A month for hard power

Sometimes, you just need some hard power. And for the European Union, December is going to be one of those times. There's a real risk that, in the weeks between now and Christmas, it will face violence in either Kosovo (where 15,000 European troops underwrite security) or Lebanon (where 8,000 of them have made up the backbone of the UN peace force). Or both. On top of that, the Union is meant to start deploying 4,000 soldiers to Chad to try to bring some order to the border with Darfur, backi...