In some quarters, there is an odd aversion toward the explicit acknowledgement that the European Union has been in relative economic freefall compared to the rest of the world over the past several decades. As an example, in his 2011 book The Future of Power, Joseph Nye – a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a senior official in the Carter, Clinton, and Obama administrations – writes the following in the context of Europe's ongoing "smart power": In the 1980s, analysts spoke of Euro-sclerosis and a crippling malaise, but in the ensuing decades Europe showed impressive growth and institutional development. Impressive growth?  From 1980 to 2010 (the year before Nye's book was published), the countries of the European Union averaged less than 2 percent real GDP growth.  From 1990 to 2010, the average performance was even worse: just 1.9 percent real annual GDP growth.  Since 2010, the annual...(Read Full Post)