Russia’s invasion of Georgia showed that if American security commitments are not genuine, then they are meaningless.
After the debacle of the Iraq War and the Guantánamo scandal, Germans are not so much opposed to America as indifferent to it, says senior editor Jacob Heilbrunn writing from Berlin.
America’s heart tells it to defend small Eastern European states at all costs, but policy makers would come to a different conclusion if they used their heads.
The disintegration of Prodi’s tragi-comic coalition could have profound implications for Italy, and beyond.