It just wouldn't make sense to me. Why attack nations who are leading a continent which is only half-heartedly fighting islamism in the world? Why wake a sleeping bear?

Also this is not 2004 or 2005. These guys should know that public opinion is at a critical point on the continent and a harsh reaction to a strike would be most likely.

But if they mean it, bring it on!

You are surely right when you say that right now European countries would not be able to lead a coordinated offense on other continents on their own.
This is what I called the sleeping bear.

I also do not think it would wake up quickly. But what would happen quickly in case of a row of terror strikes across Europe is that public opinion - which is already swinging towards the anti-muslim direction without any serious incident propelling this development - would then totally move to a direction where established parties would face the threat of new parties springing to life. Remember that in the line of Geert Wilders (who held a speech recently in Berlin in nearly perfect German!) a new Pan-European movement is already in the making.

While it surely takes years to develop and manufacture military capacities for world-wide engagements, it takes only a few elections to create a suveillance state atmosphere which aims at muslims in general. So the first step would be that discrimination would set in and the equality before the law would go. And you and I know that these things are handled far more thoroughly in Europe than in the US, once things get going.

I think the Americans are adversaries the islamists are more fortunate to have. In contrast to Europeans, no matter how serious a terror strike is, Americans will in most cases still recognize muslims as equal human beings and differentiate between good and bad guys. Imagine something like 9/11 would happen in France or Germany today - the consequences would be far more serious for the muslims living here.

And ultimately, when a new interventionism sets in, over the course of say a decade, Europe would also be able and willing to retaliate abroad.
Are the leading classes in those muslim countries sponsoring terrorism really so quick to forget how they have been treated by the French and the British in the past?

My point was not about the question whether current terrorism stems from the colonial past!

It was about the fact that the French and British did not consider their colonial subjects to be equals. And they treated them accordingly.

Americans as a strategy may prefer broad firepower which causes numerious casualties, but not the least because of their own history they do not treat muslims as barely above the status of slaves.

Americans may exert strong influence on a number of states in the gulf region up to the point of entertaining puppet states. But they do not put themselves officially on top of the hierarchy and at least try to install free elections.

Europeans by contrast do not have any serious drive when it comes to spreading democracy. As long as they seek to gain or maintain control, the means are secondary. Monarchs and dictators remain in power as long as they keep order upright and accept European supervision. When it becomes necessary, borders are redrawn and entire peoples moved.

Now you could say that this attitude is one of the past. And surely current EU-3 governments are hard to imagine when it comes to conducting serious foreign policy. But the attitude of the people in Europe is still very similar I would say. Who would demonstrate against our governments should they enact harsh measurements in countries that attack our culture? People would rather approve either retaliation or guidance of dangerous barbarians.

Already 20 years after reunification and without anything compareable to 9/11 encountered, German military engagements must stand only one test when debated in parliament: Are they in Germany's national interest?

This is the case right now. It would certainly not go into a different direction, should we come under terrorist fire.