With a Whimper: The Challenge of US-European Relations in the 21st Century

This is an essay that began as one thing and ended as another. I went into this with the intention of writing on the potential of military conflict between a European Superpower and the United States, in particular on those areas where such open military conflicts might arise. However, as I conducted research for that paper, I came to a very different conclusion: there isn’t going to be any military conflict between the United States and European Superpower, because there is probably never going to be a European Superpower. In fact, unless trends change drastically, within a few decades the Europe that has existed for centuries may well be gone forever. In truth, it seems that Europe is dying while America is not. The challenge in Euro-American relations will not be, as many think, bridging the gap between a rising and fading Superpower: it will be one of managing the death of the Europe that was.

Why is Europe dying? To put it simply (and crudely) it is dying because Europeans are not breeding quickly enough or often enough. Between now and the year 2050 the world population is expected to rise from 6 billion to 8.9 billion while, at the same time, Europe’s population (or, rather, the population of the twenty-seven nations who are planned to be in the EU by 2007) is predicted to fall from 482 million to 454 million . As a result of this decline (among other factors), Europe’s share of the world economy will fall from 22% today to 12% in 2050 .

Unless these problems are addressed, discussing US-European relations on the common premise that of the, “US and Europe being equal partners in dealing with world problems ” is an absurd fantasy. Discussions among European intellectuals about how Europe can act to “balance” American power strike me now as being as futile and absurd as those in the scene at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Dr. Strangelove, in which various American policy-makers (and the Soviet ambassador) vigorously debate plans for survival shortly after the detonation of a ‘doomsday device’ which they all know will destroy the entire world.

In an August 2002 cover story, Britain’s The Economist explained just what our future world might look like, nothing that, “Europe's population in 2050 would be 360m and falling, America's would be over 550m and rising .” In other words, for the first time, Europe’s population would not only be smaller than that of the United States, but it would be notably smaller. Contrast this to 1950, when, “Western Europe was exactly twice as populous as the United States: 304m against 152m .”

Of course, you might point out to me that such population reductions need not be disastrous and that the increased American population could, in fact, mean increased consumption of resources by the United States and, therefore, lower living standards for Americans. But I think that such sentiments are little more than hope against hope, much like Adolf Hitler, in the last days of the Second World War, believing that he would be delivered as Fredrick the Great was as Russian armies neared the gates of Berlin.

In addition to the fundamental question of the actual validity of concerns over resource depletion (a theory that, at the very least, seems to be greatly exaggerated in its importance and implications, as has been well demonstrated by decades of predictions of imminent environmental disaster, none of which has ever come to pass) I strongly doubt if the United States will, so long as it is a Superpower, ever have to worry about real shortages of resources. If the United States ever really needs resources, it shall take them. I will not discuss further the merits of that particular proposition here; I merely state it as fact.

In Europe I am not talking about a phased and gradual reduction in population, I am talking about a population collapse and demographic shift of a sort that has not occurred in the memory of our civilization. Let us consider, very briefly, the case of Italy in order to further illustrate this point.

In the year 2000 (according to the United Nations) Italy had a population of about 57.5 million . In the year 2050, it is estimated that its population will be reduced to 43 million . This, in and of itself, sounds survivable. However, the raw numbers hide the real dimension of the problem. If present trends continue, in 2050, fully 42.3% of the population will be above the age of sixty (versus 24.1% today) . Worse still, 14.1% will be over the age of eighty (versus 3.9% today) . Moreover, there will be just 4.9 million children aged fourteen or under (versus 8.2 million today) meaning that follow-on cohorts, without a rise in the birth rate, are likely to see the population shrink farther.

The question, then, becomes not, “will Europe overtake the United States” but rather, “will Europe survive?” The task becomes not, “making Europe an equal partner”, but helping Europe “die with dignity”.

I do not mean by this to suggest that the challenges in US-European relations are over. In fact, they are just the beginning. The present situation in Europe does not portend the arrival of an internationalist, human rights Mecca, but rather the opposite. Our descendents, I think, shall look upon the dream of a peaceful and united Europe much the same we that we today long upon the efforts of the Briand-Kellogg Pact and many other idealistic but ultimately doomed efforts of the past.

The conflict then, is still there, but it is not the one I was searching for when I began. The future is not an Africa which comes to resemble Europe, but a disintegrating Europe that comes to resemble Africa: chaotic, violent, and torn by sectional and religious strife. This is what, most of all, we must strive to avoid.

