Timothy Ash writes in the Los Angeles Times that Europe is “a front line in the war on terror,” a point which others have made in the context of discussions about the new multicultural nature of the continent with its increasing population of foreign-born residents as well as increasing numbers of Muslims.

How large of an impact immigration and the changing religious makeup of Europe will have in the long term is a subject of much debate. What I find most interesting about the discussion is the way that boundaries and lines of demarcation are so much about creating a sense of Europe and a European identity. Everything from the present day debate about Turkey’s entry into the European Union to the Federal Republic of Germany’s Chancellor Adenauer’s famous comment that “Asia begins at the Elbe” to the history of the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna to the turning back of the Moors at the Pyrannes has been about the boundaries of Europe.

I wonder if part of what makes the present day immigration patterns seem distinct from influxes into Europe in the past is that because of jet and train travel possibilities the flows of immigrants and immigrant communities are not geographically continguous.

Ash’s article does not reflect too much on the meaning of boundaries, rather, his point is that Europe is on the front line of dealing with radical Islam and that the continent does not seem to be aware of its position.

To return from the United States to Europe is to travel from a country that thinks it is on the front line of the struggle against jihadist terrorism but is not, to a continent that is on the front line but still has not fully awoken to the fact.

Only a fool would rule out the possibility of another terrorist assault on what is now styled the American homeland, but the fact is that in the six years since 9/11, there have been several major attacks (Madrid, London) and foiled plots in Europe. In the United States, there have been no major attacks and, as far as we know, just a few averted conspiracies. All the evidence suggests that American Muslims are better integrated than those in Western Europe. Last week’s arrest of a group apparently planning a 9/11 anniversary attack in Germany suggests that the threat to the heimat is greater than that to the U.S. homeland.

An invisible front line runs through the quiet streets of many a European city or town where there is a significant Muslim population. Whether you live in London or Oxford, Berlin or Neu-Ulm, Madrid or Rotterdam, you are on that front line — much more than you ever were during the Cold War. This struggle is partly about intelligence and police work to prevent those who have already become fanatical, violent jihadists from blowing us up at St. Pancras or the Gare du Nord. Ordinary non-Muslim Europeans can only do a little to help this work, as well as worrying about the curtailment of civil liberties. Ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Europeans can do a little more.

The complete article from the Los Angeles Times “Battleground Europe”