In the 1960s the threat of "overpopulation" applied to virtually every country in the world, all of whose populations were expanding – if at different rates. From 1971, however, western fertility plummeted. Europe has been underreproducing for decades: its total fertility rate (TFR) – the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime – is 1.5, well below the 2.1 required to replace the people already here.

Meanwhile, with a current TFR of 2.9 , the population of poorer nations keeps rising. Virtually all of the 2.5 billion extra people on our guest list will arrive in the Third World (aka "undeveloped", "underdeveloped" or "developing" nations, or recently "the south" – when people keep shifting their terminology, be sure that there's something politically scary in the vicinity).

Now viewed as a judgmental word that applies exclusively to nonwestern countries, "overpopulation" has become racially, religiously and ethnically sticky, and thus totally uncool. For decades no one in the population field has touched the word "overpopulation" with a bargepole.

Europe is dwindling. Its immediate Muslim neighbours are still having large families, and their populations are continuing to grow. Make of that what you will. It is not BNP propaganda; it's just the way things are.

We have made our fear of anti-egalitarianism so great that we have censored ourselves. As a result, we're not looking toward reality in any direction. Consequently, we're deep in denial, but the rest of the world isn't.

They're growing larger and stronger, and they are going to look toward those with more than what they have and take it to feed their growing populations.

While Europe wasted its time fighting itself, or being beholden to two superpowers who did nothing but drain it, the rest of the world is ready to identify itself by traditional organic groupings -- culture, language, values and heritage.

It's going to be a great series of wars.