We desire a Europe with a place in the world that suits its abilities. If we delude ourselves with notions ripped from the past, we increase the danger of a fatal explosion. Just as one cannot treat a used car as one would treat a new one, we cannot afford to ignore the real state of Europe, nor can we wait to make adjustments in our relationship.

European Decline:
Europe’s population problem is even worse than the broad examples cited above make it sound. After all, absolute population numbers are not the be all and end all of national power and Italy is just one European country. The United States today is richer and more powerful than China and Indian combined, yet has only three hundred million people versus the more than two billion who live in those countries. Europe’s problem, however, is compounded by the fact that its much-reduced future population is, as I’ve said, likely to have a much higher percentage of retired persons than it has today. These populations will also feature large numbers of immigrants and descendents of immigrants who, to date, the Europeans have failed to properly integrate into their society thereby preventing them from providing their full value to society.

Bill Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan, estimates that, by 2050, the median age in the United States will be 36.2, whereas in Europe it will be 52.7 . Corresponding with this, the ratio of pensioners to workers will skyrocket from 35 for every one hundred workers today to 75 by the year 2050 .

Think about this for a moment. In 1900, the life expectancy of the average American at birth was 47.3 years . If predictions hold up, in 2050, the average European will be five years older than that. By 2050, it is estimated that more than 40% of all Europeans will be above the age of sixty . This is a demographic shift unlike any other ever experienced by a major nation. Just how will Europe provide for itself when it becomes the “Grey Continent”? Even if retirement ages are raised, the average human’s abilities are naturally limited by age.

Now, I do not mean by this to belittle or demean the older individuals among us. Certainly there are a number of useful roles that the aged can with within a community. However, it must be universally realized that one cannot have a healthy society when there are so many retired people that, essentially, every single working person will be expected to earn enough to provide for one retired individual. This too, I might add, does not take into account the strong possibility that there will be health advances developed that prove capable of extending the length of life without actually changing the quality of life. Such developments could only work to swell the ranks of Europe’s legions of geriatrics.

Why is Europe in so much demographic trouble? It is for the reason I provided at the beginning: Europeans have stopped having children. It is generally accepted that a ratio of 2.1 live births for every woman is required for a population to simply maintain its numbers . In Italy and Spain that ratio has dropped to 1.26 per woman , and in Germany to 1.37 . France retains one of the higher rates in Europe at 1.85 children per woman , but this number is inflated by the high fertility rate among immigrants, who remain largely isolated from French society. According to one estimate, the fertility rate among the non-Muslim population is about 1.3 children per woman .

Now, I do not deny that immigrants can make a positive contribution to society. Certainly, they have done exactly that in America and in many other nations throughout the world. Problems, however, occur when a society fails to make any substantial effort to integrate an immigrant population while, at the same time, allowing that population to grow exponentially.

At the present time, it is estimated that there roughly five million Muslims in France . This means, in other words, that a group which consists of about 8.3% of the French population accounts for 29.7% of births in France. As Christopher Caldwell noted in the Atlantic Monthly, “Not since fifteenth-century Spain has any Western European country had so substantial a Muslim presence .”

Now, this would not be a weakness: were these populations properly integrated. The United States has, over the years, integrated any number of diverse people from any number of diverse backgrounds. Modern Europe, however, lacks any real experience with large-scale immigration. They need immigrants to perform labour and to keep population numbers up, but they do not wish to invite them into the mainstream. However, the poor way in which France has handled the integration of immigrants seems more likely to provoke an illiberal backlash than it does to bring about social peace.

In France the dangers of this volatile mix are well-illustrated by the debate over the wearing of Muslim headscarves in schools. Speaking to his nation, President Jacques Chirac declared that the headscarves (along with Jewish skullcaps and large Christian Crosses) would be banned because, “secularism is one of the great successes of the Republic. It is a crucial element of social peace and national cohesion. We cannot let it weaken. ” Some have expressed fears that such a ban, when actually enacted into law, will lead to riots.

This is not purely a French phenomenon. The Netherlands, for example, has much the same problem. Muslims make up ten percent of the population in Holland . There, Pim Fortuyn, a homosexual former Marxist and leader of a new political party, was assassinated for calling for the assimilation of Dutch Muslims, whom he felt were a threat to that nation’s tolerant social order. Now, to be fair, he was killed by someone who was not, himself, a Muslim, but the individual who committed the act claimed to be acting partially on their behalf .

