https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2...uckered-europe

Gli USA ci fanno fessi mentre la dirigenza europea, ma pure locale, sembra essere sempre più incapace se non che venduta ....

Europe is lost for answers.

Ever since Russia took Europe by surprise in Ukraine, America has taken its transatlantic partner for granted. With a new type of cold war emerging between Moscow and Washington, the continent has been left in the cold, literally and figuratively.
Dumbstruck and destabilised, the European Union has been divided over how to respond to this new superpower rivalry. Though determined to support Ukraine’s fight for freedom and independence from Russia, Europeans have also been trapped by its consequences.

Some, like Hungary, want some form of accommodation for Russia, while others, like Sweden and Poland, want greater accommodation for America. But the continent’s political and economic power brokers are seeking greater independence from both.

France and Germany, who have long opposed US pressure to expand NATO into Ukraine, are furious at the Biden administration’s manipulative use of the Russia scare to advance America’s interest at the expense of their own.

But America is not letting go and is pushing for a Cold War-style security structure in Europe. As I write these lines, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is leading a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Romania, where some 3,000 US troops are stationed and where, in the 2008 NATO Summit, the US pushed hard for the expansion of the alliance to Ukraine, to the consternation of its major allies.

The Atlanticist British magazine, the Economist, reports that “American economic populism and geopolitical rifts threaten the long-run competitiveness of the European Union”, and it warns that, “it is not just the continent’s prosperity that is at risk, the health of the transatlantic alliance is, too”.

Germany, which has grown dependent on Russia for energy and on China for exports and investments, is unhappy with US attempts at severing or limiting Western economic relations with Moscow and Beijing. Chancellor Olaf Sholz’s visit to China earlier this month aimed to restore certainty and stability in German-Chinese relations.

Berlin may have succeeded in filling up its gas storage for this winter, but the energy squeeze and skyrocketing prices are undermining German and other European economies. With gas prices six times higher than their long-term average and Russian gas supplies to Europe significantly diminished, it is not clear how the continent will survive 2023.

Indeed, the energy crunch, combined with a cold winter, could cause more than 100,000 extra deaths across Europe – more than the number of military deaths in Ukraine. But instead of helping its allies tackle the energy crisis, the US is charging Europeans almost four times more for natural gas than in domestic sales. (continua)