The Atlantic Council and the Royal United Services Institute have issued a joint publication entitled Europe’s Strategic Future: Implications of the Eurozone Crisis. The report features perspectives from the United States, the United Kingdom, and India analyzing how the Eurozone crisis is likely to impact Europe’s role in the world.

On Wednesday I had the privilege of providing evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee at its first meeting to consider the 2015 British Strategic Security and Defence Review alongside Lord Hennessy and Major-General Mungo Melvin.  Perhaps the most important contribution I made was to suggest to collected British politicians of all shades that whatever reforms are made to Britain’s strategic security and defense structures little will change unless the political class imposes effective oversight. 

In 1984 George Orwell wrote, “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind, simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”  I was reminded of doublethink (to that add double-speak) watching Europe’s politicians and Eurocrats dance on the head of a political pin to distance themselves from the so-called ‘one-off&rsqu

The US “pivot” to Asia, withdrawal of US forces from Europe, and lack of attention to the region in President Obama’s major visits and speeches suggest the United States no longer sees Europe as a worthy partner. However, the administration should think twice before writing it off as a strategic ally.

From Jeff Lightfoot, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs:  The crisis of the Eurozone is likely to have profound strategic implications that will impact Europe’s role in the world and the dynamism of the transatlantic alliance.

On August 1, Fran Burwell, Atlantic Council vice president and director of the Transatlantic Relations Program, testified before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on European Affairs.

The country most at risk in the eurozone economic crisis is not Spain, Italy, or even Greece, but Britain. While attention has focused on countries that seem perpetually on the brink of sovereign default or banking collapses, the British government has embarked on a path that could lead it out of Europe, with profound consequences for itself and for the U.S.-UK relationship. 

It took the United States 100 years to set up its single currency and the Federal Reserve Bank. The European Union launched one in half the time. Now, with the agreement on June 28, 2012 to start the process of building a euro banking union and strengthen the European Central Bank, the stage is set to complete the euro's establishment ahead of the time it took to set up the dollar.