President Barack Obama has responded to the horrible actions by the forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and to the sharp turn in American public opinion by promising to degrade and eventually destroy this powerful terrorist group. But, not surprisingly, Mr Obama promises to achieve this without putting any American combat troops on the ground in Iraq or Syria and without any significant increase in military spending. What is happening in this battle reflects a more broadly misguided and underfunded US defence policy.

"The only way that Greece could avoid a default would be by cutting its future annual budget deficits to a level that foreign and domestic investors would be willing to finance on a voluntary basis. At a minimum, that would mean reducing the deficit to a level that stops the rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio."