While the Greek crisis seems to move away, the arrival, in the rotating presidency of the European Union, of Poland, sends back to the close and mysterious relationship between money and defense in all human history.
Historically, it has indeed been established that no group of countries can remain together permanently unless they feel the need for a common defense, one indisputable reason to join forces.
In particular, the history of the United States shows: in 1783, after the end of the War of Independence, the United States was governed for five years by a somewhat fuzzy Confederation, in which every State led independently its commercial and foreign policy. When a revolt broke out in 1787, in Massachusetts, not easily subdued by the authorities of the State, everyone understood that local forces would be insufficient to avoid the inevitable flood of British garrisons still in place around the Great Lakes or to protect American ships against pirates in Europe. This required a federal government and an army, which the constitution of 1788 organized; but in the early years, for want of tax levy, the country had no way to finance its defense or pay off the loans made in Europe to finance the war of independence. Its currency collapsed. When in 1790 the English threat became more pressing and the risk of bankruptcy most immediate, the Founding Fathers of the United States, created a federal capital and issued reasury bills. In 1794, the revolt of hundreds of whisky distillers who refused to pay a tax to finance the public debt was easily subdued by a Federal Army of 10,000 men. Later, it was always in connection with external or internal threats that the U.S. federal government was able to consolidate the state and unite the nation. Today, according to the same logic, the abysmal American financial crisis, largely caused by military spending, will only be solved by the emergence of a new military threat (in the Middle East or China Sea) which will justify the new necessary taxes.
Today’s Europe is in the same situation as America in 1790: at the crossroads. It will not find stability without a common budget, able to finance its debt. This budget can be justified by the perceived need for a common defense. And therefore a common threat.
However, the situation of Poland shows it well: it is in no way certain. Poland does not feel intimately connected to a European entity, which considers Russia as an ally, while Poland considers Russia as a threat. So Poland, in particular, is not especially in a hurry to join the Euro.
Solving the debt problems of Europe cannot therefore take place without careful consideration of the nature of the threats to the continent and the need to combine resources to be protected from them. As long as Europeans will not understand that, that which threatens one threatens also the others, that in the world of the future, threat is total, global, and they have everything to gain by pooling their defense, too weak, too fragile, they will not share resources.
Unless a threat, more or less imaginary, from the South or East, forces them to take the steps that they do not dare yet to take together. Very dangerous situation: History becomes very dangerous when military tension becomes a logical and financial necessity.