Could a "Pax Europa" emerge to rival the "Pax Americana"?

Great Debates
21

The concept of a future Pax Europe is based on much tighter integration between the nation states, similar to the US. This is not likely to happen. Most European states are nationalistic, and EU will probably continue as a loose federation of nation states. In particular, the countries in the East have just recently achieved independence, and they are not likely to subdue to yet another “union”. (There are strong federalists on this board, like clairobscur, that might weigh in here).

EU will continue to grow eastward to between 600 and 800 million people, and the union will prioritize the cost of integrating new members over military expenditures.

On the other side, people forget that Europe’s outlook is very young. It has been only 15 years since the end of the Cold War, and only two months(!) since the integratioon of the first wave of eastern countries into the union. Still, Central Western Europe will not wait for the East, and the 60 000 man strong RDF is one of the projects driven by the states on the Western Continent. Their goal is a Europe with a shared foreign policy and, yes, a shared European Army.

In other words, there’s kind of a “union within the union”, and that’s what the American posters in this thread are overlooking.

A future European Army is in part based on the future of NATO, which again is based on the US. Personally, I don’t think that NATO can survive in its current shape if the US continue with its unilateral policies. In that case, the 60 000 RDF is likely to become the spring point for the Joined Forces or Europe (or something like that). And I don’t see a problem with this, Europe needs to take care of themselves and their own interests.

To answer John’s point, what happened in Kosovo is not a standard for how future challenges will be handled. The Balkan Wars began in 1991-92, at a time when the EU still was first and foremost a trade agreement. The Europe we see today is completely different, with a completely different approach to foreign policy challenges. This process is still ongoing, we’re probably not even half-way.

For once, Brutus refrained from howling and actually posted something meaningful. However, I don’t see the defense industry in Europe as a major obstacle in a future European military project. As in the US, we are likely to witness mergers in the this industry, in part because these companies are half-owned by governments, like France and Germany, and in part because these companies are operating in a shared market.

The investments that has to be made over time is not a major obstacle either. Europe certainly has the economy to do it. In the US, it was not before 1943 that the nation took the necessary steps to become the world’s leading military power. and she obtained that goal pretty quickly. And today you don’t need millions of soldiers, you need rapid deployment, air power and technology.

But as pervert questioned, does Europe need or want a military force equivalent to the US? I don’t think so. Europe is not outward interventional in nature any more.
The points about economy and demography that has been mentioned here is not correct, I’ll compose a bit about this later.

22

I think its mainly a question of motivation. That’s why people come up with the idea that they can but won’t. As a matter of fact, I don’t really forsee any large-scale wars between superpowers in the near future at all. Europe would have to be seriously threatened by someone to want to mobilize that kind of venture, and who exactly would that be to threaten them? The US isn’t going to attack Europe, and I highly doubt China would either. The need for a military the size of ours doesnt seem so much necessary to me anymore. I think that populations are generally adverse to war than they were in the past because of education and economic stability. Could Hitler have risen to power if we had the mechanisims that promote economic stability today? If there had been no Great Depression could he have done it? I doubt it, but I wouldn’t say its true. So I don’t really expect many wars of a WWII scale happening anymore. I imagine that wars like Iraq are sure to be fought, but since America is in a delicate economic position of having a trade deficit, we can’t really call the shots like we truely want. As we become more integrated, the less likely we are to need to exert power militarily. There are lots of dangerous bad people in the world, but it hasn’t been Europe’s job to take care of them for a long time, so I don’t see why they would want to. Sure they will complain if America abuses its power, but unless all of the Americans go crazy and decide that a war against Europe is a good idea, I don’t ever see Europe wanting to play a role in superpower politics. Maybe I am optimistic, but I sort of see a return to a multipolar power system within 50 years or so with Asian countries having their influence and Western countries having theirs. Of course we’ll have to see what kind of economic power Europe has after expanding. In any case, as long as Europe has to choose sides between the US and Asia, they will choose the US I believe.

