The November Election Could Not Be Bigger — for Europe

For Americans, the stakes in the November election are huge. For Europeans, they may be even bigger.

That’s an exaggeration, but only slightly. Since May 9, 1945, the U.S. has kept the peace and prosperity on the continent, which in the previous three decades had set off wars that killed more than 100 million people. The Europeans themselves  deserve immense credit for finally getting off of each other’s throats and forming a series of trade and legislative organizations that reached its apogee as the European Union. However, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Niall Ferguson wrote on July 19: “Europeans like to give the EU credit for the fact Europe is no longer the world’s number one battlefield, but Americans understand that it has been the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the presence of U.S. troops that have really kept the peace. They are rightly proud of that achievement.”