Press

Newsweek

The Modest Superpower

How the financial crisis could leave Europe even stronger than America.

It's become all fashionable in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing these days to dismiss Europe as an aging continent in terminal decline. A June report from a Moscow think tank close to the Kremlin described Europe as weak in the face of Russian might, and last year's U.S. National Intelligence Council assessment of global power shifts called the EU "a hobbled giant" plagued by "internal bickering."

Such broadsides are easy to understand. The EU today is divided on all kinds of issues, from how to deal with Russia to the future of NATO. Europe's banks still have more toxic assets on their books than America's. With Britain, France, and Germany often pursuing separate foreign--policy goals, the idea of an EU able to translate its size and wealth into hard power and common purpose seems as remote as ever. Click here for more.