Also there aren’t so many ideological differences to divide us as before. There is no more communism (China doesnt’ really count in my book), and if we are all capitalist countries, in the end we are only looking out for the well-being of our own citizens. Nobody wants nuclear war and there is really no reason to fight one.

Of course we’ll have to see what happens when the oil supply runs out. I want to know if anyone will think it is fair to fight a war for oil? I can’t really see Americans supporting this. If anything, Americans are basically good people, with a can-do spirit, and I don’t think that we’ll have much support for a war for resources. I think the average American when faced with the reality of ever-increasing oil-prices would rather turn to a solution that relied on technological ingenuity rather than agression. Although we Americans are relatively easily convinced into going to war, I doubt any American would support a blatant war of agression. I was against the Iraq war, but I realized that its supporters had the good of the world on their minds (although I think it was incorrect). I think Americans are only willing to go to war when faced with a political threat. Everyone knows that the oil will run out, so its stupid to fight for it anyway.

So in the end, I see America continuing to play the world’s policeman, possibly with Asian countries having their own zone of influence. Europe won’t have any threats that require such a mobilization, and nobody has the desire to do it either. Honestly if the USA never became a superpower, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to have the role. If there was some other superpower that would take care of us, why would we even bother? Europe knows we’ll never attack them, so they aren’t really scared. Plus they have nukes. In a way its a rather envious position. They only have to concern themselves with their own countries and the international orgainizations that are set up now reguarding trade rules etc. provide a protection that one could only have before with a stronger military. I guess in a sense, I believe that the world is still in a process of becoming more civilized with the end result being everyone realizing that war is bad and is to be avoided. Its a very optimistic idea, but I definitely see this happening within the first-world countries.

23

But as has been noted, the EU “core” nations (France and Germany) are exactly the ones that are going to have the hardest time A) reinvigorating their economies and B) summoning the political will to spend the 3-5% of annual GDP required just to keep pace with the US, let alone start making up the US’ current edge in technology, equipment and skilled personnel.

Remember, the OP is talking about a military to rival the US: A 60,000 man RDF is a nice start, but it’s a looong way from 20 combat divisions and a dozen supercarriers.

Please bring cites.

24

I generally agree with your thesis (Europe doesn’t want or need a real military), but you do realize that this sort of “end of war” sentiment has been uttered numerous times before?

Given that war has been a central, defining element of nearly all of human history across all cultures, for all sorts of reasons and no reason at all, I’m inclined to think its origins lie somewhere in human nature and not in some specific socioeconomic situation. And if that’s the case, the question is whether or not we really think human nature has changed in the last 50 years. I’m inclined to say “no” and that it’s only a matter of how often and how destructive.

25

Ah, but if the answer to those questions is very small and relegated to those countries not yet integrated into the world community, then perhaps we have achieved a sort of world peace without changing human nature. I agree with you that conflict is part of our nature. The only question is how are conflicts conducted (how destructive and how often). If the vast majority of conflicts are conducted via legal institutions (lawyers) and only a small minority are conducted via outright violence, then once again, we may have effectively ended war without changing our nature.

The question has to do not so much with changing the nature of human beings, but with achieving a more universal acceptance of the rule-sets which include the notion that violence is the last method of choice for resolving conflict. One can not expect savages living a couple thousand years ago to even understand such a rule set. And people living under fuedalistic systems (which lets remember only ended accross the world 50 years ago) did not have the opportunity either. But the world really is a different place now than it was 50, 100, or 1000 years ago. There are still dangers, to be sure. But the danger of half of the nations fighting militarily with the other half is all but* gone.

*note the qualifier. There is nothing stoping us from returning to the days of global military rivalry except our own choices not to do so.

26

Indeed. But acheiving that acceptance is exactly the catch. I’m not saying we havn’t made progress or that we won’t make more. But fifty years is an eyeblink in the scale of human history, let alone human evolution. It was only twenty years ago that many, many serious intellectuals were positing that it was not only possible but probable that the human race would exterminate itself. And less than a generation later we’re concluding that we’ve overcome our demons once and for all? Sorry, but I’m skeptical.

