Europe cannot subcontract its defence to the United States forever and, depending on its experience in Iraq, the United States will either go on to confront other rogue states in other parts of the globe in ways that Europeans will be unable to support or, more likely, revert to the sort of isolationism that allowed it to stand aside while Hitler took over mainland Europe in 1940. In any event, it is not feasible for 5% of the world's population, the inhabitants of the United States, to bear indefinitely the burden of maintaining military pre-eminence over the remaining 95% of the population.