Victor Davis Hanson
Toronto Sun, Jan. 10, 2025
“But 2025 is certainly not 2017 or even 2020. And a “reset” in thinking on both sides is urgently now needed more than ever.”
Consider these European and American binaries.
On Dec. 20, 2024, a terrorist, Taleb Al-Abdul Mohsen, rammed his SUV into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, killing six pedestrians and injuring 299.
On New Year’s Day in New Orleans, Louisiana, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar smashed his pickup into a festive crowd, killing 15 and injuring more than 35.
Germany’s fertility rate is scarcely above 1.4 — about average for a shrinking European Union. About 20% of the country is now foreign-born, a record high.
American fertility is at 1.6. Foreign-borns now represent 15% of the American resident population.
The German military is a shell of its former self, with fewer than 200,000 soldiers and a shortage of weapons.
The U.S. military, after being humiliated in Afghanistan, is down 40,000-plus recruits. It faces shortages of anti-tank weapons, artillery shells, ships and logistical support.
Germany may finally manage to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defence; the United States is heading downward below 3% — the lowest in over 80 years.
Last year, the German economy shrank; this year, it will scarcely grow, in part because of shortages of affordable fossil fuels.
Germans pay four times what Americans on average do for electricity. Yet the Trump administration has promised an oil and natural gas renaissance, hoping to expand production and exports with envisioned new pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals…..SOURCE