Nothing is more likely to unleash the barbarian in our breast than denying he’s there. Just as there will always be criminals who decline to accept cival laws, there will always be times when one or more nations decide the current geopolitical rule-set does not suit their interests and that they won’t obey.

27

There no real point in discussing the possibility of a “Pax Europa” as long as the EU isn’t strongly integrated to the point where it is perceived by european people as having a legitimacy beyond and above the legitimacy of the member states. I’m going to exclude an unlikely situation where a major event would make such an integration a vital emergency (WWIII or whatnot).
Currently, nor the people, nor the governments (generally speaking) are willing to grant the EU a real independant decision power in matters of military or foreign affairs. Doing so would require a feeling of belonging which currently doesn’t exist. It will take time before a Bavarian feels equally Geman and European, as interest in European issues as in local issues, and has as much confidence in the EU decision makers as in his own officials. I believe it will eventually happen. The European integration has made permanent, and often unexpected progresses during the last 50 years. The common currency, the the fact that a very large part of the national laws are now merely derivated from EU regulations are examples of this. Some countries (the main ones being France and Germany) are much more willing to go ahead, and will in all likehood do so even if some others will lag behind. I think there is no going back. EU countries have created too close ties and are too interdependant for a withdrawal from the union to be a viable option. I would also note that the youger generations are much more accustomed to and supportive of the concept of European integration.
Now, there are a lot of issues that must be settled before a real common foreign policy could be seriously envisionned. In particular the institutions must be strongly improved to become simpler, more efficicient, and perceived as representative and legitimate by the european people. The process of full integration of new members (the ten more recent ones, then Romania, Bulgaria, latter the former Yugoslavian republics, possibly Turkey) will be in itself time consuming and costly (if only in order to bring them to the level of economic development of western europe). The EU member countries are also a long shot from agreeing about several important domains (police and justice cooperation, fiscal and social policies…). The issue of demographics and the resulting necessity for the EU to rely on immigration and to find a way to really integrate these immigrants has already been mentionned.
I already say that I’m confident these goals will be reached. As for the time it will take, I would guess at least one generation. Say 25-30 years. What could be then the european views about foreign policies or military affairs is IMO impossible to predict, IMO. If only because meanwhile the rest of the world will have changed a lot too. My take on this is that we’re heading towards a multipolar world. The EU will become more influential on the world stage with a greater ability to speak with only one voice. Whether or not China will undertake major political changes, I can’t see it not becoming a very heavy weight in all domains (economical, diplomatical, military). I strongly suspect India will follow and, as it is the case now with China, will come to be courted by the other powers. Besides them, there a lot of potential candidates for, at least, a role as regional powers : Brazil, for instance, of even the Mercosur, which could follow the way of the european common market. Russia has a lot of potential ressources and could eventually solve its current issues. Even smaller, less important countries will gain weight on the world stage. For instance, a country like South Korea has reached an economical level close to western countries. In the future, I belive there will be a significant number of countries which, though not being world or even regional powers will be rich enough and powerful enough to prevent major powers from bullying them as easily as it is the case currently. They won’t be so totaly overwhelmed by major powers and helpless.
To sum up, I think that, 30 years down the road (once again barring some major event or massive unexpected change), there won’t be any ovewhelmingly dominating power, like the USA is currently. Unilateralism won’t be an open option anymore for anybody.
Coming back to the EU, I don’t think it’s likely to become in a near future an independant military power on par with the US. First because no EU country is willing to commit itself to the level of military expenses which would be necessary, and even the most willing ones (France, the UK…) are a long way from spending (or even considering to spend) as much on its military as the US does (I’m not convinced, by the way, that the US will be able to sustain such a rate of expense on the long term). Someone mentionned the issue of concurrence between the EU armament industries, however, there’s already a large number of armament systems developped in cooperation by several countries (up to aircraft carriers in the case of UK/ France) and it will probably become more and more common in the coming years. Mergings are likely too. The concept of an European “army” (which actually would be made up of independant national units assembled together to form an operationnal force in case of need, with some exceptions like the Franco-German corps) is accepted by all the major countries. The disagreement is limited to its relation with NATO, more precisely, will it benefit from a totally independant command and logistics structure or not? Even on this issue, progresses have been made. For instance the UK agreed to the constitution of the kernel of an european command center. The very likely end result will be a force of limited scope able to be deployed in mainly three situations : a medium-scale oversea operation in a situation threatening for vital european interests, an operation in the European “backyard” (similar to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, for instance) and as a part of a joint NATO operation. Nothing like the US concept of being able to fight 2 major wars at the same time.
OK. My post was longer than I expected and would probably need shorter paragraphs and a review. I’m too lazy to do so. Anyway, to sum up, I don’t believe in a “Pax Europa”, nor in the near future, nor in the long term, for different reasons. As for the very long term, things could change so much that making predictions would be, IMO, silly.

