In theory, the Maastricht treaty gives an answer: the Western European Union, Europe's defence club.
The European Union, through the Western European Union, its embryonic defence arm, has offered to help the police.
This replaced the mutual defence clause of the Western European Union (WEU) which will be wound up in 2011, and which currently consists of delegations from national parliaments.
Substantial Foreign Interest in Defenses: It is these threats, and the advantages of space-based defenses to ameliorate them, that have caught the attention of the Western European Union, whose member countries are already exposed to short- as well as longer-range ballistic missile threats.
EU's new foreign-policy chief, will also be put in charge of the ten-nation Western European Union, a weak but explicitly military organisation which the larger body is now expected to swallow up, though this raises awkward questions about countries more involved with one than the other.
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Particularly noteworthy in this regard, is the decision to all but cancel the promising Brilliant Pebbles space-based interceptor technology at the very moment that the Israeli government and the Western European Union (among others) are recognizing the indispensibility of the sort of boost-phase defense afforded by such a system.
January's dispute between the two countries disrupted gas supplies to western Europe, prompting the European Union to review its approach to energy security.
If western Europeans are to counter Russian aggressiveness over energy, they must present a united front: for example, by making clear that, should the Russians ever threaten to cut off energy supplies to individual countries, including former parts of the Soviet Union that are not yet in the European Union, their western friends will step in to help.
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Turkey, meanwhile, under an elected Islamic government, is enacting Western-style reforms that should boost its chances of joining the European Union.
Their first task would be to persuade the West - the European Union, the Council of Europe, Nato, and individual Western governments - that they are serious about promoting a more democratic political culture.
As Western countries continue to be plagued with economic downturns, including much of the European Union for whom another debt crisis looms, these large but still emerging nations are gaining influence in international finance.
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