Poetry

Nature abhors a vacuum, and Buchanan argues that the empty spaces of the Western world will be filled by the overflow from its Third World neigh’ bors—an influx he calls “the coming great migrations.” Europe already takes in numbers of Africans, Arabs, and Turks to do its grunt work. Russia shares an enormous southeastern border with China; and though China’s population is stabilizing (thanks to Draconian reproductive policies—a point Buchan- an scants), the disparity is already much too great for comfort. “Before the middle of this century,” Buchanan writes, “Alaska’s neighbors across the Bering Strait could be tough young Chinese pioneers, rather than elderly Russians.” Israel is another “affluent modern nation surrounded by poor neighbors with historic grievances,” and Buchanan, after citing the relevant population statistics, quotes a judgment by his mentor and hero:

In San Clemente once, after he hung up from a courtesy call from Yitzhak Rabin . . . my wife, Shelley, asked the ex-president what the prospects for Israel were. “The long run?” Nixon responded. He extended his right fist, thumb up, in the manner of a Roman emperor passing sentence on a gladiator, and slowly turned his thumb over and down.

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Nature abhors a vacuum, and Buchanan argues that the empty spaces of the Western world will be filled by the overflow from its Third World neigh’ bors—an influx he calls “the coming great migrations.” Europe already takes in numbers of Africans, Arabs, and Turks to do its grunt work. Russia shares an enormous southeastern border with China; and though China’s population is stabilizing (thanks to Draconian reproductive policies—a point Buchan- an scants), the disparity is already much too great for comfort. “Before the middle of this century,” Buchanan writes, “Alaska’s neighbors across the Bering Strait could be tough young Chinese pioneers, rather than elderly Russians.” Israel is another “affluent modern nation surrounded by poor neighbors with historic grievances,” and Buchanan, after citing the relevant population statistics, quotes a judgment by his mentor and hero:

In San Clemente once, after he hung up from a courtesy call from Yitzhak Rabin . . . my wife, Shelley, asked the ex-president what the prospects for Israel were. “The long run?” Nixon responded. He extended his right fist, thumb up, in the manner of a Roman emperor passing sentence on a gladiator, and slowly turned his thumb over and down.