Europe is used to seeing itself at the centre of the world map. In the view of Europeans, they are the fount of history and the origin of the global empires that shaped the modern world, not least the Middle East. The Eurocentric hubris can be seen today in the summit in Italy of the Group of Eight – of which five members are European – which claims against all the evidence to be the steering committee of the world economy.
The world can be presented in different ways from the traditional map. If you look at weight of population – not history and cultural prestige – then Europe is shrinking to a peninsula on the edge of Asia. A new report, The Power of Numbers, published by Policy Exchange, a British think-tank, casts Europe as the “senescent continent”, whose low birth rate will deprive it of vitality, economic growth and global influence. In short, Europe is destined to be a continent on the golf course.
Europe is not going to disappear, but it will fall way behind in the population stakes. By the middle of the century, there will be a billion more Asians, just under a billion more Africans, 200 million more Latin Americans, 130 million more North Americans – and some 40 million fewer Europeans.Alarm calls about the decline of Europe are not new. Pope Benedict XVI has lamented that Europe “seems to be following a path that could lead to its departure from History”. But the report's conclusions tie in with disturbing news from Iraq and Afghanistan indicating that the greying western powers are losing the ability to impose their will on even medium-sized countries.
document.write('');
Five years ago such concerns would have been dismissed by military strategists, who trumpeted the future of war as one of hi-tech combat, involving drones controlled from bunkers 5,000 miles away from the battle zone. Boots on the ground, the hi-tech lobby said, were as old-fashioned as knights in armour, so the size of your population did not count.But war-by-drone has been exposed as a sham. It has led repeatedly to the bombing of wedding parties in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving the lie to suggestions of benign occupation. The watchword, under General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander in Afghanistan, is to separate the insurgents from the civilian population. But since air strikes have been reduced, casualties have mounted – in Britain's case to one a day for the past week, forcing the defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, to prepare the population for many more lives to be lost.
The significance of the failure of robotic war is underscored by some historical comparisons. When Britain occupied Iraq in 1918, it needed 100,000 troops to control the country, with some difficulty. At that time, Iraq had a population of two million. Today it is a country of close to 30 million. An occupation force today would require half a million men. Britain was never able to provide more than 7,200, a risible number to control the south.
Similarly Afghanistan, which many in Europe would think of as an almost empty country, has a fast rising population of nearly 33 million. Again Britain has not been able to raise more than 8,000 troops to fight there, alongside a similar number drawn in penny packets from the Nato alliance and partner countries. The bulk of the fighting force is once again provided by the US, which aims to have 68,000 by year's end.
So far the US is holding off demographic decline, thanks to high immigration, mainly by Hispanics, and their buoyant birth rate.Several conclusions can be drawn. In the western alliance, the military burden in the future will fall almost exclusively on the US. In right-wing circles in Washington, already Europe is seen as in terminal decline and an irrelevance in military terms. The supply of young men to fight is declining but more important is that government spending in Europe is focused on health and social security
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document.write(''); The new world is leaving old man Europe behind
Alan Philps
Last Updated: July 10. 2009 12:26AM UAE / July 9. 2009 8:26PM GMT
Europe is used to seeing itself at the centre of the world map. In the view of Europeans, they are the fount of history and the origin of the global empires that shaped the modern world, not least the Middle East. The Eurocentric hubris can be seen today in the summit in Italy of the Group of Eight – of which five members are European – which claims against all the evidence to be the steering committee of the world economy.
The world can be presented in different ways from the traditional map. If you look at weight of population – not history and cultural prestige – then Europe is shrinking to a peninsula on the edge of Asia. A new report, The Power of Numbers, published by Policy Exchange, a British think-tank, casts Europe as the “senescent continent”, whose low birth rate will deprive it of vitality, economic growth and global influence. In short, Europe is destined to be a continent on the golf course.
