Trump is right - Europe is Facing "Civilisational Erasure". Reflections on a new policy document

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America has just released its latest National Security Strategy. And, put simply, it is essential reading for everybody who is interested in the future of the West.

It has already sparked an intense debate among policy makers and politicians.

Why? Because the Americans had the courage to say out loud what millions of people in Europe can sense but few dare to talk openly about.

Europe, the Americans claim, does not just face economic stagnation and declining living standards: it is sliding into “civilisational erasure”.

The very foundations of European civilisation —free speech, defined borders, a unique culture and identity—are all crumbling.

Put simply: if present trends continue —including trends I have already charted in this newsletter—then European nations will become “majority non-European” within only a few decades.

Birth rates are collapsing. Legal immigration is soaring. Borders are disintegrating. National cultures are being eroded not only by immigration but globalisation and radical progressivism. And a new ruling class —a new elite— has become dangerously disconnected from the people they claim to govern.

Critics of President Trump will —of course—dismiss all this as hyperbole.

They will say it is sensationalist. Irresponsible, even. But for reasons I will come onto, we should take this warning from America very seriously indeed.

But first, what does the document say, exactly?

It does not mince words.

The policy of mass immigration, it states, has “strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labour markets, and undermined national security.”

The White House points to “cratering birth-rates,” the “loss of national identities and self-confidence,” and projects that Europe —as we currently know it—could be unrecognisable as early as twenty years from now.

Yes, Europe is declining economically. It has pursued disastrous policies with regard to taxation, welfare, energy, protectionism, migration, and more.

But what the Americans are saying is far more profound.

Europe’s economic problems are now eclipsed by a much bigger existential threat —Europe is losing its civilisational core.

The view from Washington really is worth reading in full:

“But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.

The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.

Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.

Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

Elites in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London, and Stockholm will inevitably laugh at this but anybody who knew those cities in decades gone by and has visited them in the last year or two will know the Americans have a point.

Having spent much time recently in Paris, Brussels, and London, I for one can say these are not the cities I once knew —they are becoming something else entirely.

Ultimately, this is about the fabric of nations and the soul of civilisations.

National identities, national cultures, national ways of life, national values, social trust —there is no unwritten law these things must last forever.

They do not magically survive relentless pressures from unprecedented immigration, rapid demographic change, collapsing birth-rates, and policies that treat these things as though they are somehow optional or obsolete.

“It is the ethnic and culture core of a nation”, said Professor Anthony Smith, one of the leading scholars in the study of nations, “that gives it its distinctive character”.

What he meant is that nations do not just emerge out of thin air. They are rooted in a historic community —or what Smith called an “ethnie”—with its shared myths, memories, symbols, and cultures.

It is this core that provides the “continuity”, “character”, and “emotional appeal” that —in the end—holds a civilisation together.

But what happens when that core becomes much weaker or is no longer even visible at all? What happens to that continuity, character, and unity?

Donald Trump’s critics —of which there are many—will inevitably scream “racism”, “alarmism”, and “xenophobia” at these remarks.

Europe, they will say, has always evolved. It has always been a melting pot of different peoples. But these arguments ignore the true scale and speed of what is unfolding in Europe—and how truly profound the change is.

Look, for instance, at some of the key trends that will sweep through and completely transform Europe in the next few years, unless its leaders urgently change course.

This is where we are heading …