Some articles have compared the situation in France to America’s racial situation in the 1960’s but, in fact, it is much worse. Whereas American blacks shared with their brothers a common culture, language, and religion, Muslims in France and elsewhere in Europe live in virtually segregated ghettos. Theodore Dalrymple, writing in the Spectator, declares that France has, “opted for the South African solution to the problem .” Going on, he notes that on a visit to the mainly-Muslim housing projects around Paris, “the alienation and hatred I found there exceeded by far anything I have ever encountered in this country (Britain) .”

There exists, I think, a real danger that the Europe of the future may, in the end, be demographically overrun. It is not had to envision a France where young and energetic Muslims make up a third of the population struggle against an aging (and dying) majority in an effort to make France, as the joke goes, “the most democratic country in the Muslim world.” These also exists the danger that it might lead to exactly the opposite reaction, leading to events which are certain to be universally unpleasant.

In a situation where the French refuse to change for the Muslims, and the Muslims refuse the change for the French, it is the population that is younger and more dynamic that will eventually win out. Failing to provide for the protection and integration of minorities when you are in the majority endangers one’s own rights, should you ever find yourself in the minority. The years to come, I think, will see a struggle for the very soul of France. This spectacle will be repeated all across Europe.

At the same time as this goes on, Europe’s relevance in the world-at-large will continue to decline. Today Europeans make up roughly 12.5% of the world population, by 2050 that percentage may have dropped as low as 5%, with much of that percentage being of retirement age.

This erosion of population numbers and vitality will bring with it economic decline. A report from the French Institute for International Relations projected that, by 2050, EU-wide growth would drop to roughly 1%, versus growth of 2% in North America (and 2.5% in China) . Over the long term, this will have almost incalculable effects. Suppose that today the United States had $11, Europe had $8, and China had $4 . After ten years at these rates of growth the United States would have $13.41, Europe would have $8.84, and China would have $5.12. After another ten years the United States would have $16.35, Europe would have $9.76, and China would have $6.54. Over a century, the United States would end up with $79.69, China would have $47.25, and Europe would have just $21.64.

Now, of course, these figures are largely speculative. Over time it is probable that Chinese and American growth would reach similar levels and that both would decline, while Europe’s might rise. On the other hand, it is certain that, with massively shrinking populations, it must be conceded that the possibility for serious economic growth in Europe is essentially zero.

Combined with rising pension obligations, this economic slowdown will lead to a surge in government debt. Some reports suggest that, by 2050, the French and German national debts might both be as high as 250% of GDP . This would mean that, at any reasonable rate, interest payments would constitute as much as 15% of the national income. Under such conditions, one begins to wonder if European politicians will be able to resist the temptation to simply begin printing money to pay the bills.

Naturally, all of this is going to be detrimental to Europe’s already-weakened military power as well. In 2001, the total military spending of the European Union was $156.73 Billion USD, versus $291.2 billion in the United States . After the events of September 11th, this gap rapidly increased. In FY 2004 the United States is set to spend $399.1 billion on defense while Europe will maintain roughly the same levels .

Even these numbers disguise the true weakness of European military capabilities. In all of Europe there is only a single large Aircraft Carrier, the French Navy’s Charles de Gaulle. That ship, it ought to be noted, took eleven years to build and has a number of critical flaws including the fact that, “the nuclear reactor installation was done poorly, exposing the engine crew to five times the allowable annual dose of radiation .” As a result of these flaws, the French government is apparently planning on keeping the ship in port and buying a British Aircraft Carrier instead.

Europe possesses no equivalent to American B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers, lacks heavy transport aircraft comparable to the American C-17 or C-5, and possesses not indigenous cruise missile capability (some Royal Navy attack Submarines are fitted with American-made Tomahawk Cruise Missiles). The few AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) aircraft that exist in Europe are of American manufacture.

The weakness of European military power is self-evident. It is such that it can be said, without hyperbole, that all of Europe’s navies combined could be defeated by a single US Navy Battle Group. What this means in practice is that, were Europe to decide to challenge the United States militarily, it would not only have to match American spending, but probably to exceed it in order to make up for lost ground.

Fantasies that Europe as a whole might someday soon posses the strength to actively challenge American power are just that: fantasies. Other nations will not take Europe seriously because they know that Europe does not possess serious military power and, if they did have it, they wouldn’t be inclined to use it anyways.