Europe is not going to disappear, but it will fall way behind in the population stakes. By the middle of the century, there will be a billion more Asians, just under a billion more Africans, 200 million more Latin Americans, 130 million more North Americans – and some 40 million fewer Europeans.Alarm calls about the decline of Europe are not new. Pope Benedict XVI has lamented that Europe “seems to be following a path that could lead to its departure from History”. But the report's conclusions tie in with disturbing news from Iraq and Afghanistan indicating that the greying western powers are losing the ability to impose their will on even medium-sized countries.
document.write('');
Five years ago such concerns would have been dismissed by military strategists, who trumpeted the future of war as one of hi-tech combat, involving drones controlled from bunkers 5,000 miles away from the battle zone. Boots on the ground, the hi-tech lobby said, were as old-fashioned as knights in armour, so the size of your population did not count.But war-by-drone has been exposed as a sham. It has led repeatedly to the bombing of wedding parties in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving the lie to suggestions of benign occupation. The watchword, under General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander in Afghanistan, is to separate the insurgents from the civilian population. But since air strikes have been reduced, casualties have mounted – in Britain's case to one a day for the past week, forcing the defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, to prepare the population for many more lives to be lost.
The significance of the failure of robotic war is underscored by some historical comparisons. When Britain occupied Iraq in 1918, it needed 100,000 troops to control the country, with some difficulty. At that time, Iraq had a population of two million. Today it is a country of close to 30 million. An occupation force today would require half a million men. Britain was never able to provide more than 7,200, a risible number to control the south.
Similarly Afghanistan, which many in Europe would think of as an almost empty country, has a fast rising population of nearly 33 million. Again Britain has not been able to raise more than 8,000 troops to fight there, alongside a similar number drawn in penny packets from the Nato alliance and partner countries. The bulk of the fighting force is once again provided by the US, which aims to have 68,000 by year's end.
So far the US is holding off demographic decline, thanks to high immigration, mainly by Hispanics, and their buoyant birth rate.Several conclusions can be drawn. In the western alliance, the military burden in the future will fall almost exclusively on the US. In right-wing circles in Washington, already Europe is seen as in terminal decline and an irrelevance in military terms. The supply of young men to fight is declining but more important is that government spending in Europe is focused on health and social security, to cope with an expensively ageing population.
Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was occasioned by the desire to retain a seat beside the Americans at the top table of global power. But post-imperial Britain's ambition to “punch above its weight” in the world has been undercut by shortage of money, poor military technology, and ultimately a lack of bodies to put on the ground. Afghanistan will inevitably be Britain's last war of choice.
For Europe's neighbours, this is good news. The European powers have not been equipped to intervene military in Arab countries for a good few years. Now, in all probability, the Americans would also hesitate. In the 1950s foreigners could still think of dropping paratroops into Egypt. Now, with its population at 83 million, with young men of fighting age crowding its mega-cities, a US general would struggle to assemble an occupation force big enough to control the country.
The future belongs to young countries such as India, and, to a lesser extent, China, because it too has an ageing population. For countries of the Middle East, the challenges are different: to find jobs, homes, food and water for their burgeoning populations. But one thing is clear, the weight of numbers, which used to be dismissed as belonging to the past, will shape the world to come. As the author of the report, Richard Ehrman, writes, from a western perspective: “One of the most important lessons of Iraq is that, in our future dealings with these unstable regions, the power of numbers is going to be on their side, not ours.”
aphilps@thenational.ae
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Europe is used to seeing itself at the centre of the world map. In the view of Europeans, they are the fount of history and the origin of the global empires that shaped the modern world, not least the Middle East. The Eurocentric hubris can be seen today in the summit in Italy of the Group of Eight – of which five members are European – which claims against all the evidence to be the steering committee of the world economy.
The world can be presented in different ways from the traditional map. If you look at weight of population – not history and cultural prestige – then Europe is shrinking to a peninsula on the edge of Asia. A new report, The Power of Numbers, published by Policy Exchange, a British think-tank, casts Europe as the “senescent continent”, whose low birth rate will deprive it of vitality, economic growth and global influence. In short, Europe is destined to be a continent on the golf course.
Europe is not going to disappear, but it will fall way behind in the population stakes. By the middle of the century, there will be a billion more Asians, just under a billion more Africans, 200 million more Latin Americans, 130 million more North Americans – and some 40 million fewer Europeans.Alarm calls about the decline of Europe are not new. Pope Benedict XVI has lamented that Europe “seems to be following a path that could lead to its departure from History”. But the report's conclusions tie in with disturbing news from Iraq and Afghanistan indicating that the greying western powers are losing the ability to impose their will on even medium-sized countries.
