Hmmm, it seems the trends don't look so good on Euroland, if this article is correct:

As most readers are aware, in 1898 Sir Wilfrid Laurier declared that just "as the nineteenth century was the century of the United States, so shall the twentieth century belong to Canada." Fewer readers perhaps are familiar with the equally stirring words of another of our Prime Ministers: "The day is coming," predicted Sir Charles Tupper, "when Canada, which has become the right arm of the British Empire, will dominate the American continent."



And, as all readers know, things didn't work out quite like that. Tupper was talking to the historian John Boyd, who fleshed out the soundbite: "Canada," he explained, "shall dominate the American continent, not in aggression or materialism, but in the arts of peace, in the greatness of its institutions, in the broadness of its culture, and in the lofty moral character of its people."

Does that sound familiar? It's the European argument today: Just as the 20th century belonged to America, so the 21st will belong to Europe, a Europe that cannot -- and, indeed, disdains to -- compete with the Yanks in "aggression" (military capability) or "materialism" (capitalism red in tooth and claw), and so has devised a better way. We've all had a grand old time these last few weeks watching M. Chirac demonstrate his mastery of "the arts of peace" and his "lofty moral character," but it would perhaps be fairer to choose a more representative Euro-grandee to articulate the EUtopian vision. Step forward Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, who said in London last year that "the EU must not develop into a military superpower but must become a great power that will not take up arms at any occasion in order to defend its own interests."

No doubt it sounds better in Finnish. Nonetheless, like the Canadians a century ago, the Europeans are claiming that the old rules no longer apply, that they've been supplanted by new measures of power, not least the "greatness of institutions" (EU, UN, ICC, etc.).

To hasten this new age, the world -- or, at any rate, "old Europe" -- is anxious to know: What will it take to nobble the Yanks? Or, to be more accurate, what will it take for the Yanks to nobble themselves? The corollary to the Euro-Canadian redefinition of "great power" is that a lone cowboy who sticks to tired concepts like guns'n'ammo is bound to come a cropper. As The Spectator's Matthew Parris put it the other week, "we should ask whether America does have the armies, the weaponry, the funds, the economic clout and the democratic staying power to carry all before her in the century ahead. How many wars on how many fronts could she sustain at once? How much fighting can she fund? How much does she need to export? Is she really unchallenged by any other economic bloc?"

Mr. Parris is falling prey to theories of "imperial overstretch." But, if you're not imperial, it's quite difficult to get overstretched. By comparison with 19th century empires, the Americans travel light. More significantly, their most obvious "overstretch" is in their historically unprecedented generosity to putative rivals: Unlike traditional imperialists, they garrison not remote ramshackle colonies but their wealthiest allies. The U.S. picks up the defence tab for Europe, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and of course Canada. As Americans have learned in the last 18 months, absolving wealthy nations of the need to maintain their own armies does not pay off in the long run. This overstretch is over. If Bush wins a second term, the boys will be coming home from South Korea and Germany, and maybe Japan, too. So the EU will begin the second decade of the century with an excellent opportunity to test Mr. Lipponen's theory: It can either will the means to maintain a credible defence, or it can try to live as the first "superpower" with no means of defence. The first victim of American overstretch will not be America but Europe.

I doubt the Continentals of a decade hence will be in any mood to increase defence spending. For all Dominique de Villepin's dreams of Napoleonic glory, his generation of French politicians will spend the rest of their lives managing decline. By 2050, there will be 100 million more Americans, 100 million fewer Europeans. The U.S. fertility rate is 2.1 children per couple, in Europe it's 1.4. Demography is not necessarily destiny. But it will be for Europe, because the 20th century Continental welfare state was built on a careless model that requires a constantly growing population to sustain it.

According to a UN report from last year, for the EU to keep its working population stable till 2050 it would need another 1.58 million immigrants every year. To keep the ratio of workers to retirees at the present level, you'd need 13.5 million immigrants per year. Personally, I've never seen what's so liberal and enlightened about denuding the developing world of their best and brightest. But, even if you can live with it, it won't be an option much longer. The world's population will peak around 2050, and then fall off in a geometric progression. The developing world's fertility rate is 2.9 and dropping fast, which means newborn Third Worlders will reach adulthood with a range of options, of which Europe will be the least attractive. The EU will have the highest taxes not just in the West, but in most of the rest. A middle-class Indian or Singaporean or Chilean already has little incentive to come to the Continent. If the insane Bush-Steyn plan to remake the Middle East comes off, even your wacky Arabs may stay home. If it doesn't, the transformation of Europe into "Eurabia" will continue.

Best case scenario: The EU winds up as Vienna with Swedish tax rates. Don't get me wrong, I love Vienna. I especially like the way you can stroll down their streets and never hear any ghastly rockers and rappers caterwauling. In the record stores, the pop category's a couple of bins at the back and there's two floors of operetta. All very pleasant, though not if you're into surfing the cutting edge of the Zeitgeist. I quite like Stockholm, too -- well, I like the babes. But they're gonna be a lot wrinklier by 2050, and Sweden's already got a lower standard of living than Mississippi. Its 60% overall tax rate is likely to be the base in the Europe of 2020 and fondly recalled as the good old days by mid-century.

Worst case scenario: Sharia, circa 2070.

For the Americans, it doesn't make much difference whether the Austro-Swedish or Eurabian option prevails. This is nothing to do with disagreements over Iraq: You can't "mend bridges" when the opposite bank is sinking into the river. The death of Europe in its present form is a given.

This presents a difficulty for the French. France is a weak country, and for half a century it believed its glory could be restored by creating a Europe in its own image. But now the Frenchified Europe is heading for disaster. So Paris has opted for a bolder gamble: Why not Europeanize the world? That's what's happening at the UN. The present eminence of the Foreign Minister of Guinea -- a country whose capital city only has electricity once every four days -- is reminiscent of that of the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg -- a country the size of Hartford, Connecticut -- who held the "presidency" of the EU as Yugoslavia was falling apart. Telling the Yanks to butt out, Jacques Poos, the lion of Luxembourg, roared: "The hour of Europe has come!" Hundreds of thousands died, until the EU graciously permitted the Yanks to butt in again.

Despite the bloody costs of sophisticated Euro-insouciance, Le Figaro has pronounced M. Chirac "a white knight of peace, champion of all the oppressed of the earth." Let us take the white knight at his word -- please, no giggling -- when he says he wants Saddam to be "contained." What's containing him are not French troops, but American and British ones. Chirac says he believes in the UN, but the U.S. pays 25% of the organization's costs. The fact is that all the supposed alternatives to U.S. hegemony depend on U.S. "aggression" (guns) and "materialism" (money), to put it in that Canadian historian's terms. M. Chirac will not be able to buck reality any more than Sir Charles Tupper could. The sooner he understands that the better for all of us.