If you’ve read what I have to say about Western Civilization’s history and when it is today, you may be wondering where that leaves for it’s future, or lack thereof, and the future of the world as a whole.

In recent years, much of the Muslim world has become increasingly aggressive towards its neighbors and toward the West.  We are talking about a creed that views any way of life that is not based on its own code of conduct as offensive.  They have a large number of influential figures who would very much like to reverse the results of Tours and Vienna.  They have a very large supply of men who are willing to give their lives for this purpose.

We have also have seen the rise of China, a culture that has older roots than any other in the world today.  They are an industrious, disciplined nation with a high degree of social cohesion.  They have also proven to have a knack for adopting Western technology to their own purposes.  They have a sizable nuclear arsenal.  Their recent rise comes after a long period of decline, and they are certainly interested in influencing the world in to their advantage as well.  I have full confidence, I might add, that they are not about to let Muslims intimidate them.

Now the question is, who is going serve as a bulwark for the preservation of Western culture in this situation?

America?

No. Washington is living far beyond its means, borrowing almost half the money it spends, and any part of the budget it tries to cut some interest group will organize to oppose it. Those lines of credit won’t be open for ever, and the time will come when the money dries up, and then see how impotent the US becomes.

The US has for a long time been losing faith in itself, as well as a sense of self sacrifice.  We haven’t won a military victory against a formidable enemy since 1945.  Politics in this country are increasing polarized along lines of personal identity, especially race.  We’ll be to busy fighting each other to worry much about any external foes.  I think the US is headed for collapse in the next few decades, probably a Soviet-style breakup, and what’s left of it will not be a major force in world politics for some time.

What about Europe?

Probably not.  Military matters have never been a major priority for the EU, mainly because initially the US had kept its troops in Europe as shield against the Soviet Union so that the countries of Western Europe could devote their resources to building generous welfare states.  Even today, I believe that one of the few things that the EU has yet to create is a common European army.  We don’t see the EU anytime soon with its own army, navy and air force, with millions of men, including its own nuclear arsenal.

Even on economic matters the EU is on shaky ground. It wasn’t that hard to foresee what imposing a single currency on countries with different levels of development would lead to. It’s a tube sucking money from the north to south, which hardly engenders solidarity among the European countries.

As if that weren’t enough, with millions of Muslims that have been allowed to settle in Europe as “refugees”, it is hard to believe that Europe’s politicians are up to preventing Islamic conquest.

So that leaves Russia. Russia is led by an ordinary statesman, which in today’s world is an extraordinary thing. Say what you want about Putin, he doesn’t have any cookie-cutter political system that he wants every society in the world to fit. He doesn’t have a dysgenic ideology that he is relentlessly trying to export. The question, then, is not whether you like Putin or his policies, but whether you would prefer a world more in the image of Islam or China. There’s historical precedent for this. In the early Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, an unstable and fractured Europe relied, to a large degree, on the Byzantine Empire for protection of its eastern flank.

What distinguishes Russia from other major powers in the word today is that is actually ruled by an ordinary statesman and not some warmongering ideologue.  By comparison, this gives quite a positive view of Moscow.  Putin knows that his job is to protect the common interests of the Russian people, and that’s what he does.  Russia has a major role to play in history in the years to come, if she plays her cards right, a role that neither America nor Europe are at this time capable of playing.  In the face of an increasingly aggressive Islam and an ascendant China, I don’t see why we should be wishing anything but the best for Russia at this time.

Europe’s escape from its current debacle lies first and foremost in stopped the the flood of Third World immigration, and ending dependency on the US.  This necessarily means the dismantling of the EU, which for purposes of international politics essentially a vassal of Washington.  The best to hope for as that America’s decline won’t be messier than necessary.  In the meantime, it can only be said that the weaker the US government becomes, the better.