Yes, America Alone is a doomsday book. In the prologue, Steyn states the seriousness of the problem succinctly: “Let me put it in a slightly bigger nutshell: much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries.” 

 

So, what catastrophe does Steyn believe will wipeout Western civilization? Will coastal cities be flooded by melting polar ice caps? Will the world overpopulate and foolishly and recklessly use up its natural resources? Hardly. Unlike most global, run-for-the-hills, the-sky-is-falling doomsday books, America Alone does not focus on exaggerated environmental concerns but, instead, offers a decidedly convincing neoconservative take: Steyn believes Western civilization will be overrun by radical Islam.

 

In America Alone Steyn attempts –largely succeeding – to show the severity and seriousness of radical Islam’s declared war against Western Civilization, by focusing on three primary factors:

 

1)      Demographic decline. The swiftly shrinking numbers of native populations in western countries and the rapidly rising global Muslim population.

 

2)      The unsustainability of the advanced Western social democratic state. A welfare state cannot sustain economic vitality while supporting a disproportionately aging population.

 

3)      Civilization exhaustion. Multiculturalism has robbed the Western world of its identity and sense of accomplishment.

 

 

Steyn begins by explaining that in order for a country, any country, to achieve a stable population, it needs to maintain a total fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman. In other words, for Country X to have a population of one million in 1980, one million in 1990 and one million in 2000, it needs to maintain a fertility rate of 2.1. Simple enough. Steyn then tells us the fertility rate of the United States is almost exactly 2.1, meaning if it weren’t for immigration, the United States population would not be decreasing or increasing, just holding steady. That wouldn’t be that bad except that the United States has the highest fertility rate among all countries in the developed world – by far. By comparison, Canada has a rate of 1.48, Europe 1.38, Japan 1.32 and Russia 1.14. In other words, native populations in the industrialized world are steadily, and in some cases drastically, decreasing.

 

The whole world is not following suit, however. In fact, some countries are experiencing a population boom. The one characteristic many of these countries share? Their populations are predominantly Muslim; countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have fertility rates well above 5.0.

 

How much have these trends affected the makeup of the world’s population? In 1970 the developed world represented 30 percent of the world’s population. By 2000, that number had shrunk to a mere 20 percent. During that same time Muslim nations increased from 15 percent of the world’s population to 20 percent. In other words, forty years ago the industrialized nations outnumbered Muslim nations by a 2:1 ratio. Ten years ago they were roughly equal.  After sharing these numbers, Steyn concludes, “And by 2020?” 

 

After reviewing these numbers, some might wonder what all the fuss is about. What difference does it make if it’s secular Europeans or Muslim Europeans? In fact, Steyn remarks, some would probably make the comparison to an all-black Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! Same set, same songs, different cast. Steyn clarifies that the problem isn’t about race; it’s about culture. He writes:

 

To agitate about what proportion of the population is “white” is grotesque and inappropriate. But it’s not about race; it’s about culture. If 100% of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy, it doesn’t matter whether 70 percent of them are “white” or only 5 percent are. But if one part of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy and the other doesn’t, then it becomes a matter of great importance whether the part that does is 90 percent of the population or only 60 percent, or 50, or 45 percent.

 

So, have Muslims adopted a liberal democratic worldview? Ample evidence would suggest otherwise:

 

In the 2005 rankings of Freedom House’s survey of personal liberty and democracy around the world, five of the eight countries with the lowest “freedom” score were Muslim. Of the forty-six Muslim majority nations in the world, only three were free. Of the sixteen nations in which Muslims form between 20 and 50 percent of the population, only another three were ranked as free: Benin, Serbia and Montenegro, and Suriname.

 

If Muslims are not successfully assimilated into the Western culture of the nations they emigrate to, these nations will gradually begin to take on the characteristics of the Muslims’ home countries. As the Freedom House rankings suggest, this means much more than an increase in the number of neighborhood mosques and Arabic restaurants dotting the landscape; it directly translates into the level of personal freedom individuals can expect to enjoy in these countries.

 

 

Shrinking populations are a problem in their own right – before even considering the threat of rising radical Muslim populations. The modern welfare state is built around the premise of lots of young people paying for the care and retirement of a smaller number of elderly. When this pyramid is upended, even the most optimistic liberal is forced to admit the system is just not economically viable. As Steyn explains, it’s because “the twentieth-century social-democratic state was built on a careless model that requires a constantly growing population to sustain it.” Steyn continues:

 

Big Government depends on bigger population: Americans have a relatively smallish government compared to Canada and Europe, but the U.S. Social Security system assumes a 30 percent population growth between now and 2075 or so and, even then, expects to be running a deficit after 2017. Now imagine you’re Spain and you’ve got even bigger public pensions liabilities and a population that’s going to be halving every thirty-five years. The progressive Left can be in favor of Big Government or population control but not both. That mutual incompatibility is about to plunge Europe into societal collapse. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital – and that’s before anyone invented unsustainable welfare systems.

 

In other words, welfare simply cannot work on models with shrinking populations; yet, this is exactly where the rest of the industrialized world finds itself. This problem, Steyn explains, is not just fiscal in nature but moral as well. By passing on the care of the elderly to the government and not reproducing at minimum population replacement rates, the Western world has placed itself in an exclusively present tense state. Steyn writes:

 

… Since 1945, throughout the West, a variety of government interventions – state pensions, subsidized higher education, higher taxes to pay for everything – has so ruptured traditional patterns of inter-generational solidarity that Continentals now exist almost entirely in a present-tense culture of complete self-absorption.

