr old. I refused to have children and end up supplying canon fodder to a bunch of male billionaires. 🖕🤮😳🤬🤬
Interesting conjecture re Turkey and Poland. But I think that even nation states with much lower populations might be able, in the short term, to hold out against much more demographically and economically powerful nation states, given the example of what drones have accomplished in Ukraine v Russia. Ultimately, that asymetric advantage will lessen or even disappear due to counter-drone developments in tech and doctrine. The drone revolution in warfare is, I think, a temporary asymetric advantage for defenders. 10-20 years out I think that the battlefield advantages of robots will be effectively matured and countered, and the advantages of larger pop and econ will revive. That's when you may start to see a major reshufflings of the map IF international norms against aggressive armed conflict fade significantly. In short, I think Peter's conjecture of a violent conflict between the more demographically robust nation states of middle Europe in 30-40 years is a pretty realistic conjecture. When we see that sheer population again clearly outweighs the power of building a powerful electrical/electronic tech industry, shit is gonna pop.
Huh I didn’t know that about the renaissance. Thanks for the history.
The Malaccan Dilemma has been resolved in China's favor now that we know they have at least 1.4 trillion barrels of oil in reserve.
Really interesting and insightful, thanks 👍
Thank you Peter. This was really informative. I wish you would have been my history/current events teacher. Have a great weekend.
I would argue a pretty big factor for Russia will be whether or not they will incorporate the multitude of central Asian climate refugees, and what will likely be a massive refugee crisis out of Iran from the MAGA war of extermination… That would bolster their numbers quite a lot If anyone thinks I’m being hyperbolic with extermination, that friend of Epstein in the White House is targeting power plants in the middle of summer in a region that relies on desalinization and air conditioning, what is the end result of that?
Peter.. your videos are so informative. Could you do a segment on water in the west.. versus water in the east. We all know that water follows money and as climate change impacts everyone, how will people adapt and seek higher ground( due to rising sea levels) and what areas will be growing considering lack of snowmelt and increasing temperatures.
@Peter: What direction will the Middle East take, in your view? Is it possible that Turkey will be occupied with the Middle East instead of looking at Europe for expansion?
Pew Research Center: Islam was the world's fastest-growing religion from 2010 to 2020 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/10/islam-was-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religion-from-2010-to-2020/ Off Topic: Data Centers in Spaaaaace! Pick one. Scott Manley is brilliant and has the patience of a saint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQYU3m1e80 Kyle Hill is also brilliant and very silly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6G7VEwNq0 Anastasi is brilliant and very Hot! Real sexy accent and has the most comprehensive Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osMooAvpSSs Peter is 100% correct on this topic. I'm considering changing my moniker to "Silly STEM guy." Oh..., NATO is not "DONE. " Putin is. It will still be around next year with the US as a member.
Would appreciate some additional perspective regarding a) historic religious implications; and b) impact of present-day weaponry on expansionist efforts by any given country.
I wonder about the 1800s in Europe, when many of them immigrated to the U.S. I heard there were towns in Sweden where most of the people went to America.
Really enjoy a good long video ❤️
The high water mark for Muslims (Turks) was right before the Siege of Vienna, September 11, 1683. Coincidence ? No
I think we need an updated Turkey analysis Peter, because a lot has happened in its region since the last one and all recent events seem to help Turkey. Peter talked about Syria being such a pain in Turkeys ass, yet it seems they have settled it relatively easily, even almost appointing a president and booting Russia and Iran out. With a weakened Russia, Caucuses turned hugely in Turkeys favor, It has strong presence in Libya as well also beating Russians and doing so during a global oil crisis might prove profitable. Iran being bombed to Stone Age is definitely helps turkeys odds of increasing its influence in Southern Azerbaijan too. Turkey even has a large naval military base in Somalia to also be on the other side of Red Sea
Peter thank you. I continue to learn from and enjoy your commentaries.
Turkish fertility rate has collapsed to 1.4 which is lower than that of romania lmao
Peter already talked about that and said even if fertility rate stays like they got 30-40 years that other nations don’t. Because Turkish median age is like 34. It’s still too young, Romania has its 10 years older. Besides Romania looses its youth to migration, Turkey have received over 5 million migrants and refugees which were mostly in their teens. Which isn’t factored in that median age statistics. Central Asia’s Turkic nations and so on also see Turkey as a common migration destination.
TALK ABOUT IRAN
Could we get something on the Iran war restarting?
I could hear this man talk about geo politics for a long time and be entertained and informed.