The United States has more pressing matters than fixing Europe, but Americans cannot afford to leave Europeans unsupervised. Europeans resent American supervision, but they expect the U.S. to protect their interests, whether they fit with American interests or not. These are not new problems. They were there in 1919, when President Woodrow Wilson got lost in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. They were there in 1947, when the Truman Doctrine admitted that only the U.S. could resist Soviet expansion.

They were still there in the 1990s, when the first Bush administration directed the reunification of Germany and the Clinton administration supported the issue of the Euro currency and made NATO’s borders the European Union’s borders. And they are still here today. We say Europe is moribund, but Europeans are as ingenious and productive as ever at devising new ways to mess up their affairs and create trouble for themselves and the American babysitter.