This weakness creates another danger. In the absence of military might, it is possible that some future European leaders will decide to explore non-traditional methods of war. Already European MP Ilka Schroeder has accused the European Union of supporting the Palestinian Authority in order to wage a, “proxy war between Europe and the United States .” While this is, at the present time, surely something of an exaggeration, I cannot help but wondering if some future European leader, faced with a restive Islamic population at home, might not choose to make such a scenario fact.

American Power:
“Well then,” you might ask, “does not the United States at least face the same problems as Europe?” The answer, to put it quite simply, is “no.” While it is true that the United States will face its own pension crisis in the near future, it will not be nearly as severe as that in Europe. The same reports that suggest a rise of French and German national debt to 250% of GDP suggest a rise in American debt to about 100% of GDP a high figure, to be sure, but not nearly so crippling as that faced by Europe.

While Europe’s population is falling, the American population is rising and doing so rapidly. Using the “high series” or projections by the US Census Bureau (which have, to date, seemingly been met or exceeded in the years since they were made , making one wonder if the real figures will be ultimately higher) a US population of 553 million is expected for the year 2050 . The ‘low’ series figure provided for that year is so low (313 million) that it will probably be exceeded by 2007 (the year in which, under the ‘High Series’ projections, the United States was due to arrive at its present population). The middle figure of 404 million is more reasonable but also, given the rapid rate of growth, unlikely.

It is interesting to note that, even with zero immigration, the US population would rise to 327 million by 2050 whereas, under similar conditions, European populations would nearly collapse altogether. In 2003 the fertility rate in the United States was estimated at 2.07 , more or less the replacement rate (and, given the low levels of mortality in the United States, probably a little higher than that).

In fact, despite the numerous predictions that America, like Rome, is about to fall, one draws the opposite conclusion. American power has, if anything, only begun to rise. Depending on immigration levels and birth rates, the United States of 2050 might have a population well in excess of five hundred million and an economy to match it. In such a world American power would, if anything, be enhanced.

Under such a scenario, the American share of the world population would actually tick upwards, from about 4.9% today to 6.2% in 2050, therefore surpassing the share held by Europe. While population numbers are not (nor have they ever been) a central figure in bringing about national greatness, a nation with too small a population (such as, for example, the modern State of Israel) runs a very real risk of being done in by demographics. America runs no such risk while, at the same time, it also remains unlikely that the American population will rapidly grown beyond the capability of the American government

Meanwhile, American military power continues to be massive and growing. As I mentioned earlier, Europe’s collective navies are so weak that they could probably be defeated by a single US Carrier Battle Group. What I failed to mention, however, is that the United States has twelve of these groups.

US Military technology, on the whole, is decades ahead of that of Europe. Europe has yet to produce a single ‘stealth’ aircraft, whereas the United States has already produced and put into service three different models (the F-117 ‘Nighthawk’, the B-2 ‘Spirit’ and the F-22 ‘Raptor’). European military technology lacks the advanced communications and coordination capabilities available to the United States.

Most of all, Europe lacks the military-industrial base of the United States. While it took France eleven years to build the Charles de Gaulle, the United States built four larger Nimitz-class Carriers in the same period. Carriers, I might add, that actually work. Were it necessary, it could doubtlessly build more. The same holds true across virtually all types of military equipment.

In spite of these facts there are still many who predict an imminent American decline. Billionaire financer George Soros says that the, “quest for American supremacy qualifies as a bubble ” which he compares to the tech “bubble” of the late 1990’s. Lewis Lapham, of Harper’s Magazine (among many others), compares America to Rome.

Those who would make such comparisons should be careful. If the United States is indeed the new Rome, it is certainly in a stage comparable to the later days of the Roman Republic. This would mean, in short, that the world can expect about five centuries of American Empire a prospect that, I suspect, would hardly be relished by the individuals in question.

The Future of US-European Relations:
The key factor, I think, in moving relations between the United States and Europe in the right direction is a careful move towards a less Euro-centric foreign policy and web of alliances. I realize that this is an odd conclusion to come to out of a discussion of US-European relations, but it is the conclusion I have to nonetheless. NATO, to this very day, remains the primary American alliance, yet it is little more than a Cold War anachronism, nearly irrelevant in the modern world. A sensible view of American foreign policy in the future must recognize the diminishing importance of Europe.

US-European relations aren’t a matter of “bringing America into the international community” via Kyoto, the Rome Statute, and similar international treaties: it’s a matter of finally and totally discarding the post-1945 world order. These treaties are, in general, designed as little more than tools to attempt to contain American power. It is time for European nations to accept that they are no longer the most important in the world. Similarly, it is time for politicians and intellectuals in the United States and Europe to come to that same conclusion.

