To start with fair disclosure--I am a EU citizen and may be biased.

As much as I respect Walt, he is wrong on the EU project. First, Turkey is still still knocking on the door (as are a dozen other countries) but most Europeans do not want Turkey in because it is not a European country. To those who would now cry "racism" I would tell to consider if the US would admit Pakistan as the 51st state (Mexico becoming the 51st state will probably cause a US national heart attack and Mexico is a lot closer culturally to the US than Turkey is to Europe). If politicians in Turkey have "cooled" on the EU that's just their crying sour grapes.

Second, EU "indicisiveness" and harsh debate on the rescue of Greece and some others such as Spain is actually a very positive thing. I don't see how the US federal government handing out hundreds of billions without much debate is better. Now Greece and others who resort to EU solidarity would have to implement difficult but necessary reforms that will slash public spending and make the EU more competitive in the long run. There are really no differences between Greece in the Eurozeone on the one hand and California, New York and New Jersey in the Dollarzone. How are the failed states of CA, NY and NJ going to be fixed? Most probably by handing hundreds of USD billions to them with far less strings attached by way of the federal budget. How is that good for US strength and competitiveness in the long run?

Third, US public debt right now stands at 67% of GDP and the federal budget deficit exceeds 10% of GDP. In the EU the "shaky" Spain has a public debt of only 53% of its GDP, Germany has a budget deficit of only 3.3% and even Italy is running a budget deficit of only a liitle over 5% (Source: NYTimes, May 7, 2010). The US public debt is projected to grow to about 100% of GDP by 2020 under the present Obama policies and the deficit is projected to exceed 10% of GDP every year as far as the eye can see according to the Congressional Budget Office. How does this make the US potentially stronger over the long run relative to the EU when the push is very strong to cut all deficist to under 3% of GDP there in the next couple of years.

Fourth, it is true that the EU's population is aging. However, in addition to the 500m citizens of the EU there are another 200m Europeans to the East (Russians, Ukrainians, etc). who would dearly like to join and the EU has the option to add a few million workers a year from those populations as need be by tinkering with immigration rules. A Russian is different from an German but is a lot closer culturally to a German than an Indian is to an American. Can Prof. Walt elaborate a little on the long-term effects of the US becoming culturally disjointed and consisting of several different cultures over the coming decades? I am not implying anything racist here--India would also probably weaken as a power if 10% of its population were to become culturally very different, say Chinese.

When Andrew Moravcsik talked about Europe becoming stronger, he was obviously referring to increasing integration, not increasing weight in foreign policy matters. We'll probably sooner see a unified European tax or energy policy than a genuine common foreign policy, which shouldn't be too surprising, given that the latter is arguably the most visible area of sovereign state action. That being said, I wouldn't expect too much enthusiasm for NATO and a renewed commitment to military interventions abroad from the European members. Apart from coordination problems, European citizens simply assign rather low priorities to these matters, and right now, the EU and its sovereign members are already facing problems that impact the lives of their citizens in much more direct and obvious ways. In Germany, for example, the ongoing intervention in Afghanistan isn't too popular, and even those who are still backing it don't want to commit more frontline troops and would like to see a speedy withdrawal after reaching attaining some semblance of success. It's hard to see how these sentiments would allow for a more active, interventionist policy abroad. And while I personally agree that the USA and Europe are still facing common security problems (overwhelmingly non-traditional ones) that provide an ongoing rationale for NATO, many Europeans are still resentful of the unilateral approach Bush 43 brought to his foreign policy, and correspondingly unwilling to share in US-led global security initiatives. Bottom line: I share your expectations that the US shouldn't count on Europe for substantial help even on issues that are arguably of common interest, and it's mostly due to a lack of popular will and interest in these matters, but not so much because of structural factors.

Let’s take the example of France and Algeria, every year you got like 40,000 Highly motivated Algerian students who go to France to continue their studies and find a job one’s graduated. In top of that, if these students know for sure that they can find a job after, so I really don’t see where this can come from : “won’t bring in many of the skilled and highly productive workers that Europe needs.”
And don't forget " Tunisians, Morocans, Africans, Indians....." OOOPPPPS sorry I forget the Chinese.

The EU was conceived by political idealists and foisted on the people in the shadow of the Common Market, which was a largely popular idea. Brussels, as it is dismissively known, was a concept most citizens failed fully to understand but for which they felt an instinctive if indefinable distrust. However, the advocates were relentless; even when they had agreed to hold referenda they accepted only the ‘Yes’ verdict and if they got a ‘No’ they simply came back again until they wore resistance to the bone and exhausted it with their importunity. The UK was promised a referendum on the Lisbon treaty but it was airily dismissed in the conflation of two dubious half-truths; that the revised constitutional proposal, which Brown signed in the “dead of night”, was no longer “Lisbon”, and that anyway leaders are elected to do what is best for the country and certainly not what the people want.

The Euro was foisted on the populace in a similar manner except this time the citizens of some nations refused to be corralled into what seemed a deeply suspicious undertaking. Many Europeans dislike the whole business and are not that sorry to see it fall into disarray. It does not mean they are xenophobic, rather that some agglomerations are just too big, bureaucratic and distant for comfort. It is a non-substantiative thought, but European citizens might be more willing to help each other in adversity if they were not chained to the Euro.

The world is full of people who know better what is good for others and many are intuitively attracted to politics; Brussels is full of them. A free trade area is a good thing; the rest is more like ill-fitting footwear.