The European Security Strategist: Superbly Prepared for the Last Crisis

The European security strategist has developed an impressive skill: he reliably identifies threats as soon as they are circling over an airport. Then the time-honoured ritual begins. First the crisis summit, then the strategy paper, then the press conference announcing that Europe must be "better prepared in future". In future is the key phrase. It elegantly moves responsibility to a time when someone else will be in office.

The favourite word is resilience. It sounds like a quality you simply have, without having to explain why you did not have it until now. Resilience is the gym membership of security policy: signed, paid for and occasionally mentioned in speeches.

Europe is superbly prepared for every crisis. The previous one.

Every new threat thus becomes a valuable chance to finally turn the lessons of the last one into a PowerPoint deck. The slides are excellent. The airport's drone defence is still being coordinated.