We live in a world whose structures are, to a very large extent, still defined by the results of 1945. Certainly our mentality is.

Think about it for a second. Who is a more important ally of the United States: Australia or Germany? Which of the two has fought alongside the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan? Which of the two is in a more important strategic position? I believe that the answer must be Australia. In any case, the difference between the two is such that they must, at the very least, be counted as equals in value and importance. Germany’s larger population (but for how long?) is easily offset by Australia’s key location.

From an objective perspective, which nation is more important: Brazil or France? Brazil has a population of 182 million and a $1.376 trillion economy . France has a population of 60 million and a $1.558 trillion economy . In other words, Brazil has about the same size economy and three times the population of France. Yet how many words have you heard about France’s relations with the United States versus Brazil’s?

Modern discussions of foreign affairs are rife with statements of how the United States must “heal the rift” with Europe. Frankly, while such a development would not be unwelcome, I am at a loss as to a compelling strategic, political or diplomatic reason why any real effort must be put into such an endeavour beyond, that is, the tugging of what Abraham Lincoln once called the, “mystic chords of memory.”

In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, Ronald Asmus, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, asserts that, “both the United States and Europe will be worse off ” if the breach between them is not healed. But, once more, I wonder: just who is harmed in such conditions? It certainly is not the United States. Europe matters only so much as it matters in the minds of Americans. Europe is militarily feeble and in a state of decline.

What many seem to wish is for the United States to, as a former US Ambassador to the European Union recently wrote, “treat Europe as a real partner .” In a November, 2003 speech at Princeton University, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said that the United States and Europe “have to agree on how to respond to this threat (terrorism) and do so as equal partners (italics mine). ” But, I ask, why?

The idea of equality between the United States and Europe is a fiction. The United States is stronger than Europe today and getting stronger, while Europe is weaker and getting weaker. For the United States to treat Europe as an ‘equal’ partner in the world would be a fundamentally wrong direction for US foreign policy. In the modern foreign policy calculus, what Europe thinks matters far less than what China or Japan thinks. Granting to the European Union the presumption of equality with America is a move that has fore more to do with sentiment than it has to do with reality.

Before our very eyes the center of the world is shifting. The day once was that Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands were all nations large enough, powerful enough, and influential enough that they alone could be a player on the world stage. That is no longer the case. Nearly everyone today understands that only through unity can Europe truly continue to be a force in the world.

The center of gravity in the world is shifting from East to West. Horace Greeley once issued an exhortation for our young men to go West: now that is where we require our diplomat’s minds to travel.

In this century the rising powers will be nations which, in the 20th Century, were consigned to the sidelines of international affairs. India, Brazil, Indonesia, China, and Japan (which was, of course, largely consigned to the diplomatic and military sidelines after the Second World War) will be the great powers now. A unified Korea would have a population of roughly 70 million and a trillion dollar economy , both of which would grow quickly after unification, instantly vaulting it into the ranks of Great Powers.

In the face of this, the Europeans must accept that they will be a junior partner in any future alliance, not an ‘equal’ one. Europe lacks the military power, economic prowess, or national will possessed by the United States. To insist that Europe must be treated as differentially as it was in the 19th Century is an insult to the rising powers of the world, who possess today those things that really count.

The problem with elevating Europe to a position it no longer deserves is that it gives us a distorted picture of the world. In holding onto the illusion of the old Europe we do a great disservice to both the European and ourselves. The leaders of the European Union and what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dubbed, “old Europe” are left with something of an Ottoman complex, holding onto the faded remains of a once-great Empire, deluding themselves into thinking that they still count. Europe doesn’t matter so much because they matter, they matter because we think that they matter. By enlarging the importance of Europe in our minds, we grant them powers that they no longer deserve and we encourage Europe to behave in ways that it would not, were it truly aware of its real state.

European Responses:
There is, of course, the chance that I may be wrong. Europe might see a rapid demographic turnaround. Europe might manage to successful integrate millions of immigrants. Europe might do any number of things. Similarly, the United States could well, for all we know, be destroyed or forced to turn itself into a garrison state by attacks launched by terrorists armed with biological or nuclear weapons. What I am presenting, of course, could be rendered moot by the inconvenience of facts. But let us, within the context of this discussion, assume that I am right.

