When communism collapsed in Moscow, Prague and Belgrade at the end of the Cold War, ethnic nationalism surged to the surface in all three nations and tore them apart into 24 countries.
Economic nationalism is now resurgent across Europe. And it is hard to see how a transnational institution like the European Union, run by faceless bureaucrats, and the 16-nation eurozone it created long survive.
As of Monday, Greece and Ireland had been bailed out -- Greece with $145 billion, Ireland with $89 billion. All eyes have now turned to Iberia, to Portugal and Spain, where bond prices are sinking and interest rates are rising, and investors are eying the exits.
Are America's banks so well insulated from Europe's that their end of the boat can sink and ours stay afloat? The Credit Anstalt crisis of 1931 leapt from Austria to Germany to Japan to Britain to the United States.
How long will Germans play the "good Europeans" and use their savings and a solid credit rating earned through years of sacrifice to bail out deadbeat nations whose welfare states are more lavish than their own? After constant repetition, the Three Musketeers' slogan of "all for one, and one for all" can get rather tiresome.
