This is a day to celebrate country living! The Spring is upon us in spurts that remind us that progress is erratic at times, but the process is immutable. They say things will cool again in a few days, back in sweaters on the back deck for smoke breaks we call “bird watching.” That sounds more refined. And we are a refined bunch, if not actually distilled.

We were going to do the weekly report as scheduled. It steers clear of the partisan fever which seems to afflict so much these days. Most of us have experience in the national security side of shallow careerism, so the horrific return of European warfare has a certain attraction that spreads across the web of pals with an understandable urgency. Buck is an emeritus Economist by trade, and naturally the kinetic side of problem solving is of interest, but as a reflection of other and more widespread human affairs.

We were lurching into a discussion of the Azov Brigade, and why Mr. Putin’s message stream accuses them of connection to the Germanic aggression that began more than a century ago, and was refined into the Black Plague that practiced not ordinary murder, but the attempted elimination of entire peoples. That in turn led to the references to the Holodomor, a similar sort of national expression in which the arriving Germans in Ukraine had some welcome them as “liberators.”

DeMille waved his hand at that in dismissal. “Buck has a point. We have let the rest of the world slip aside in the discussion of two ancient evils meeting in modern and equally adept successors. Let’s at least mention what is going on elsewhere, and how that might be coming down the road without much fanfare.”

Buck smiled at the sudden elevation of a wider view among the aging warriors. Melissa stretched, pleased to bring her thoughts away from troop relocations, the imperative of the coming Victory Day commemorations in Moscow which will require some heroic act to celebrate, even if the nature of such might be unpleasant in achievement. She said: “We can’t be fooled that all this tuff in Ukraine is not directly connected to something bigger. Much bigger. Anyone remember Japan?”

The cis-genders around the Fire Ring all smiled. Most had visited Japan, and some had lived there for extended periods. All had visited Korea, one for a 14-month one year tour to which he still applied the extra months to any unwanted task. “We need to talk about something completely apart from dragooning the young to fight the wars of the old. We are growing old.”

Those sorts of words are common among a population that cannot rise to their feet without groans and pops of joints, and there were furtive grimaces from all. Melissa continued, resolute. “I am not talking about just being personally old. There is now talk that nations themselves are aging. I read an account that said Japan had pitched over into a declining population that seems inexorably to lead to disappearance. China is suffering from the demographic pressures of the One Child policy and expansion of a population of women who can chose to devote their lives to something aside from the bearing of children.”

“Yeah, but it seems like every Western nation is confronting something like it as well. Italy and France. The Germans we just mentioned.”

Loma scowled. “It is happening here, too, with ‘three kids” from our time shrinking to less than two in families. We only are staying even by importing outsiders, and apparently intentionally.”

“We are watching a change masked as something else. We used to have an artificial number of illegals for a little more than eleven million, which was actually more like thirty. And we are adding a couple million a year to that. More than ten percent of the population were not born here.’

‘Their legal status is not suitable for mention. We are supposed to not categorize them as anything except ‘migrants.’ There has to be an affect on the places they left, as well. We just don’t know what it is.”

“Exactly,” said Splash with a yawn. “The President is supposed to go talk to the Quad countries in late May. That is the new sort-of alliance intended to encircle China. That is the US, Australia, India and Japan. India is playing a different game with Russia, while the Americans and the Aussies are trying to transition the old Commonwealth arrangement into a new era. Japan is starting to re-arm under the prospect that they are in the opposite position from their grandparents on the China thing.”

“While the hole in the Chinese population of military-age young men may cause pressure to act out on something in what they consider their home waters. There is talk that Henderson Field and the Solomon Islands from World War II history are places the People’s Liberation Army might want to use for the same purposes as we did two generations ago.”

DeMille shook his head. “We don’t need more warriors here. To quote Jack Nicholson, “we are all filled up with that.” Throw the inflation factor in there along with the prospects of the impact of the Ukrainian harvest being lost and fertilizer prices skyrocketing, the people closest to the edge are going to be hurt first and it is going to be painful.”

Rocket is the least conversational in the group, but he does occasionally think. “That means there is going to be something happening here.”

Buck began to hum an old song by Buffalo Springfield that contained that phrase. He stopped when he had everyone attention. He transitioned from musical to speech, slowly finishing with the words “What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

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