The Welfare State and Ideological Hubris
Europe’s self-destruction: welfare, immigration, and defense capabilities in a declining continent.
Lars Møller | February 3, 2026 www.americanthinker.com
Rising from the ashes of WWII, a secularized, progressive Europe embarked on a grand experiment in social engineering, constructing an elaborate welfare state that promised security from cradle to grave. Yet this utopianist Tower of Babel—once hailed as a triumph of humanistic progress—now appears less a monument to compassion than to self-sabotage.
Through a combination of fiscal irresponsibility, demographic complacency, and strategic naïveté, Europeans are digging their own grave. Lavish social safety nets have created dependency rather than productivity, while unchecked immigration has eroded cultural foundations rooted in Christian-humanist traditions. Abdicating responsibility for its own territorial integrity, Europe relies on American military protection, a dependency increasingly strained by transatlantic tensions. These intertwined pathologies—welfare excess, demographic upheaval, and defense neglect—signal an inexorable decline, leaving Europe vulnerable to internal dissolution and external predation. Far from a beacon of enlightenment, the continent risks becoming a cautionary tale of how prosperity breeds paralysis.
The welfare state, an Earthly Eden, has morphed into a bureaucratic colossus that stifles economic vitality and entrenches entitlement. Since 1945, European nations have expanded social protections to include universal healthcare, generous unemployment benefits, and extensive pension systems. By 2025, social protection expenditures accounted for nearly 40% of public spending across the EU, totaling approximately €3.3 trillion—almost 20% of the EU’s GDP.
This expansive framework enables significant portions of the population to opt out of productive labor, claiming disability and invoking rights to lifelong support. In France, public debt surged to €3.35 trillion by 2025—114% of GDP—while pension shortfalls ballooned to €23 billion annually. Italy and Greece fare no better, with debt-to-GDP ratios exceeding 137% and 152%, respectively, far surpassing the EU’s 60% guideline. These figures reflect not only fiscal mismanagement but also a deeper malaise: a system that disincentivizes work, innovation, and risk-taking.
Intentions notwithstanding, welfare generosity has fostered a culture of dependency where able-bodied citizens evade social contribution. In Germany, a popular demand for welfare reforms is kept alive by right-wing suspicions that social spending exacerbates inequality and economic stagnation. Yet the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty has warned that welfare retrenchment itself fuels popular discontent, implying that both expansion and contraction can generate political extremism—a paradox that captures Europe’s broader policy paralysis.
The welfare model is under increasing pressure from demographic aging and global competition. Older populations require ever-greater resources, while younger generations confront precarious employment in fragmented labor markets, placing additional strain on systems designed for an era of stable growth. This vicious cycle threatens fiscal sustainability: absent radical reform, Europe’s welfare states risk collapsing under their own weight, pulling the continent towards economic marginalization.
Compounding this internal decline is the demographic transformation wrought by mass immigration, particularly from Muslim-majority countries, which threatens Western cultural identity. For centuries, Europe served as the last refuge of Christianity after Islamic conquests extinguished Christian heartlands across North Africa, the Middle East, and Anatolia. Battles such as Tours in 732 and Vienna in 1683 preserved this heritage against Arab and Ottoman incursions, respectively.
In the twentieth century, however, postwar Europe—scarred by conflict and labor shortages—opened its borders to millions of migrants in pursuit of economic recovery and humanitarian ideals. By 2025, the EU’s Muslim population was estimated at approximately 23–25 million, representing around 5% of the EU’s roughly 448 million inhabitants. This growth has been driven by higher fertility rates—Muslims in the EU average roughly one additional child per woman compared to native Europeans—and sustained migration flows. Between 2010 and 2023, over 2.5 million migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia were granted residence or asylum within the EU.
