This post is from Andrew Zvirzdin, who used to be a guest blogger, but now joins Atlantic Review as part of the team. Andrew is originally from upstate New York and is currently finishing his second year of grad school at the Maxwell School in Syracuse

After the implosion of the Dubai miracle in the desert, investors are nervously looking elsewhere for the next debt debacle. No small wonder that the focus has turned to European countries with high debt loads such as Greece and Italy. Top European monetary gurus have been quick to assure investors that no European default is likely. But these days, anyone with a big credit card bill looks suspect in international finance.

The remarkable thing is that the EU has taken a significant lead in charting the course towards global economic recovery, despite its heavy debt burden. Consider for example that Germany and France were among the first countries to escape the present recession late this summer. Their robust growth was due in part to automatic stabilizers already in place when the financial crisis hit. And the notorious-and by some estimates, beneficial-cash-for-clunkers program in the US was inspired by Germany and other European countries who already had similar but more successful programs.

Now, as Europe is fading as the American health care punching bag, the continent's ability to live with government debt is under close scrutiny. Paul Krugman has recently warned (here and here) against an excessive focus on fiscal deficits in the US, pointing to Europe as an example: "If these countries can run up debts of more than 100 percent of GDP without being destroyed by bond vigilantes, so can we." CNBC is less positive in its assessment but acknowledges that Italy's resilience despite high debt levels means there is still a "lot of debt tolerance out there."

Still, debt will remain a worry on everyone's mind for some time to come, though the Eurozone has the tools needed to weather this storm (as I have written about here and here), and the US still has its financial strength. With the US and European countries consistently ranked as among the most indebted countries in the world, both sides of the Atlantic will likely need to work together on debt-related matters. Indeed, as the eurozone has already shown, teaming up with other indebted nations makes it that much harder to be bullied around by international markets.