Demographic change directly affects a country's national strategy. Throughout history, states have worked to maintain high birth rates in order to generate more taxes, more economic activity and more troops for their militaries. Generally, a country's strength lay in its numbers, and the large states were usually the ones shaping regional or international geopolitical order. High population alone does not make a country successful; in fact, it can lead to generalized poverty or social unrest. However, most states that became regional or global leaders did so during a population surge. European Population Projections Stratfor From a military perspective, population size determines a country's ability to defend itself or attack others, even if technological advances diminish the importance of the number of troops. In Europe, the aging and shrinking of the population will make recruitment harder and lead to higher per capita defense costs.