Who's the top dog in particle physics?

[Drunkrobot]

During the 20th century, the world leader in particle physics was probably the United States. That country created both the nuclear reactor and the atomic bomb, not to mention that half the actinides in the periodic table were American discoveries. But it seems that Europe is the new star in the field. To be fair, I am a Brit, so I'm probably rooting for the home team, but I have a point. The Higgs boson, the latest big discovery (a very important one, mind you), was predicted by a European, and discovered in the LHC. Also, ITER, the human races biggest chance at sustained fusion power, gets 45% of its budget from the EU (9% from the US), and is based in southern France. What do you think?

[Stochasty]

ITER, the human race's biggest chance at sustained fusion power

I would very much advise you to not be confident about ITER; there are serious problems with magnetic confinement which may not be solvable by the direct application of more money. In fact, one of the biggest problems with ITER is that it diverts funding from other potential fusion candidates. Also, fusion physics has little to do with particle physics.

Other than that, CERN is of course the top dog in HEP-EX. I'm not sure who I would call top dog in HEP-TH.