One of the few benefits to come out of that national nightmare known as Vietnam was a wariness with “escalation” or taking an incremental approach to solving difficult problems.  Fortunately, one young lieutenant with the name of Colin Powell developed the “Powell Doctrine,” which he employed in the spectacular opening to the first war in Iraq.  It calls for “overwhelming force, suddenly applied.”

Another example is when the Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson got on his knees and begged, literally, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the $700 billion TARP to save the U.S. banking system.  When asked why he needed such a huge amount, he correctly explained he needed a “bazooka” to fight the bond vigilantes.

The Europeans lack this advantage, and the result is a long, drawn-out incremental approach to solving this difficult problem.  Admittedly, they have a huge problem of “herding cats,” but they desperately need a bazooka, and they need it quickly.  Certainly, they are finally moving in the right direction . . . at the rate of a tortoise.

The irony is that the brake on progress is primarily the Germans, who know that “he who has the gold makes the rules.”  Germany stands to benefit the most from any new power-sharing arrangement.  As stated many times in this space, this financial crisis will do for Germany what World War II could not.  Yet, they make the problem worse by dragging their feet . . . that’s irony?