 

What are the consequences of this living-in-the-moment mentality? A complete transformation of how the association between a citizen and his government is interpreted. Steyn continues:

 

Somewhere along the way these countries redefined the relationship between government and citizen into something closer to pusher and addict. And once you’ve done that, it’s very hard to persuade the addict to cut back his habit. Thus, the general acceptance everywhere but America is that the state should run your health care. A citizen of an advanced democracy expects to be able to choose from dozens of breakfast cereals at the supermarket, hundreds of movies at the video store, and millions of porno sites on the Internet, but when it comes to life-or-death decisions about his own body he’s happy to have the choice taken out of his hands and given to the government. 

 

This is a perfect description of where the modern European social democratic state finds itself: Unsustainable entitlements promised to an aging populace unwilling to change the status quo even though they are literally sending their country into an irreversible death spiral. How does this come into play in the Western world’s clash with Muslim society? As Steyn points out, “You can’t win a war of civilizational confidence with a population of nanny-state junkies.”

 

 

Steyn gives a wonderful anecdote to explain how multiculturalism is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. When the British first arrived in India, they were met by the practice of “suttee.” This was the Indian tradition of burning widows along with their husbands’ bodies at said husbands’ funerals. General Sir Charles Napier told the Indians practicing this custom that it was a British tradition to hang men who burned women alive. Napier stated he would allow the Indian carpenters to build their suttee and beside it he would have the British carpenters build the gallows. The tradition of suttee came to an abrupt halt. Steyn writes:

 

India today is better off without suttee. If you don’t agree with that, if you think that’s just dead-white-male-Eurocentrism, fine. But I don’t think you really do believe that. Non-judgmental multiculturalism is an obvious fraud, and was subliminally accepted on that basis. After all, most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don’t want to live in anything but an advanced Western society. … But if you think you genuinely believe that suttee is just an example of the rich, vibrant tapestry of indigenous cultures, you ought to consider what your pleasant suburb would be like if 25, 30, 48 percent of the people around you really believe in it too. Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb. 

 

Steyn argues that it is the cultural war between our civilizations, so crucial to overall success, which America is losing so decisively. Sure, America’s pop culture is nearly omnipresent. Britney Spears is an international pop star, Hollywood movies make more money abroad than they do stateside and McDonald’s cheeseburgers are enjoyed around the world. But in the arena of ideas, the culture war that matters most, America is losing.   Steyn writes, “In the end, the world can do without American rap and American cheeseburgers. American ideas on individual liberty, federalism, capitalism, and freedom of speech would be far more helpful.”    

 

Throughout the book, Steyn makes the case for neoconservative foreign policy, for the necessity of exporting freedom and democracy abroad – even if it means going to war to do it. While Steyn understands this will come at great cost in terms of human life and money, he believes the alternative will be far worse. Near the conclusion of the book, Steyn lists ten ways we can hold off a new “dark ages” and attempt to reform Islam. On that list, there is the inevitable “strike militarily when the opportunity presents itself.” 

 

But Steyn’s book is much more than a call to arms. It is a call for some cultural willpower. He writes, “This book isn’t an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will.” In the end, that is where the battle will be won or lost. And right now, as Steyn makes clear, the battle is nearly lost.

 

Article Update (12/18/09):  Since I previously alluded to Steyn’s list of ways the West can help reform Islam, I thought it best to include the list here.  It is important to note that he fleshes these ideas out in his book and this list represents only a short summation of his ideas.  Nevertheless, since some of these ideas have been debated elsewhere on this site, I thought it might be helpful to include the list at the end of this review. Steyn suggests:

 

1)      Support women’s rights – real rights, not feminist pieties – in the Muslim world. This is the biggest vulnerability in Islam. Not every Muslim female wants to be Gloria Steinem or Paris Hilton. But nor do they want a life that starts with genital mutilation and ends with an honor killing at the hands of your brothers.  The overwhelming majority of females in Continental battered women’s shelters are Muslim – which gives you some sense of what women in the Middle East might do if they had any women’s shelters to go to.  When half the population of these societies is a potential source of dissent, we need to use it.

 

2)      Roll back Wahhabi, Iranian, and other ideological exports that have radicalized Muslims on every continent.  We have an ideological enemy and we need to wage ideological war. 

 

3)      Support economic and political liberty in the Muslim world, even if it means unsavory governments: an elected unsavory government is still better than a dictatorial unsavory government…And on the bumpy road to liberty, every Muslim regime that has to preoccupy itself with internal dissent has less time to foment trouble beyond its borders.   

 

4)      Ensure that Islamic states that persecute non-Muslims are denied international legitimacy and excluded and marginalized in international bodies.

 

5)      Throttle the funding of mosques, madrassas, think tanks, and other activities in America and elsewhere by Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others. 

 

6)      Develop a strategy for countering Islamism on the ideological front.  Create a civil corps to match America’s warrior corps and use it to promote alternative institutions, structures, and values through a post-imperial equivalent to Britain’s Colonial Office, albeit under whatever wussy name is deemed acceptable: Department of Global Community Outreach or whatever (this, by the way, is what Washington should have created instead of the bloated bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security).

 

7)      Marginalize and euthanize the UN, NATO, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other September 10 transnational organizations and devote the energy wasted on them to results-oriented multilateralism.  We need real allies now.

 

8)      Cease bankrolling unreformable oil dictatorships by a long-overdue transformation of the energy industry.

 

9)      End the Iranian regime.

 

10)  Strike militarily when the opportunity presents itself.

 

I hope this list is helpful.