One of the big questions of our time is whether the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) will survive. Too often, analysts discuss a possible departure of one or several countries from the euro area as little more than a devaluation, but Åslund argues that any country’s exit from the euro area would be a far greater event with potentially odious consequences. A Greek exit would not be merely a devaluation for Greece but would unleash a domino effect of international bank runs and disrupt the EMU payments mechanism, which would lead to a serious, presumably mortal, disintegration of the EMU. It would inflict immense harm not only on Greece but also on other countries in the European Union and the world at large.When a monetary union with huge uncleared balances is broken up, the international payments mechanism within the union breaks up, impeding all economic interaction. Åslund’s critical argument for a domino effect is that the EMU already has large uncleared interbank balances in its so-called Target2 system. Exit of any country is likely to break this centralized EMU payments mechanism. These rising uncleared balances are a serious concern because nobody can know how they will be treated if the EMU broke up [...]