The West lacks a consensus of cohesion.

Western Civilisation is increasingly at a point of nexus. The convergence of a number of separate but interplaying issues has led to a paralysis of broadly speaking, the Wests self confidence.

Since the end of the second world war, and more pertinently since the fall of the Berlin wall the West has become 'soft', to use a simplistic term. With seemingly no existential enemies, with the exception of Islamic terrorism Western nations continued the trend toward cultural liberalism. This has increasingly seen cultural Marxist ideas dominate. Increasing migration, trans and alternative gender movements as well as climate politics all with roots in marxist doctrine now dominate political and social discourse, and are enshrined at the core of ever more institutions from Universities to sporting bodies. The establishment or expansion of new communities other than the majority indigenous population is also a phenomenon almost unique to the West.

These changes have many fold positive and negative aspects to them, and are in many ways symptoms of a successful civilisation. Successes aside, the erosion of a Western consensus of cohesion among its populations will I argue become increasingly problematic. This achilles heel  has the potential to damage the West if and when it has to deal with external threats from for example Russia or China. If a western country no longer has an idea of who it is, because it is fractured into many groups with separate and clashing ideas of who they are, then how can it continue to be a functioning let alone successful state?  Imagine if all of the U.K or any other European country were structured like Northern Ireland with large minorities, not big enough to be a majority,  but not so small that they dont matter. This would be a disaster for liberal democracy and inevitably lead to ethnic violence and decline.

The despotic states arrayed against the West do not suffer from this problem. They do not value freedom, or allow it, they do not have open migration and they suppress their ethnic and religious minorities. The West has allowed its greatest achievement, universal human rights to be mistaken for an anything goes policy. Weakness invites oppertunism, and if the West fails to navigate out of its current self-sabotage and find a new confidence then it will fail the tests ahead. Our 'Byzantine' moment may be at hand as we continue our cultural iconoclasm.