Mark Steyn continues to explore the near-future implications of Western and non-Western demographics and birth rates. He asks two questions:

Is abortion in society’s interest?

Can a society become more Muslim in its demographic character without also becoming more Muslim in its political and civil character?

The two questions are directly related.

The reason Europe, Russia and Japan are doomed boils down to a big lack of babies. Abortion isn’t solely responsible for that but it’s certainly part of the problem. …

Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility - 1.3 births per woman, the point at which you’re so far down the death spiral you can’t pull out.

There are severe implications for the West. See here.

Update: Reader Hazen D. emails a good point:

Steyn wants to talk about abortion as a demographic factor but he ignores the demographic elephant in the room, namely contraception. Clearly abortion plays a part in the decline in birthrates but I have to believe that its role is dwarfed by the effect of widespread use of contraceptives. However, due to the popularity of contraceptives, no one wants to raise that issue. However much we like being able to control the timing and number of our children (and I’m in that group too), I can’t shed the belief that the Vatican is right on contraceptives as well.

James Taranto at OpinionJournal framed abortion in political-impact terms in his essays about “the Roe effect.” And there’s no way to argue against Hazen’s observation that using contraceptives reduces the absolute number if babies born. Instead of hoping for three kids but settling for five - pretty common two generations ago - parents now plan on two and that’s that.

In a wide-ranging piece about the F-35 fighter project, Joe Katzman discusses Britain’s imminent pullout from the project because of too-restrictive American laws govcerning technology transfer. Joe says Britain’s departure, which may be too late to stop, may permanently fracture the very basis of the Atlantic alliance, much to the detriment of the United States. The issue is that Britain must have foreign partners for its high-tech weapons programs, especially aircraft. If the n ot USA, then whom? Well, says Joe, the next partner might be a “French maid.”

Britain would look elsewhere for defense development cooperation - to European industry, and to EU-led programs to create both a common European defense industry and a European force independent of NATO or the USA. A British military that is more and more interoperable with its European partners, and less and less common with the USA, and also not fostering ties at the weapons program level because cooperation is curtailed… is a Britain that will find itself, slowly but surely pulled away from its special defense relationship with the USA. This will, of course, have ripple effects on its foreign policy. …

But the US needs foreign partners as well in order to amortize the costs of the aircraft for the US Air Force.

If Britain leaves, and a chunk of fighter orders go with it, the USA has to either choose to subsidize development of the F-35 for other nations, or raise the price. If it raises the price too high, however, other nations may find the F-35 too expensive and buy alternatives. Worse, the F-35 has parts from all the consortium members. Fewer F-35s sold means smaller industrial benefits for participating countries.

But what caught my eye was the way Joe explains the global-strategic picture and why the US Congress needs to understand the future context of the American laws that risk fracturing the alliance: The US, UK, Australia and a few other countries are bound by more than defense relationships hearkening back to World War I. They form a distinctive civilization in their own right that needs not only to be distinguished from but strengthened against future competitors:

Cicero, and others here on Winds, have described the competing ideologies our world faces. Let me offer my take:

The continental European EU model of top-down transnational socialism insulated from democracy is one. It is doomed by demographics, by the corrosive effects of its inherent unaccountability and inflexibility, and by the emptiness that lies at its heart. What is in question is what will come after, and whether its roots in the Enlightenment, Western Civilization and the dignity of man will prove strong and deep enough to overcome its failures.

The authoritarian quasi-capitalism of China (which could morph into something either better, or far worse) and Asia is another option, one that will present a rising challenge both geopolitically and ideologically. Can material prosperity be insulated from political freedom? For how long? If so, there are many places where such a model will be attractive - and a resource-hungry colonialism that depends on its export is hardly out of the question.

There is, of course, the Islamist alternative, which may acquire an ability to destroy that far surapsses their fallen civilization’s utter inability to create. It has blended with the detrius of the 20th centry’s failed totalitarian experiments, and that truth is now being observed in affiliation and action as well as in theory. In the end, what remains of Islamic civilization will either learn to love the kuffar [unbeliever] as its brother, or its own internal logic will lead to its death - at another’s hands, or at its own. The Fascist death-impulse is strong, and intrinsic, but they rarely die alone. It is time for the decent people to choose, and make a stand.

And don’t forget the Anarchy alternative of warring tribes, artificial failed states, and the shadowy criminal organizations that both feed on and depend on them. for the foreseeable future they, too, will be with us. There are a number of plausible scenarios in which al-Qaeda is just the first challenge of its type, the early wave of a trend rather than the last wave of a long civilizational death-spiral.

Against all of these, there is another tradition. One of civic society organized of individuals, and characterized by accountability, flexibility, and the rule of law. It is not a tradition bound by ethnicity, geography, or past historical status - though it has many of its origins in the historical experiences of the British people and blends deeper Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian origins. James C. Bennett and The Anglosphere Institute call it The Anglosphere, and to the extent that Western civilization and its ideals retain a fighting chance in this world, this is where they reside most firmly.

It’s a model that has proven its sustainability, and now it is learning the balance between respect for others, duty to others, and its own self-preservation. It is imperfect. It is also, I believe, the best hope for a world that represents a better future for ALL humankind.

Exactly so. It’s time for the Congress to relax the laws and keep Britain in the fold.