While we all luxuriate in the afterglow of a fabulous summer and await the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum – as well ponder the rise of Ukip and how it will all pan out at the coming General Election – a much more terrible set of conundrums lap at Europe’s borders. Far to its east, the post-war settlement is under threat.

Already an annexation has taken place. On Europe’s southern flank a militia banditry reigns in the land we helped free from Gadhafi. Across the desert sands of the Sahara the black flag of Muslim extremism makes many of the states there close to ungovernable. Sweep east and the heroes of Tahir Square have seen a military dictatorship annul all their efforts and seize power in Egypt to stop that pivotal Arab state falling to the excesses of the Muslim Brotherhood. Go south into the land of the former Queen of Sheba (Yemen) and more turmoil reigns. Across the narrow straits from our former colony of Aden and into Somalia more of the same flourishes, not just on land but at sea, where a scourge which our navy had long ago cleansed the world of has broken out again: piracy. Travel north into the desert fastnesses which Lawrence once traversed and you are upon Gaza and Syria. Again, more chaos. Go east and you have reached Iraq where the most bestial activities of all are currently taking place. Further east and you are upon the hapless land of Afghanistan where we await the outcome of our ten-year effort when we leave next year. The signs are not good. If a new Iraq breaks out there it may very well take down a nuclear armed Pakistan with it.

While all this is going on, we in the West fret about our petty goings on – though certain goings on, such as splitting our country apart and leaving the EU are not, admittedly, petty – and we worry about what our responses should be to these ugly canvasses which are unfolding all around us. It is my concerned belief that we are about to see years, if not decades, of strife before an exhausted Islam settles down to enjoy the sort of order which descended over Europe with the 17th century ‘Peace of Westphalia’ following the terrible bloodletting of the Thirty Years War. That, too, was about religion – the Protestant/Catholic schism which has echoes of the present Sunni/Shia split.

But things could have been different if the US had had a partner as militarily powerful as itself with whom it could have shared the burden. It would have made it possible for us to save our Muslim brothers from themselves and spare them the miseries we endured in that long-ago conflict. That partner should have been us, the Europeans. We have no longer any interest in colonising anybody, but we do have an interest in maintaining stability, especially when it is on our doorstep.

Just as the victorious Western Allies were able to work the miracle of creating and sustaining a democratic and peaceable West Germany after the horrors of Nazism, so we could have rendered the same service to the fractious Muslim world if we in Europe had pulled our weight in world affairs and not left it all to an ever more fed up and weary Uncle Sam.

But even now it is not perhaps too late. First of all we must stop distracting ourselves by fragmentation – starting with ourselves. If Scotland separates, it will send Spain into paroxysms of worry as its most prosperous region, Catalonia, ups the ante for independence. Then the Basques, another – prosperous area – will do the same. Belgium, itself – the heart of the European Union – may very well split in two, with the French-speaking south and Dutch-speaking north going their own ways. There is plenty more potential for further fragmentation in the always volatile Balkans. And who’s to say that Wales and Northern Ireland might not catch the contagion.

Cameron’s job – in which, as far as I can see, he has done mighty little that is visible and hence Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip – is to get busy on those re-negotiations with Europe and make them meaningful. Europe needs reform, and most of its members know it. If he can get it into their thick heads that they really are in danger of losing one of their biggest players then I think there is a chance that he may come home with a package that most of us can accept. Meantime, he should go public and tell them (and the country) that unless this is so he will have to recommend our departure.

If Europe can weather this British-made storm which lies ahead and stop attempting to reduce its nation states to regional entities, then it can forge ahead and exert the kind of muscle on the world stage – both diplomatically and militarily – as will act as an adrenalin shot to Uncle Sam. No longer will he feel alone. He and his new partner will dispose of such power as will make all others think twice, including Putin with his old-world adventures in the east. Europe will have come into its own and will have demonstrated to the world that its interests lie not only in enriching itself but in helping an increasingly impotent United Nations maintain a stable and just world.