The Jungle Devours Europe

The European Union has over four-hundred-fifty million people.  The non-E.U. nations of Europe — including the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, and Albania but excluding Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Turkey — have another hundred million people.  Combined, Europe has over two hundred million more people than the United States and over four hundred million more people than the Russian Federation.  As an “associate member” of the E.U., Canada would give Europe another forty million bodies.

There is no reason why Europe should struggle to defend itself with this kind of population advantage.  In fact, it is downright embarrassing that it depends on Americans from the other side of the ocean to secure its borders when the United States (with its significantly smaller population) has military obligations throughout the world.  It has been eighty years since the Second World War, and somehow the European Establishment still hasn’t figured out how to survive without American money and muscle.

Professors and pundits toss out all kinds of reasons why this is the case: The Europeans were saddled with debt and destruction after two continental wars within thirty years and had to rebuild much of their infrastructure and manufacturing capacity.  As the Soviet Union and the U.S.-led allies carved up post-war Europe, the Cold War froze the continent in a state of transition for the next half-century.  U.S. political leaders embraced America’s transformation into a global empire with global responsibilities.

Peace in post-WWII Europe seemed fragile, and parts of Europe appeared broken; two generations had been lost to war and depression, and a sense of nihilism extinguished much of the early-twentieth-century exuberance that pervaded the continent before the First World War.

All of this is true.  Still, there is no excuse for the continent to be struggling with the responsibilities of political sovereignty four generations after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s former high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a speech four years ago, “Europe is a garden.  We have built a garden.”  After a heavy pause, he then observed, “The rest of the world…is not exactly a garden.  Most of the rest of the world is a jungle.  The jungle could invade the garden.  The gardeners should take care of it.”

Political leaders from around the world took umbrage at Borrell’s condescending view of non-European nations and saw in his garden/jungle demarcation the residual bigotry of European colonialism.

Aside from his rather tone-deaf description of Europe, though, Borrell’s view of the continent seems anachronistic.  European greatness hasn’t existed for more than a century.  Most of the noble houses have fallen, while most of the extant aristocrats live in obscurity.

Europe does not create new things; it steals (and taxes) America’s innovation and ingenuity.  Europe does not build things; it depends on China for industrial output and manufacturing.  Europe does not produce enough energy; even while declaring Russia its enemy, much of Europe depends upon Russian oil and gas to survive.  Europe does not mine anything; it depends upon child slaves in Africa to do its heavy lifting.  Europe does not have babies; it depends upon mass immigration for population replacement.

Europe does not generate real economic growth; it depends upon central bank magic tricks, investment bank commissions, and government spending to conjure the illusion of a functioning economy.  Finally, Europe does not defend itself; it depends upon NATO, which is to say that it depends upon the United States of America to protect its half a billion people from real and imagined enemies.

If Europe is a “garden,” it is because the rest of the planet allows it to exist as one.  It would have no vegetation if the “jungle” did not supply it with imports; it would have no “gardeners” if America did not secure Europe’s lands and keep trespassers out.

The United States is the only reason that Europe is not part of the “jungle” today.  Americans have subsidized Europe’s economy for eighty years by allowing Europe to enjoy the advantages of one-way tariffs against U.S. manufacturers and the security umbrella of America’s military might.  Europe survives because of the kindness of strangers living in towns across America.

This one-sided relationship cannot continue as it has for most of the last century.  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her Eurocentric friends in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Paris believe that their “garden” should remain the focus of the world.  They believe that their “climate change” fanaticism should drive economic regulation around the globe.  They believe that their International Criminal Court should be the planet’s chief arbiter of “justice.”  They believe that their multicultural, cosmopolitan, Marxist-socialist brand of globalism should become a kind of secular religion for all nations.  In essence, Europe wants to force the “jungle” to play by its rules.

But this is not how the “law of the jungle” operates.

The lions, elephants, hippos, and hyenas don’t have any use for Brussels bureaucracy.  They see no need to bow down to unelected Queen Ursula or to respect her “European values.”  They do not cripple their food supplies out of misplaced devotion to “global warming” gods.  They do not outlaw oil and gas exploration, bankrupt refineries, or shutter nuclear power plants while depending upon adversaries and enemies to keep the lights on and the heat flowing.  They do not outsource their security to jungle predators with the misguided expectation of not becoming prey.

The jungle doesn’t stop at the garden’s entrance just because the old empires from the last millennium like to pretend that they still matter.

In the capitals of Europe, incompetent gardeners continue to insist that everything will be fine just as soon as they can expel disruptive forces such as Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.  So long as they can censor social media platforms, Europe’s gardeners will be able to disseminate the “proper narratives” to the masses.

So long as they can force “green energy” regulations on China, India, Russia, and the United States, Europe’s gardeners will be able to regulate markets and limit the jungle’s economic growth.  So long as they can replace their own people with foreign immigrants, Europe’s gardeners will be able to sufficiently “divide and conquer” their own populations.

But you cannot invite the jungle into the garden and expect the garden to survive.  The jungle grows fast, and the garden requires too much attention.  Without the means to beat back the jungle, the garden is eventually overrun.

This is Europe’s last chance at survival.  If it does not put down its ideological obsessions and pick up the tools needed for real economic growth, Europe will be impoverished.  If it does not relinquish its love for bureaucratic regulation and free its workers so that they may prosper, Europe will become irrelevant.  If it does not give up its “rules-based” delusions and build walls for its own defense, Europe will be devoured.

The jungle does not care that old cathedrals, monuments, and palaces exist all over Europe.  The jungle does not care about Europe’s past glories.  Europe is just another place for the jungle to conquer next.

Half a billion people should have a say about Europe’s future.  They should not have to follow Queen Ursula, Chancellor Merz, President Macron, Prime Minister Burnham, or Prime Minister Carney down the path toward extinction.  They should not have to watch their economies implode while the gardeners promise them nothing but “climate change” austerity and nuclear war with Russia.  The people of Europe should not have to behave as statues for the gardeners while everything around them is destroyed.

For eighty years, Europe’s leaders have failed to bring peace and prosperity to the continent.  For the garden to live, the gardeners must go.