Demography Is Not Destiny  The connections between security and
demographic trends-including migration patterns, age
distribution, and population growth rates-have become
increasingly prominent in academic and policy circles, as well
as in the mainstream media. While researchers have been studying
these links for decades, they are worth a deeper look-not only
because of their newfound attention, but also because we now
have more evidence to evaluate them.  No reasonable scholar or
practitioner would argue that there is a simple causal
relationship between demography and security-i.e., that a total
fertility rate of 5.0 children per woman indicates that civil
war will break out 20 years from now, or that a country cannot
remain stable unless its age distribution resembles a bell
curve. However, many argue that demographic trends can interact
with other factors such as poverty, poor governance, competition
for natural resources, and environmental degradation to
exacerbate tensions and contribute to conflict. Al