Every politician in Washington has a recipe for "improving" President George W. Bush's proposal for a Department of Homeland Security.

Yet it's unlikely that all these cooks will spoil the broth, because the idea is so popular and the need is so obvious. And thus the American political system works, in its own muddling- through manner. Less than a year after Sept. 11, the nation is rallying to its own defense. Indeed, the whole of the West is taking similar defensive measures.

Already, the Justice Department is beginning to set up a fingerprinting program of visitors from terror-friendly countries. Is that racial profiling? No, it's time-tested common sense. During the Cold War, citizens from the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries faced severe restrictions on their travel inside the United States. These foreigners were almost all white Europeans, of course, proving that prudent law enforcement is driven by exigency, not ethnicity.

Yet it would be even more encouraging if the government goes further in identifying potential threats. For example, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has lost track of 2.8 million individuals who came here legally as students or tourists and then illegally overstayed their visas. Three of the Sept. 11 skyjackers loped through that loophole.

Indeed, it's impossible to imagine a credible plan for homeland defense that doesn't involve a national identification card. One might consider the case of the alleged would-be atomic "dirty bomber," Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al Muhajir. A foolproof national ID card would help nab other alias-users like him. Professional civil libertarians and multiculturalists will raise objections, of course, and so it might take another incident of mass murder to cement support.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Sept. 11, other Western countries are reaching similar conclusions about the importance of securing their homelands. In fact, many are going further, as they realize that multicultural ideology subverts the political unity that undergirds national security. The British Labour Party has long been a hub of nation-state-baiting radicalism.

But after several highly visible pro-Taliban demonstrations, Prime Minister Tony Blair's government shifted toward the nationalistic middle, announcing a series of reforms -- including English-language instruction -- aimed at acculturating foreign-born populations. Left-wing Labourites denounced such "linguistic colonialism," but ordinary Britons took time away from celebrating Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee to cheer the new communitarianism.

In France, where Franco-Arabs boo during the playing of the national anthem, "La Marseillaise," at sporting events, the incumbent left-wing parties failed to make a Blair-like shift to the "one-nation" center. The Socialist government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin dismissed concerns about crime and terror; as a consequence, it was edged out in April balloting by right-wing nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Le Pen was then defeated by center-rightist Jacques Chirac, but only after Chirac co-opted the most popular planks of Le Pen's law-and-order platform. Now Chirac has installed an interior security minister often compared to American tough-guy actor Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood.

Across Europe, in other countries -- including Spain, Italy, Holland and Denmark -- similarly nationalistic shifts are occurring as leaders either change by themselves or are changed by the voters.

Interestingly, this nationalist resurgence, often labeled "conservative," offers no particular comfort to economic libertarians. After all, free marketers are usually eager for wide-open immigration in the name of cheaper labor and bigger markets.

For years, The Wall Street Journal editorial page advocated a constitutional amendment that would simply say, "There shall be no borders." The idea, the Journal opined, was "to normalize the movement of people." Such normalization might be great for growth and profits, but not so great for homeland security. Interestingly, the Journal hasn't renewed its total-globalization call since Sept. 11.

The lesson of the last nine months is that concerns about national cohesion and security transcend economics. In dire situations, most folks on both the right and the left can agree, at least, that their country is worth preserving. That's a bitter pill for multiculturalists, but good news for everyone else.