28

No. We have been over this multiple times before. The unemployment figures of the US and Europe cannot be compared because they are based on very different methods!. A better measurement would be workforce participation, or total working hours per adult, adjusted for education and retirees.

It’s not easy to find comparative data because the EU enlargement from 15 to 25 member states took place May 1, 2004. - while the latest available EU data is from 2002.

However, the EU is now the largest economy of the world with a GDP of 9,613 million Euro, as opposed to the US with 8.782 million Euro, per 2002 (10.450 USD at 1.19 USD per Euro) (cite).

Key figures:



Share of World Trade (goods + services)  20.1%  - 19.8%  - 20-25% (??)
Trade Surplus/Deficit) (billions euro)   36     - NA     - (-270)
Population (millions)                    379    - 455    - 290
GDP Total, 2002 (billions euro)          9,169  - 9,613  - 8.782
GDP per Capita,2002 (euro):              24 100 - 21 100 - 31 500
GDP, annual growth, 2000:                1.5%   - NA     - 1.2%
Inflation, 2002:                         1.6%   - NA     - 1.1%

As for military spending, NATO Europe spent 164 000 million USD, or 2.1% of GDP, in 2000, while the US spent 301 000 million USD, or 3.0% of GDP, in 2000 (cite, cite) In other words, the US spend twice as much as the rest of NATO. However, the number for NATO European is based on 3 non-EU members and 13 EU members, while the remaining 12 EU members are not included. In a future EU army the military spending of non-NATO members will be included. (I’m not hunting data for non-NATO members, do it yourself).

The problem with the military in Europe has , IMO, little to do with money. In a growing 10,000++ billion dollar economy, a couple of extra hundreds aren’t that much. As a comparison. the EU is currently spending 80 billion on the enlargement process. The main problem is rather the structure of the military: it’s old-fashioned, slow and based on a Cold War scenario. Europe hasn’t fought wars on other continents in a long time, to become a m ilitary force Europe will have to adopt to a rapid movement scenario.
As for the demography, it’s correct that Western Europe has a low birth rate. The drop below the replacement rate of 2.11 took place during the 1960s, so this is hardly news. (Currently, Spain and Italy is lowest with less than 1.2 per woman, while Finland and France (ha!) is above 1.8). The average is 1.45. Still, the European population has increased up until 2000, with immigration making up almost 3/4 of the population growth in later years.

The EU is expanding eastward where birth rates are slightly higher. In the meantime, people from the east will emigrate to the west (as they already do to some extent). As for immigration, this is a matter of policies, not possibilities. There surely are enough people in the world who wants to come to the West. Like the US, Europe enjoys immigration from Asia and Africa. And Europe has Russia, Ukraine and other nations to the east - Europe isn’t limited to immigration from Arabia only.

All in all, declining birth rates is not European problem - it’s worldwide trend. According to a NYT article, “since 1965 … the birth rate in the Third World has been cut in half - from 6 children per woman to 3”. The US has a birth rate slightly below 2.11, but it’s on a steady decline, it’s the immigration families, in particular Latin Americans, who keep the number up.

