American commentators castigate their European allies as economic dinosaurs, hopelessly incoherent in their foreign policy and shamefully irresponsible in their duties to NATO. As Europe prepares to launch its single currency, U.S. critics have found yet another target. But smug assumptions of American supremacy is wildly overdone. Europe's economies are robust and their cooperation increasingly productive. Besides, America is not so hot either. Today's Euro bashing endangers the transatlantic relationship as much as European anti-Americanism once did. America should address its own inconsistencies in foreign policy while granting its European partners the respect they deserve.

The next great oil boom is on four former Soviet republics on the Caspian sea is sitting atop an economic bonanza. But they should remember the fate of OPEC whose members squandered their 1970S windfall. Where did all the money go? The state took on too dominant an economic role wasted the wealth at home in a rash of boondoggle projects military buildups. All OPEC members came down with "quick-money fever." They became addicted to supposedly limitless oil revenues even as boom turned to bust. The Caspian states too risk going from riches to rags if they do not resist the temptations of petromania.