Bangladesh, Feb. 8 -- Europe, the continent that once assumed peace was permanent, prosperity automatic, and American protection eternal now finds itself exposed—strategically, economically, psychologically. Russian tanks sit uncomfortably close to NATO borders. China is no longer just a market but a competitor, creditor, and coercive power. And the United States, once the unembarrassed guarantor of European security, has grown transactional, impatient, occasionally hostile. In this harsher climate, Europes problem is not simply a shortage of weapons or energy supplies. It is a shortage of habits. For those, it would do well to look East.

For most of the modern era, Europeans set the rules. From Iberian galleons crossing the Atlant...