While some immigrants integrate successfully and contribute economically, others strain public services, fueling perceptions of parasitism. In France, Muslims number between six and seven million (9–10% of the population); in Germany, five to six million (6–7%); and in other major EU states such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, Muslim populations now exceed 7%. Projections suggest that Muslims could comprise 7-12% of the EU’s population by 2050, depending on migration intensity and fertility convergence. The cultural shift is increasingly visible: churches stand empty across much of the EU while mosques proliferate, symbolizing what is appropriately characterized as a “resumed Islamic conquest by demographic means”. In Germany, approximately 82% of Muslims identify as religious, compared with roughly 55% of native Christians.
Europe’s strategic vulnerabilities magnify these domestic woes. For decades, the EU has outsourced its security to the US. After WWII, Europeans prioritized prosperity over preparedness, relying on American taxpayers for conventional forces and nuclear deterrence throughout the Cold War. By 2025, NATO’s new benchmark mandated defense and security spending of 5% of GDP by 2035—3.5% for core military requirements and 1.5% for related expenditures—yet many EU members only recently met the previous 2% target. In 2024, European NATO members and Canada contributed 36% of alliance spending, up from 28% in 2015, but still far from parity. EU defense outlays reached €343 billion in 2024 and are projected to rise to €381 billion in 2025, marking a 62.9% increase since 2020. Nevertheless, fragmented procurement and duplicated efforts continue to undermine efficiency.
This dependency has bred resentment in Washington, where the EU is increasingly considered an unreliable partner amid rising threats from Russia and China. At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance delivered a blistering critique, arguing that Europe’s gravest threat lies not in external adversaries but in internal erosion of democratic norms—censorship, suppression of dissent, and exclusion of populist voices. He condemned EU “commissars” for threatening to shut down social media during unrest over “hateful content”, cited German police raids over anti-feminist online speech, and highlighted Sweden’s conviction of a Christian activist involved in Quran burnings, the judge having chillingly asserted that freedom of expression does not grant a “free pass” to offend religious groups.
Vance also denounced the UK’s prosecution of a military veteran for silently praying near an abortion clinic, likening such actions to Cold War-era repression that censored dissidents and shuttered churches. He cited the annulment of Romania’s election and speech restrictions in Sweden and other EU states, warning that US support hinges on Europe’s adherence to shared values of liberty, innovation, and democratic legitimacy. He further tied these failures to mass immigration, pointing to the recent Munich vehicle-ramming attack by an Afghan immigrant on trade union demonstrators as a grim symbol of unchecked borders and ignored voter concerns.
The speech stunned attendees. European leaders such as Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, dismissed it as “not acceptable” inasmuch as it focused on American frustration with Europe’s moral retreat rather than Russian aggression—and reinforced a bleak prognosis: a EU increasingly estranged from its own voters, inviting autocratic exploitation and alliance fracture.
Tensions have since escalated over the ownership of Greenland. At the height of the crisis, President Donald Trump’s renewed push for acquisition—accompanied by threats of tariffs on Denmark and other EU members—raised the specter of trade war and military escalation. European leaders have denounced these moves as coercive, warning of potential NATO rupture. Of course, such discord delights adversaries in Moscow and Beijing, exposing Western disunity.
Grappling with its own domestic unrest, the U.S. might empathize a little with the EU, given their shared cultural inheritance. Schadenfreude is not helpful. Americans can for the most part trace their origins to Europe, fully committed to Judeo-Christian values and Enlightenment ideals of liberty. Yet, as the EU falters, ties weaken. When the EU eventually collapses, America may find itself isolated among ascendant autocratic powers.
Europe’s trajectory appears one of inexorable decline, determined by welfare-induced lethargy, demographic subversion, and strategic impotence. The EU’s liberal elite, shaken by American rebukes yet unwilling to reform, deny the internal forces eroding its foundations. Without a radical reckoning—curtailing entitlements, securing borders, and rebuilding defense—Europe risks cultural obliteration and geopolitical irrelevance. So, are Europeans willing to throw themselves into the grave?
In this view, the West’s cradle may yet become its tomb, leaving a solitary America to defend the flickering light of freedom in a darkening world.
