"We need a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine
Northern Alliance of Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face
similar existential threats in the decades ahead. In an uncertain and ever
more brutal world, the Northerners may finally consider banding together,
lest they be defeated in detail."
Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, February 2009
The North Worth Saving
By Srdja Trifkovic
"Defeat in detail" is a military concept that denotes the rout of an enemy
by dividing and destroying segments of his forces one by one, instead of
engaging his entire strength. A brilliant example was Stonewall Jackson's
1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, when his force of 17,000 beat three
mutually unsupported Union commands almost four times his strength.
The concept is as old as Sun Tzu ("if enemy forces are united, separate
them") and was more recently restated by Mao ("concentrate a superior force
to destroy the enemy forces one by one"). It is highly relevant to the
American interest because the civilization upon which this country is
founded—usually described as "Western," although "Northern" would be more
accurate—is in danger of being defeated in detail by its enemies, internal
and external.
The problem was aptly summarized by Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry
Rogozin, in an interview with Russia Today last November 18:
There is a new civilization emerging in the Third World that thinks that the
white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall
at its feet now. . . . If the northern civilization wants to protect itself,
it must be united: America, the European Union, and Russia. If they are not
together, they will be defeated one by one.
Rogozin's statement reflects a profound understanding of the biological,
cultural and spiritual commonalities shared by one billion Europeans and
their overseas descendants in the "white, northern hemisphere"—an
understanding as accurate as it is odious to the Western elite class.
It indicates that, in some important respects, Russia is freer than the
United States or the European Union: No American or Western European
diplomat of his rank would dare make such a statement, even if he shared the
sentiment—or hope to remain in his post after making it.
And finally, it correctly diagnoses the attitude of the Third World to the
northern civilization as inherently adversarial, based on the myth of the
latter's oppressiveness and on the expectation of its eventual collapse.
Europe's demographic self-annihilation is well advanced, from the Atlantic
to the Urals and beyond, with Russia and the rest of the Old Continent
sharing the same downward trend. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Russia's population has fallen six percent, from around 150 million to just
over 140 million. The combination of a low birthrate, an aging population,
and a public-health crisis may result in the country's population collapsing
by one third, to around 100 million, by 2050. On current form, there will be
a 40-percent drop in the size of the core (ages 14 to 25) group, ensuring a
continued decline for the rest of the century. At the same time, the number
of self-identified Muslims in Russia has risen by 40 percent in the last 15
years to 20 million, partly fueled by immigration from Central Asia and the
Caucasus.
In Metropolitan France, an ostensibly healthy birthrate of 12.2 per thousand
conceals the fact that, of some 800,000 births in a nation of almost 60
million, Muslim immigrants (predominantly from North Africa) and their
French-born descendants account for more than a quarter. Italy will plummet
from today's 57 million to a much older 40 million by 2050. By that time,
the continent as a whole will face a net loss of some 150 million people.
Europe's population has aged to such a degree that it will continue to
shrink even in the unlikely event that birthrates rebound to the replacement
level. This "negative momentum" means that even if women in the future
should have an unexpected fertility increase to two children on average, the
population would be destined to continue shrinking.
In the 1970's, the U.S. birthrate not only dipped below replacement but fell
below the European rate. In the years since, the American rate recovered
modestly to just below replacement level. The fertility rate of white
Americans slipped below the replacement rate in the early 1970's, however,
and it never recovered: Today it stands at about 1.8 babies per woman.
Demographers say that the U.S. population will grow by 135 million in the
next four decades—a stunning 44-percent increase—but that growth will be
entirely the result of immigration (overwhelmingly from the Third World) and
increases in the nonwhite population.
In Russia, Rogozin's thesis is disputed by two very different groups. The
Westernizers—insignificant in numbers but influential in the country's
intelligentsia—reject the notion that Russia can be, or should aspire to be,
an equal partner of Europe and America unless and until she is reformed in
their image. The Eurasianists, by contrast, see Russia's destiny in the
great continental heartland and in strategic partnership with her southern
and southeastern neighbors. They believe that Russia's interests and those
of the United States are inherently divergent. In their view, détente with
Islam is more desirable than cooperation with the West. As Aleksandr Dugin
says, the new Eurasian empire should be based on the rejection of
Atlanticism and liberalism: "[T]his common civilizational impulse will be
the basis of a political and strategic union" between Russia and the
Heartland, the Slavs and the Turkic peoples of the Central Asian steppe.
