As I wrote yesterday, the United States has now written it down in black and white -
If Europe continues its current course, we risk civilisational extinction - and thus that the United States can no longer count on Europe as the same ally as when the NATO treaty was signed.
Which means that what we have been warning about for over a decade - that the dramatic demographic transformation in Europe would have geopolitical and security consequences - is now stepping out of the debate sphere and into reality.
Not as a "Facebook conspiracy theory".
But as official American assessment.
For it now stands in the United States' official security strategy - that some NATO countries may become majority non-European within a few decades, and that this could fundamentally alter their loyal attachment to the United States and the Western world.
Let me translate that into ordinary terms, for those of you who have already had too much mulled wine -
The United States is asking whether Europe in 20-30 years will still be part of the West - or just a geographical area filled with institutions that formally bear the same names, but in practice are carried by an entirely different value foundation.
And this is where Islam is no longer a private matter of faith, but a civilisational question.
For what does it mean concretely, if Europe is increasingly shaped by Islamic norms, parties and population groups - instead of by the Christian-shaped, Western rule-of-law tradition that NATO rests upon?
Let us drive the wedge all the way in, right where it hurts most.
1. Freedom of expression vs. blasphemy and "offense"
NATO is built on countries where criticism of religion - even harsh and deeply uncomfortable criticism - is a fundamental freedom. But in large parts of the Islamic world, blasphemy is punishable, and socially unacceptable to a degree we are almost incapable of understanding. When European countries move toward "anti-blasphemy through the back door" - hate speech laws, censorship of "Islam criticism", special consideration for religious feelings - KORAN LEGISLATION - then we are moving away from America's understanding of freedom, not toward it.
How long will the United States see the EU as freedom's continent, if we gradually introduce Islamic-inspired taboo zones around religion?
2. Rule of law vs. sharia logics in family and inheritance
NATO's foundation is the secular rule of law - ONE LAW FOR ALL, regardless of faith. Islamic jurisprudence, however, has separate rules for men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, sons and daughters, inheritance rights, divorce and guardianship. When European courts and politicians begin to accept "cultural custom" as a mitigating or governing factor - in marriage cases, divorces, child cases and honour-related crime - like the lenient handling and acceptance of Sharia courts we see happening in several countries - then we undermine the very principle of equal justice.
How can the United States trust our courts and institutions, if we no longer consistently defend the principle of ONE LAW FOR ALL?
3. Gender roles, military and alliance willingness
NATO requires countries that can provide soldiers - men and women - who can loyally fight for shared values. But Islamic normative thinking about gender and authority often lies miles away from the Western idea of equality and individual freedom for women.
If large voting blocs in European countries see the West as "degenerate", women's liberation as "immorality", and our culture as something that should be replaced - how much enthusiasm will there then be for dying for NATO's values?
And how much will a social democratic 'spiritual rearmament' - whatever that means on a foundation erected upon Karl Marx's godless manifesto - change for people who are deeply anchored in a radically different faith?
4. Loyalty: NATO or Ummah?
NATO is built on the idea that member countries share the same fundamental civilisational project.
Islam, understood as a political-religious project, operates with an idea of Ummah - 'the global community of believers' - that doesn't just stand, no stands above both nation-state and alliance.
Here I must add a 'quite honestly'... If a NATO country with a large Muslim population must take a position in a conflict between the USA/Israel and a Muslim country - will the pressure then come from loyalty to NATO, or loyalty to Ummah?
That question the Americans are now asking openly.
And they are not doing so without reason.
Every parliamentarian, or aspirant thereof, should examine themselves carefully about how they make that account add up.
5. Israel, the Middle East and shared threat perception
American security doctrines see Israel as a strategic, democratic key ally in the Middle East. In large segments of the Islamic world, on the other hand, Israel is not just "a disagreeing partner" - there they are a state that simply should not exist.
When Europe's streets fill with demonstrations where slogans about Israel's extinction are openly shouted - and European politicians are simultaneously deeply dependent on, yes wish to import more of these voting blocs - then it is not strange that Washington begins to doubt whether Europe and the United States still see the same enemy and the same friend.
6. Intelligence, terror and trust
NATO is built on intelligence sharing to an extent that requires deep mutual trust. If European countries develop strong parties and power bases that are soft or directly sympathetically disposed toward Islamist environments - because they live off their votes - then any American with responsibility will ask themselves -
How much can we really share with you, without it leaking, being distorted or being withheld out of consideration for "internal peace"?
7. Identity - Is Europe still the West?
In the end we are back at the core - NATO is not just a military defence alliance. It is a civilisational pact between countries that - with all their faults - share a Christian-shaped worldview. As repeated endlessly the last few years I'll summarise it quickly here - man's inviolable dignity, the individual conscience, rule of law, freedom of expression, private property rights, the nation's sovereignty and a deep scepticism toward total power - AND religious power.
If Europe within a generation ends up as a patchwork of parallel societies, where significant population groups openly desire other norms, other laws and other concepts of freedom - then the United States will at some point ask the brutal, but entirely logical question -
Are we still defending the same civilisation?
Or are we just defending geography and old institutions, inhabited by new souls?
That is what the Americans - now officially - are saying aloud.
We can scold, those hypnotised ideologically deluded media people can call it "right-wing rhetoric" or "fear".
Or we can take it as the warning it actually is -
If Europe wants to be part of the West in 20 years, then we must again choose Western civilisation's foundation - and dare to say it aloud.
Not against anyone as human beings.
But for the order that gave us freedom, prosperity and peace - and which is still the prerequisite for anyone bothering to stand shoulder to shoulder with us at all.
So. What do you choose?
Hope you didn't get your second Advent doughnut caught in your throat, over the straightforward form.
Very good evening and very good week, friends.
