Despite the huge sums expended to write down Greece's foreign debt, there has been an outcry of censure against "interference" with the country's national sovereignty.

True, in exchange for considerable European aid, Greece's ability to maneuver independently will be limited. But are complaints that Greek sovereignty has been severely impaired justified?

The idea of a nation-state's sovereignty is rooted in the 17th-century Treaty of Westphalia, which embraced noninterference by external agents in states' domestic affairs as the guiding principle of international relations. Taken to its logical extreme, national sovereignty would require the complete physical and social isolation of states from one another.