Continental conservatives—German Christian Democrats; French, Spanish, and
Italian rightists—are natural Northerners even when they are squeamish about
admitting it. Members of the dominant European left, however, are
overwhelmingly enthusiastic about Barack Obama because they are ashamed of
their own roots and looks. The sentiment is becoming all-pervasive: Even The
Economist opined that Obama's victory "would salve, if not close, the ugly
wound left by America's history." The left flatly denies that a common
Euro-Russo-American civilization exists, let alone that it is worth
preserving or jointly defending.
It is in the United States that the obstacles to a northern paradigm are the
most formidable. Opponents are present, to some extent, in every influential
segment of this country's foreign-policy community.
American exceptionalists believe that the United States differs
qualitatively from Europe (not to mention Russia) by virtue of her
"propositional credo," which transcends the shackles of ethnicity, race,
culture, and faith. Global hegemonists seek dominance over Europe and
fragmentation of Russia, rather than partnership with them. Many hegemonists
are also visceral Russophobes, owing to their own ethno-cultural baggage
rather than any objective assessment of Moscow's global position and impact
on U.S. interests. Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his Vice President,
Hillary Clinton's appointment to State, Robert Gates' retention at the
Pentagon, and General Jones's management of the National Security Council
point to the President's willful blindness to the collapsing economic
foundation of the American "hyperpower."
Multiculturalists oppose any notion of "our" physical or cultural space that
does not belong to everyone. They deny that we should have a special
affinity for any particular country, nation, race, or culture, but demand
the imposition of our preferences upon the whole world. They are the mortal
enemy of any notion that any shared legacy of the European family is worthy
of preservation.
These groups share the radical notion that America is not a real country,
but a metaphysical concept or a tool for their own Will to Power—or both.
They do not want this country to belong to the people whose ancestors
created her and who have inhabited her for generations. They celebrate the
resulting random mélange of mutually disconnected multitudes as somehow
uniquely "American" and virtuous.
Ideologues will deny it, but in the decades to come Europe, Russia, and
America will be in similar mortal peril from those very multitudes. The
magnitude of that threat will become clear as those nations age and the
numbers of hostile aliens grow. In the end there will be no grand synthesis,
no crossfertilization, and certainly no peaceful coexistence, between the
North and the Third World.
The short-term prospects for fostering a sense of unity among
Europeans—Eastern, Western, and American—are dim and will remain so for as
long as the regimes of all the major states of the West are controlled by an
elite class hostile to its own biological roots and cultural fruits.
In the longer term, however, it is at least conceivable that the ongoing
financial and economic crisis will produce salutary political and cultural
effects. In the face of diminished property values, rising unemployment, and
collapsed retirement portfolios, our elites risk a comprehensive loss of
credibility and authority comparable to that experienced by Europe's ruling
class in 1914-18. When the dust settles they may no longer be heeded as
arbiters of who we are, what we are to think, and how we are to lead a good
life. As the credibility of American global dominance tanks with the dollar,
Europe may increasingly see its interests tracking with those of Russia,
forcing Washington to acquiesce.
No refocusing of international policy will matter if there is not a reversal
of demographic and immigration trends. The richer the country, the emptier
its cradles. A trend toward Third World living standards may lead to Third
World birthrates. Increased scarcity may finally break the political taboo
about addressing non-European immigration.
Can we hope that a reminder of the harsher realities of life will revive the
North's sense of itself as a Christian civilization and resistance to the
stealth jihad being waged in our midst? Sadly, the more likely result of the
crisis we now face is deepening demoralization, increased demands for
government solutions and services, and ever more inane adulation of such
purveyors of political snake oil as our newly enthroned President Messiah.
In the early eighth century the triumphant march of Islam into Christendom
seemed unstoppable, until it was halted at the gates of Constantinople (718)
and at Tours (732). Conversely, in July 1914, Europe was at the peak of
every imaginable human achievement, only to be turned into a pale shadow of
its former self a mere century later.
Much of this depends on leadership. Can we find political leaders who will
serve as catalysts for social regeneration? If there are any Dmitry Rogozins
lurking in the corridors of American and European politics, this would be a
good time for them to step forward.
Rogozin's position on the essential dilemma of our time coincides with what
I have repeatedly advocated in these pages over the past decade: a paradigm
shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance of
Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face similar existential
threats in the decades ahead. In an uncertain and ever more brutal world,
the Northerners may finally consider banding together, lest they be defeated
in detail. I do not know if and when they will do so. I do know that, if
they don't, the best and greatest civilization the world has known will be
finished for ever.