According to an interesting article (ref below), immigration to EU15 was 270 000 people in 1995, while the number was 760 000 for the US in the same year. However, to maintain support ratio in 2050, EU15 would have had to increase that number to 13 millions per year, while the US must increase immigration to 11 millions per year.

http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5897

Looking into my crystal ball, I predict that we will all be dead and gone by the time immigration cannot make up for low birth rates, and that I should start a thread about it. Later.

29

:smack: That should be:



                                         EU15     EU25     US
Share of World Trade (goods + services)  20.1%  - 19.8%  - 20-25% (??)
Trade Surplus/Deficit) (billions euro)   36     - NA     - (-270)
Population (millions)                    379    - 455    - 290
GDP Total, 2002 (billions euro)          9,169  - 9,613  - 8.782
GDP per Capita,2002 (euro):              24 100 - 21 100 - 31 500
GDP, annual growth, 2000:                1.5%   - NA     - 1.2%
Inflation, 2002:                         1.6%   - NA     - 1.1%
30

No. France and German is the engine of European economy. Even though these two countries (as well as the rest of EU) experiene below average GDP growth at the moment, that don’t mean it will stay that way. On the contrary, France enjoyed the highest increase of FDR’s (Foreign Direct Investments) in all of EU last year.

I think you misunderstood. Military forces in Europe is far above this figure. The 60 000 RDF is just the first shared military project across national borders. How big it will become, if they ever go that way, remains to be seen.

31

Sorry, I’d forgotten “we” had done this. I’m open to your ideas, but please link or explain.

None of which is at issue here: the subject of the thread is the chances of the EU becoming a real rival to the US in the forseeable future. I submit that the “core” EU nations’ dependance on immigration from complicates their ability to project power abroad; and that while “new Europe” is indeed a source of workers and economic growth, it’s also disinclined to oppose the US.

32

If I remember correctly, to be regarded statistically as an unemployed in the US, the person must have tried to get a job in the last four weeks before “the poll”. Elsewhere you’re unemployed if you are registered as unemployed or simply wants to work. Still relying on memory, the workforce participation rate in the US is about 67% or 69%?? Over here it’s 75% according to one unconfirmed study. The problem with workforce participation figures is that, as far as I know, the US is the only one collecting such figures regularly. I really don’t have any hard data, I only know that the methods are different and that the data therefore are not comparable.

As Merkwurdigliebe said, can and will are two different things. As I see it, there’s nothing standing in Europe’s way if they want to rival the US military, neither technology, demography, or money. I just don’t think they will, but I’m also quite certain we will see some kind of an European Army in the future, maybe a third or half of what the US has now. It depends on what’s happening with NATO.

I’m more inclined to see big problems for the US, with foreign investments dropping from over $300 billion in 2000 to $72 billion in 2003, household debt doubling from 40% to 80% of GDP in 20 years, trade deficit, federal budget deficit and a declining dollar. And enemies right and left, both today and in the future. Europe’s economic problems are mainly a) the lack of an effective market (which the EU is currently solving), and b) the workers versus retirees ratio (which can be sold by changing the pension system).

I don’t agree with the argument above that we are maybe heading for a more peaceful time. I see big conflicts ahead, particularly in Asia, and partly in the Middle East and Africa. There will be wars, big wars. Fortunately, Europe only has to worry about a possibly future totalitarian Russian president (in Russia the President holds all the power), so Europe can pretty much go on with their own business.

Europe fighting a war with the US? Absolutely not! The trade interdepency is huge and there’s nothing over there Europe wants anyway :wink: A military rivalry between US - Europe, if ever, will be over proxy nations.

33

Yes, I forgot to mention. You argue that “the core EU nations’ dependance on immigration complicates their ability to project power abroad”. But the US manages this very well, accepting three times as many immigrants as the EU. Actually, I think immigration in Europe is an unexploited resource.

34

Alien said:

Actually the last time we ‘had been over this’, I pointed to cites showing that the methods used to determine unemployment in the U.S. and Europe were normalized by the OECD and other groups so that they could be compared, and the stats of unemployment rates use the normalized values. While there may still be differences due to hidden factors, they’re likely to be small.

