FWIW I've recently seen this exact thing play out, I can't really go into the nitty gritty but someone who had VP/Director positions in well known US public companies was brought in on a big project that's local to Europe and he's failing spectacularly.
So your theory might not work as well in practice, just my 2c from what I've seen in the real world.
Right. But how about: if he's failing spectacularly here, he's not winning over there. On the net, this is actually a win for Europe, because failure here doesn't make our IT industry much worse than it already is, while winning in the US can be leveraged into more winning.
Not that I condone such "crabs in a bucket" mentality, but put this way, it's no longer defeatist :).
So your theory might not work as well in practice, just my 2c from what I've seen in the real world.