It is natural to expect that Europe will not simply accept this decline. Already some European nations are offering cash to people will have children. The Italian Government is offering 1000 Euros to families that have a second child . But such measures are expected to be of little use. After all, China has great difficulty using force and threats to get their people to stop having children- I suspect that people who do not wish to have children (or more children) will go right on doing so, regardless of the consequences for their nations.

Some too are now seeking to integrate immigrants into European nations. The French ban on headscarves, however misguided some might think it to be, is a part of this effort. Yet, in seeing these efforts, I cannot help but think of those two miserable words that are so often the judgement of history: “too late!”

In fact, the most notable response to the immigration problems of the continent has been the sudden rise of a number of political parties which are often mischaracterized as being ‘far right’ such as Jean Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, Italy’s Northern League, and the now-defunct List Pim Fortuyn in Holland. These groups, I think, are going to be gaining in power as time goes by.

One visitor to Marseilles tells of a housing block filled with various immigrants and a hand full of white families. When he asks a local official how many of the twenty remaining white families are members of the National Front, they reply, “All of them. ” The same official later estimates that, in fact, it’s probably more like fifteen. Yet still, the point is made. When the established institutions fail to deal with the problems of the people, they will turn to new institutions.

The world was shocked when, in the spring of 2002, National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen came in second place in the French Presidential election. However, most seemed to take reassurance from the massive victory won by President Chirac in the second round of the election, where he beat Le Pen by a margin of 82-18 . Yet this does little to conceal the fact: the anti-immigrant parties are on the rise in Europe at the same time the immigrants themselves are.

Herein, I think, lies the greatest potential for actual conflict between European nations and the United States. I do not mean to hysterically suggest, as some have, that Jorg Haider and Le Pen are Fuhrer’s-in-waiting, prepared to conquer Europe. But rather that the problems generated by their policies bring with them the natural potential for conflict.

It is a polarization of society. What would happen in a France that was a third Islamic, a third National Front, and a third in the center? If such trends continue, is it not possible that we might see the evils of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s re-enacted elsewhere upon the Continent?

Should the European Union survive, there exists the possibility that it will become a vehicle for coercion. What would there be to prevent some future German or French government from using military force to keep an unwilling nation within the Union in order to assure the protection of their own economy?

After many days of thinking on the subject, that is the only possibility I can think of which creates a plausible situation where the United States might come to blows with some of the primary states of Europe.

Say that Poland, to pick a single example, decides that it wishes to leave some future EU which levies onerous taxes upon the Union as a whole in order to support the failing economies of France and Germany. The European leaders respond by claiming that the EU is indivisible, for any number of reasons, and threaten to take military action. Poland then appeals for military assistance from the United States.

The most likely scenario? No. Possible? I think so. The greatest danger of the structures of the EU today is that they are incredibly well-suited to abuse and the fostering of tyranny.

In a way, the rise of the Le Pen’s of the world is a natural response to just the sort of events that have gone on in Europe. However, at the same time, the United States cannot allow Europe to slip into what, for lack of a better phrase, might be called a New Dark Age.

American Measures:
How then, is the United States to deal with the problems of Europe? We have already discussed the needs for a change in the way we view Europe, but that still leaves the question of how an internal collapse within Europe would be managed. Even if we have reduced the European role upon the world scene, it cannot be denied that the economic, political, or social collapse of the continent would require an active American (and world) response.

The United States must abandon its faith in centralized European institutions return to the vision of a ‘Europe of states’ and seek to contain the affairs of the Continent. This will be done best if it is done through a handful of carefully selected European surrogates.

Of all nations in Europe, the United Kingdom is the one with the greatest affinity for the United States and the greatest potential for action. A firm Alliance with Britain is the key to any future American policy in Europe, as Britain is the one nation capable of acting as a ‘bridge’ between the two. While all of Europe is, to some degree, in decline some nations are worse off than others. Forging new, bi-lateral links with Europeans (as the Bush Administration has done in Eastern Europe) will open the door to future joint endeavours in order to keep the peace in the new Europe as time goes on.

I can very easily see a future in which some nations begin to simply fall apart. Where French extremists screaming for a “France for the French” attack Muslims while Islamic extremists commit atrocities of their own, all the while an ineffectual and crippled French government stands on the sidelines. In the event of such a crisis, the United States should not hesitate to use force.

