But while we have survived foreign challenges in the past, even after the stumbling beginnings typical of democracies, those we face today are of a new and possibly more dangerous kind and raise a question as to whether the United States of 2008 still has the right stuff.
Eurozone policymakers turned up the heat on Cyprus, showing their willingness to impose losses on creditors and possibly setting up a new, dangerous precedent in the few years since the European sovereign debt crisis erupted.