The fact is, Europe has significantly higher unemployment and lower GDP growth than the U.S. And if you want to use worker-hours as a yardstick, Europe looks even worse, because the employed work fewer hours. And the trends are looking worse. I’m pessimistic about Europe’s future, because I think they are making bad economic choices. European workers do not work as hard as American workers - they get more vacation time, work shorter hours, and take more sick and maternity leave days due to generous laws. European countries like France are accepting huge numbers of immigrants to prevent population collapse due to their incredibly low natural birthrates, but many of these immigrants are coming into these countries and going straight to social assistance. The demographic shift towards Muslim populations in France and other European countries is causing cultural clashes.

If I were going to choose the next big trouble spot for the world in, say, 50 years, my money would be on Europe.

So I’m not sure I want them becoming a military superpower, even if they could. As it is, France will be a muslim majority nation within a generation, and France has lots of nuclear weapons. This is one reason why the war on terror is so important - there’s nothing wrong with the Muslim faith, but we need to purge the radical, intolerant wing of it right now while it is still small. Because if extremism starts to really take hold in countries like France, we’ll have a big damned problem on our hands.

35

I would submit that the US’ is more able to integrate new immigrants, and more importantly, most of immigrants come from nations that we are very unlikely to be in conflict with (i.e. Mexico). As the French Muslim population rises (about 7% now), it’s going to begin to complicate their approach to the middle east.

36

I must have been away when you posted that. If you have a link I’ll be grateful, because this is one of the things I’m curious about.

My gut feeling is that in America the average worker works more than in Europe, partly due to, as you pointed out, generous arrangements in Europe (not necessarily a bad thing IMO). However, America has a larger group of people that has “fallen off the boat”, homeless people, jail population etc. I also have a feeling that less American women than European are working - no cite, just a gut feeling. And I shouldn’t leave out rural areas in the US where there are few jobs available.

I do believe working force participation (counting those who work instead of those who say they don’t work) is a better measurement, and the little data I have seen suggest that the US is under-reporting its unemployment figures.

You say that US unemployment data is normalized by the OECD in their international reports. But the figures I’ve seen in OECD reports seems to be the same as the figures released by the USG. How can that be? I’m not convinced.

Europe isn’t accepting huge numbers of immigrants, on the contrary, Europe is accepting far less than the US (only one third of the US in 1995). It’s not true that many (how many are many?) of these are going straight to social welfare. The data I’ve seen suggest that the unemployment rate amongst immigrants are about twice of the national rate, not surprisingly, but still below 15% percent. They put in more than they take out. This is also my personal experience, I lived until very recently in a city with 25% immigrants, in a district of the city with more than 50% immigrants. Yes, there are definitely integration problems many places (as in certain parts of Paris), but it isn’t that easy to get a job with limited language and workman skills, as is the case with a portion of these immigrants.

Huh-Huh. I’m aware of all the headlines about Muslims and problems and anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe. Forget everything you’ve read about it. First of all, the Muslim population in France is about 5%, and that’s the largest percentage of all European countries. But it’s still only 5% and it’s not going to “shift towards a Muslim population” in our lifetime, or the next. As a comparison, the Israeli-Arab population (also frequently mentioned in such debates) has a birth rate advantage on Israeli-Jews similar to the Muslim population in Europe, but they will only grow from 19% to an estimated 25% during the next 20 years, according to research. So I guess that in France they will grow from 5% to 7% in the next 20 years. Agreed?

Which brings me to the main point here: The children of these immigrants do not become “die-hard” Muslims themselves. They are more often than not rejecting their parents values, embracing a western lifestyle. As they say: If you taste freedom, you will not let go.

I find it very hard to believe that the conflict caused by immigration in Europe is anywhere near the problem the US is facing in districts with blacks, latinos and whites. Street gangs, violent crime, you name it. I know that the headlines are talking about, to use one example, the rise of anti-Jewish sentiments in France. Well, I checked up on the actual numbers. With a population of 600 000 Jews there had been 127 “incidents” (of vandalism, arson, assault, and attacks or attempted attacks) in 2003. That’s 0.2 per 1000. Hardly “France turning anti-Jewish”, as one might be lead to believe by the headlines. Many of the incidents occurred in areas where Muslim and Jewish communities are neighbors, - and half of them came from the hands of unemployed youngsters. It isn’t the number of incidents that is the problem, it’s the fact that the numbers doubled. That’s the disturbing trend, not the numbers.