This may well mean that, someday, American troops may be called upon to stage humanitarian interventions in places that would today be unthinkable. It may well be given to us, here in this generation, that we will have few choices but to deploy boys from Nebraska into the streets of Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, or one of the other great cities if Europe in order to prevent the inhabitants from killing eachother. We may not wish to answer such a call, but we will have few other choices. History would judge America harshly if it shirked its duties in such a crisis.

Naturally, we do not wish it to come to that. This is why we must cultivate links in Europe and seek to nudge European nations in the right direction, towards the twin goals of peace and pluralism.

American leaders should do their best to encourage responsible politics in Europe. This means fighting against the Le Pen’s of the world, but it also means fighting the Chirac’s as well, for they are the ones who have made the mess.

A healthy Europe will require a new generation of leaders. We will need leaders who will break from the present European consensus while, at the same time, not moving in the direction of ultra-nationalism. Frankly, I do not know if such leaders are even truly present in Europe today: but if they are there, we must find them and help them however we can.

Conclusion:
The challenges facing European-American relations in the coming years are immense and terrible, but not insurmountable. It will be difficult, and there will be setbacks and failures, but I cannot but still hope that it will turn out for the best in the end. We must, as Abraham Lincoln once said, recognize that the fragile doctrines of the past are insufficient to the stormy present.

We must begin by accepting the simple fact that the old Europe, that which we have hated and admired in nearly equal measures, is gone forever. This is not a mere rhetorical statement, but an assessment of the facts on the ground. The Europe of a half century from now will be made up of people who adhere to different religions, come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and probably recognize different national borders than those we know today.

Those who still believe that we can attain a post-national world, where states are dissolved and we are ruled by the framework set out in a pile of international treaties, are dreaming, and probably always were. The state is here to stay, it is the defining feature of our way of life. To believe that humans can organize themselves absent a state is to believe that humans can breathe without oxygen or walk without legs. It isn’t that the state will be gone, it is merely that the states we come to know in the future will be different than those that we have known in the past.

What I have presented, admittedly, is only a single interpretation of facts and futures. I, of course, have been known to be wrong in the past. Figures far more distinguished than I have, to my shock, been wrong from time to time.

But I do not believe that I am wrong. Humanity is a creature of habit and, being as such, we have a lamentable tendency to ignore facts which do not fit with our worldview until events render such a denial impossible. Europe is in a decline, has been in a decline for many years. It has never recovered from the slaughters of the two World Wars and, probably, never will.

I think back to the great enthusiasm for Greek Independence among Western European intellectuals in the early years of the 19th Century. They marched off to Greece to fight, envisioning a people with the spirit of Athenians and Spartans. What they found disappointed them, they could not conceive that a people such as those of history were the ancestors of the men they had met. Yet they were.

We have a hard time believing that, in this new century, we could see nations fall, peoples disappear, and all of those other things which we had once believed were consigned to the past. Yet it could happen. I believe it will.

For us to fail to even examine this possibility, to plan for a world of the future which will move along the same lines as those we have known in the past is naïve, even foolish. If we must leap into the future we should do so feet first and with our eyes open.

Superb analysis. As someone who has lived a total of 13 years in Italy, Germany, Finland, Poland, and Greece, Mr. Yoshida has an excellent understanding of what is currently happening in Europe and what the future will probably look like.

I think all of those politicians calling for greater involvement of NATO in Iraq just don't understand the currently reality. Europe doesn't have the resources, ability or the will to project military power. They could not do Bosnia without the US and they are having a hard time to staff their presence in Afghanistan. With declining and aging populations, and the increasing financial demands of a bloated social welfare system, Europe will continue to be a fading military power unable to project force around the globe. The US spends more money on the military than all of NATO combined.

The only way Europe can rival the US is to use international organizations to hobble us. The UN, World Bank, WTO, etc will be the new battle ground.

It is interesting to note that, even with zero immigration, the US population would rise to 327 million by 2050 whereas, under similar conditions, European populations would nearly collapse altogether."

Europe's decline was noticeable when they started allowing permanent immigration from outside countries to supplement their workforce. First was Germany which began to import Turks in large numbers. France followed with Algerians and Great Britain with unlimited immigration from countries in the Commonwealth.

Take out this influx of immigrants who have a culture that encourages normal (or higher) population growth from the population and you see the problem is even worse than Toshida highlighted. The native European population is declining drastically and that is why the booming immigrant population is becoming a looming demographic majority.

Things and cultural mores can change of course, but if the present trends continue, the European civilization we know will be gone in a few hundred years.

Excellent read.

