By John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell, from “Pax Corleone,” published in February on the website of The National Interest. Hulsman is a scholar in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations, in Berlin. Mitchell is the director of research at the Center for European Policy Analysis, in Washington, D.C.
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, one of the greatest movies ever produced by American cinema, hinges on the fate of the aging Vito Corleone. Emblematic of Cold War American power, the don is struck down suddenly and violently by forces he did not expect and does…