Well, I’m living here, and I don’t see it. On the contrary, there is less crime, less poverty, less class division and less distance between ruler and ruled, than in the US. Is it all gold? Of course not, - Balkan, and to some extent Italy, may be heading down the slippery slope, but that’s just something that has to be dealt with.

The funny part - nothing of this has anything to do with the OP.

37

See my reply to Sam above.

Question: How do you see immigration interfering with Europe’s ability to rival the US a military superpower?

As I can see it, Europe has:

[ul]
[li]The biggest economy on the planet, and growing[/li][li]Can easily add 100-200 billion from a 11 000 billion USD economy to counter US military spending[/li][li]Has huge defense companies[/li][li]Has technology and brains[/li][/ul]

The negatives are:
[ul]
[li]Loose federation, nationalistic member states[/li][li]Inadequate decision processes[/li][/ul]

I’m not trying to pee longer than you here, but I really can’t see where immigration fits in. And immigrants of Muslim origin are not the majority, but the minority of total immigrants, at least in the north. Their percentage of the total population is very small, 2-3.5%, not that much bigger than in the US (2 percent ? - 1% Arab-Americans?).

After all, Europe has internally had a free flow of the workforce for a long time. It’s one of the principles todays union is built on.

38

You have a cite for that? Because I’ve been reading articles that are predicting a Muslim majority anywhere from 25 to 50 years from now.

The problem is that the non-muslim population in France is aging (16% over the age of 65 now), and not reproducing. It will begin shrinking rapidly. The Muslim population, on the other hand, has the highest birthrates in the world (close to 6 children per couple, I believe), and the Muslim population in France is young. The combination of predominantly Muslim immigration, a rapidly shrinking non-Muslim population, and very high Muslim birthrates could lead to an incredibly rapid demographic shift.

Now, predicting the future by extrapolating current trends is a dangerous game. Perhaps things will change. But change will only come if severe tensions arise - they are already starting. If anti-Semitism continues to rise, we may see widespread Jewish flight from France as well - exacerbating the demographic shift.

This is also a problem for Jews in the Middle East - Muslim populations are growing at triple the rate of non-muslim populations. This is going to put increasing pressure on Israel.

We have to learn to live with Muslims in harmony, because they are going to be an increasingly powerful force in the world. This is why the war on terror is so important now, and why I support Bush’s attempt to reform the middle east. Islam has to be purged of its violent extremist faction, just as Christianity had to go through an enlightenment. Because if we don’t figure out how to live in peace now, the conflict that could arise in 30 years will be a doozy.

39

I’m not sure where you read that but I can guess that in turn, the source of these “datas” found his informations in the propaganda of the french “front national” extreme-right party or some equaly reliable source.

The most reliable estimates of the french muslim population give a figure of 3.5-4 millions. That would amount to 6-6.5%.

I’m not sure what is this muslim population with 6 children per couple you’re refering to. The french muslim population? Certainly not. The world muslim population? I strongly doubt it, because AFAIK, the only countries with birthrates so high would be some african countries which aren’t necessarily muslim, and anyway wouldn’t account for a large part of the world’s muslim population.

That’s quite irrelevant to the OP, but it doesn’t seem to me that the current war on terror is doing a lot toward the goal of “learning to live with muslims in harmony”.

40

Once again I feel like I’m reading a propaganda piece from the “front national”. The number of immigrants in France actually has been drastically reduced during the last 10 years or so, which IMO is a mistake. Besides, they don’t go “straight to social assistance” anymore than any other category of workers. OK…maybe somewhat more, because they tend to belong to the lower classes, which mean lower incomes, more unstable jobs, higher risk of unemployement, etc…Basically like essentially all immigrants everywhere.

Barring an invasion across the Mediterranean Sea, not a snowball chance in hell.