India, Brazil, Indonesia, China, and Japan (which was, of course, largely consigned to the diplomatic and military sidelines after the Second World War) will be the great powers now. A unified Korea would have a population of roughly 70 million and a trillion dollar economy , both of which would grow quickly after unification, instantly vaulting it into the ranks of Great Powers.

That's a sort of slap-in-the-face realization, but also very hard to deny. And proceeding from that realization dramatically changes geo-politics.

A long and meandering article that spends a lot of time saying population numbers are critical, except when they aren't.

I strongly doubt if the United States will, so long as it is a Superpower, ever have to worry about real shortages of resources. If the United States ever really needs resources, it shall take them. I will not discuss further the merits of that particular proposition here; I merely state it as fact.

One word: OPEC.

The aging population is an inevitable effect of modern science and medicine. Neither immigration nor breeding policies will change the situation in the long run. The only societies that are not effected are those who are still so primitive and poor that they cannot provide even basic health care, or those who refuse to do so because of policy or indifference. So unless you're willing to execute the aged or cut off their support you're just going to have to adjust to this fact of life.

I am at a loss as to a compelling strategic, political or diplomatic reason why any real effort must be put into such an endeavour beyond, that is, the tugging of what Abraham Lincoln once called the, “mystic chords of memory” . . . what Europe thinks matters far less than what China or Japan thinks.

Not a suprising sentiment from someone named Yoshida, but do you really want to live in a world where China dominates? Where Western values no longer matter? Is economics all there is to life? The West began to decline in earnest when its elite no longer put the health and well-being of their nation, culture, and people first, when they adopted the silly and disasterous belief that nations were obsolete and fading away. Nationalism is life, internationalism (and its internal variant multiculturalism) is suicide. This comes down to a simple iron truth: those organized and united will dominate the disorganized and fragmented.

The trouble with the numbers game is that there are no people in cold, abstract numbers. In the very near future the U.S. will have a political ruling majority, permanent for all practical purposes, consisting of a coalition of resentful minorities and hate-filled leftists. Imagine the government of California (or worse) in permanent control of the national legislature. Will the U.S. still be a world power with such a ruling faction? What will numbers mean then?

Good article - thanks for posting. Demographics are like any other form of statistic - extrapolation sometimes leads to conclusions that depend on the conditions that were extrapolated not changing, which of course they do. Ceteris paribus ain't.

That said, I do think that Mr. Yoshida has concluded correctly that the current stasis between social spending, taxation, overall economy, and a broadly aging working population in Europe will lead ineluctably to an insupportable situation, one that increased immigration will not solve. So what changes? They're trying to tweak taxation now; the economy is slowly shifting more toward a service-centered nature, and perhaps the assimilation problem is not as insoluble as it looks at the moment. The bad news is that if things continue as they are we've a lot of trouble ahead; the good news is that they probably won't.

I do take issue with this:

we will have few choices but to deploy boys from Nebraska into the streets of Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, or one of the other great cities if Europe in order to prevent the inhabitants from killing eachother. We may not wish to answer such a call, but we will have few other choices. History would judge America harshly if it shirked its duties in such a crisis.

Actually, we will have other choices, the most likely among them being not to intervene. If Mr. Yoshida can't come up with a better reason than "history will judge us harshly" then he needs to recharge his geopolitical batteries a bit - history, like the Pope, has no regiments.

I would also point out that military domination is not, in this case, much more than a reflection of a healthy, technology-based civilian economy, and as such it is exceedingly unlikely that Europe can catch up by the sheer brute force of increased spending, not that she has shown any particular inclination beyond lip service to do so. It isn't as simple as putting the armaments factories on overtime anymore.

One word: OPEC.

One word rebuttal: Marines.

Seriously, one lesson of real-politik the world learned over Iraq recently was that when the U. S. decides it's going to take something with it's military, it can. No nation or collection of nations can prevent it.

If OPEC tried to cripple the U. S. economy by witholding oil (as opposed to the usual tinkering around with production levels), you'd better believe a U. S. president of either party would use the military to whatever extent necessary to get that oil flowing again. His re-election would depend on it.

..do you really want to live in a world where China dominates? Where Western values no longer matter?,

It's not a question of China dominating. It's a question of recognizing the world's great powers by tangible factors - population, economics, industrial capacity, military. And by such factors, it's very hard to see Europe continuing to rate that sort of status much longer. Doesn't mean we have to buddy up to China like we did with Europe.

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