In "Empire 2.0", Debray's fictitious acquaintance, Xavier de C***, argues that the political enfranchisement of Europe by the United States of America and the official consolidation of the West into an enlarged United States of the West, is the best solution to confronting the current ideological threats and political challenges the West faces from radical Islam, international terrorism, competition for finite resources and responsible resource management, as well as population decline, and would be the only effective safeguard against any future claims to a "Confucian" or Asian empire, asserted by an ascendant, militarized, and aggressive China.