Excerpt

Will Europe be able to master its debt crisis and prevent the spread of economic instability throughout the eurozone? Will the political leadership in the United States be able to manage the challenge of the debt limit and, more broadly, the ongoing problems with the federal budget? As this issue of Telos goes to press, each of these dramas is still playing out, and the conclusion to neither is predictable. Will the euro crumble, will Washington grind to a halt? Probably not. Yet if Europe's contagion is ultimately contained, and if the United States dodges the bullet and avoids default,…