Five years ago such concerns would have been dismissed by military strategists, who trumpeted the future of war as one of hi-tech combat, involving drones controlled from bunkers 5,000 miles away from the battle zone. Boots on the ground, the hi-tech lobby said, were as old-fashioned as knights in armour, so the size of your population did not count.But war-by-drone has been exposed as a sham. It has led repeatedly to the bombing of wedding parties in Iraq and Afghanistan, giving the lie to suggestions of benign occupation. The watchword, under General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander in Afghanistan, is to separate the insurgents from the civilian population. But since air strikes have been reduced, casualties have mounted – in Britain's case to one a day for the past week, forcing the defence minister, Bob Ainsworth, to prepare the population for many more lives to be lost.
The significance of the failure of robotic war is underscored by some historical comparisons. When Britain occupied Iraq in 1918, it needed 100,000 troops to control the country, with some difficulty. At that time, Iraq had a population of two million. Today it is a country of close to 30 million. An occupation force today would require half a million men. Britain was never able to provide more than 7,200, a risible number to control the south.
Similarly Afghanistan, which many in Europe would think of as an almost empty country, has a fast rising population of nearly 33 million. Again Britain has not been able to raise more than 8,000 troops to fight there, alongside a similar number drawn in penny packets from the Nato alliance and partner countries. The bulk of the fighting force is once again provided by the US, which aims to have 68,000 by year's end.
So far the US is holding off demographic decline, thanks to high immigration, mainly by Hispanics, and their buoyant birth rate.Several conclusions can be drawn. In the western alliance, the military burden in the future will fall almost exclusively on the US. In right-wing circles in Washington, already Europe is seen as in terminal decline and an irrelevance in military terms. The supply of young men to fight is declining but more important is that government spending in Europe is focused on health and social security, to cope with an expensively ageing population.
Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was occasioned by the desire to retain a seat beside the Americans at the top table of global power. But post-imperial Britain's ambition to “punch above its weight” in the world has been undercut by shortage of money, poor military technology, and ultimately a lack of bodies to put on the ground. Afghanistan will inevitably be Britain's last war of choice.
For Europe's neighbours, this is good news. The European powers have not been equipped to intervene military in Arab countries for a good few years. Now, in all probability, the Americans would also hesitate. In the 1950s foreigners could still think of dropping paratroops into Egypt. Now, with its population at 83 million, with young men of fighting age crowding its mega-cities, a US general would struggle to assemble an occupation force big enough to control the country.
The future belongs to young countries such as India, and, to a lesser extent, China, because it too has an ageing population. For countries of the Middle East, the challenges are different: to find jobs, homes, food and water for their burgeoning populations. But one thing is clear, the weight of numbers, which used to be dismissed as belonging to the past, will shape the world to come. As the author of the report, Richard Ehrman, writes, from a western perspective: “One of the most important lessons of Iraq is that, in our future dealings with these unstable regions, the power of numbers is going to be on their side, not ours.”
aphilps@thenational.ae
Have your say
Top stories Abu Dhabi to boost alternative energy Dangers at every step for Arctic trekkers On the world stage Bahraini Olympian tests positive for banned drugs On the scent of progress – or so Dubai taxis hope The wreckage of intervention England struggle against openers Your View How can Emirati and expatriate women improve communication between each other?Do you think it's a good move by the Government to ban lorries from Abu Dhabi's roads during rush hours?How often do you feel in danger as a pedestrian or motorist?What activities do you recommend during the summer months?Have your say: Tell us your memories of the musical legend Most popular stories Most read Most e-mailed Nakheel cuts 400 more jobs in overhaul Relocation for 100,000 labourers Dubai property sales fall by almost half How Dubai can take the A-train Fugitive Al Barakah chief turns himself in to police Keane wows sell-out crowd in Dubai Man buried in trench thought he would die Massive bridge project gets go-ahead Former Deyaar chief embezzled funds for personal use, Dubai court told Mall bans labourers on evenings and weekends Expats leave as school term ends Mall bans labourers on evenings and weekends Abu Dhabi landlords keeping rents artificially high, agents claim Claiming back the streets Some private schools will be exempt from Ramadan delay Nakheel cuts 400 more jobs in overhaul Relocation for 100,000 labourers Contractors must be paid, says British trade minister Honey proven to be a wonder cure Al Barakah chief arrested on bouncing cheque charges var countries=new ddtabcontent("countrytabs") countries.setpersist(true) countries.setselectedClassTarget("link") //"link" or "linkparent" countries.init() Products & Services Your View e-polls e-Paper RSS Feeds Home UAE World Business Sport About us Contact us Terms & Conditions FAQ Site map
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