We know the credit crisis is a clear and present threat to the global economy. But its most important long-run legacy may not be economic, but geopolitical.

I was reminded of that possibility when reading a recent analysis by Professors Menzie Chinn at the University of Wisconsin and Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard*. They ran a simulation showing that the euro would replace the dollar as the world’s largest reserve currency within the next 10 or 15 years. Their analysis is not based on this crisis. But the crisis could easily accelerate the trends they have identified.