Bernard Gordon started this article with a discussion of globalisation
but quickly started in on the military situation in the world.

It was not till the at the end when he said;

>Today’s insufficient burden-sharing in both the NATO and Japan
>alliances threatens that structure and needs quickly to be resolved
>because it threatens continuing globalisation as well.

I wonder if Bernard realises that globalisation will be ending fairly
soon ?
Already steel production and furniture manufacture has moved back to
the United States from China.
As fuel prices rise the cost of moving a container across the Pacific
rises with it. This nibbling away at the wage advantage of the Chinese
will ultimately remove Chinese wage advantage from all but the most
compact high value for volume goods.

This trend will accelerate from around the middle of this decade and
by the middle of the next decade the WTO will be just so much waste paper.

China will have an increasing problem in raising the living standard
of its people in a depleting fuel, oil and coal supply that they
will likely be unable to pay for large imports of the remaining coal
if anyone would be willing to sell it by that time.

If I can suggest to Bernard that he reads a book by a Canadian
economist Jeff Rubin; "Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller".
I have just finished it and it is a real eye opener.

It is all crystal ball gazing though, isn't it.Just picking a current trend and extrapolating it.

In 2001 Europe was keen to help in Afganistan. 8 years later and little to show for it, it's enthusiasm is wearing thin.

Don't forget that Europe had a different memory of WWi and WWii. They fought the entire war and much of the continent was brutally occupied during the conflict. Todays elders lived through the war and boomers and gen Xers grew up with stories of the occupation. No wonder they are not as keen.

Germany's last mission outside its borders was in WWii and Holland's last Nato mission ended with the massacre at Screbrenica. It lost every war for 300 years before that. No wonder they are apprehensive.