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The transatlantic alliance is experiencing a renaissance. The war in Ukraine has drawn Washingtons attention back to Europe in ways not seen since the 1990s, when the United States orchestrated NATOs eastward expansion and fought two wars in the Balkans. The United States has supported Ukraine with massive quantities of weapons, rallied the West around unprecedented economic sanctions against Moscow, and bolstered NATO through additional force deployments. It is hard to think of a time in the last generation when transatlantic relations were stronger.

Yet the Biden administrations engagement with Europe is ultimately unsustainable. Russia and the war in Ukraine will no doubt remain a significant focus of the United States in the months and years to come. But even though U.S. support for Ukraine is unlikely to waver, there is no way Washington will be able to maintain the current level of diplomatic engagement, force deployments, and resourcing to Europe over the longer term. The pivot to Asia has not ended. The risk of conflict in Asia, where China may attack Taiwan, could abruptly reshuffle U.S. priorities. Chinas continued rise will pull U.S. attention back to the Pacific. Washington will likely find it impossible to balance the demands of its allies in Europe and Asia while maintaining the force presence necessary to deter Russia and China. The United States is overstretched.

But instead of developing a strategy to address this dilemma, especially given Europes newfound focus on securitynot to mention its population of more than 450 million and an economy equaling that of the United Statesthe Biden administration has pretended it does not exist. While the United States has shown itself to be indispensable, it has not used this moment to tackle the deep-seated structural issues plaguing European defense. The United States should be pursuing a strategy to push Europe to take charge of its security, turning Europe from a security dependent to a true security partner. The United States should call for the creation of a European pillar within the NATO alliance and to fully back the European Union becoming a stronger defense actor. The danger is that instead of transforming European defense in response to Russias invasion and ushering in a new era, the response merely entrenches a status quo that both sides of the Atlantic ultimately find deeply frustrating and untenable.

Washington does not know what it wants from Europe. Every U.S. president has called for Europeans to spend more on defense, but the overarching goal of U.S. policy has not been to push Europe to stand on its own, shoulder to shoulder with the United States. U.S. political leaders and top officials may believe that the United States is being clear that it wants Europe to do more to handle its security. But the diplomats and officials who develop U.S. policy on Europe enjoy European dependence and the influence it provides: the United States gets to call the shotsand they want as much American sway in Europe as possible.

In 2000, Lord George Robertson, then NATOs secretary-general, highlighted this split. The United States suffers from a sort of schizophrenia, he said. On the one hand, the Americans say, You Europeans have got to carry more of the burden. And then when Europeans say, OK, we will carry more of the burden, the Americans say, Well, wait a minute, are you trying to tell us to go home? Nearly two decades later, when French President Emmanuel Macron led the push for European strategic autonomy, Washington fretted about a renewed plot to decouple Europe from NATO. As a result, the United States has used its immense influence in Europe to block efforts that could lead to a more independent Europe.

It would be acceptable to preserve American indispensability if U.S. attention and resources were limitless. But the challenge for the United States is that there is only so much senior-level attention to go around. Time is precious, and the fight for resources within government and Congress is often zero-sum. Moreover, U.S. military assets are not limitless, despite a $750 billion budget. This leads to intense bureaucratic infighting over what region or theater should be the U.S. priority for high-level attention and resources.

The Biden administration entered office prioritizing Asia, rightly describing China as the pacing threat. But Russias invasion has now put Europe temporarily on top in the bureaucratic struggle for resources and visibility. As a result, Europe has been flooded with visits from senior U.S. officials and additional U.S. troops20,000 extra personnel as of the end of June, everywhere from the Baltics and Poland to Italy and Spain.

European officials praised the United States return to the continent. But as Nancy Pelosis August visit to Taiwan has presaged, the foreign policy pendulum will ultimately swing back to Asia. Europe will lose this zero-sum fight over U.S. attention and resources.

On the surface, Russias invasion of Ukraine seems like the shock that would finally force Europe to accept U.S. entreaties to increase its defense spending. European countries will mostly hit NATOs two percent spending target. Germany announced a Zeitenwende (new era) and approved a 100 billion euro increase in defense spending. Europe has committed to spending about $200 billion in the coming years. The additional funds should improve the woeful capabilities of European militaries, strengthen NATO, and reduce some of Europes fundamental combat reliance on the United States.

But the increase in spending is unlikely to alleviate much of the strain on U.S. forces or go far enough in the long term. Over the past six months, European countries have sent enormous quantities of advanced equipment to Kyiv. Eastern Europe has divested fleets of Soviet-era equipment into Ukrainian hands. Western European countries have sent advanced antitank weapons and artillery, depleting stocks that will eventually need to be replaced. Moreover, rising inflation is also eroding the value of European defense-spending increases.

The more significant structural problem is that European defense-spending increases are going not toward Europes collective defense but to individual countries national defense. Europe does not spend to protect the continent as a whole; the United States does. Washington provides the critical capabilities and high-end assets (transport, air refueling, and air and missile defense) that enable Europe to fight for Europe. Almost none of the additional defense spending will go toward acquisitions that enable Europe to fight as Europe and therefore reduce the strain on the U.S. military. Germany, given its size, could fill some of the gaps, but its needs are too great elsewherefor example, to replace fleets of equipment and increase the readiness of its forces. European militaries all have NATO capability targets, which ensure that member countries can fill certain roles, but these targets are designed to help European forces integrate with the United States through NATO, meaning the reliance on the U.S. military is baked in. Despite spending tremendous amounts on defense, Europe is still likely to be dependent on the United States, underscoring the broader problem with the current approach to European security.

The European Union should be a global military power. It collectively spends $200 billion annually on defense, its economy equals that of the United States, and its members are tied together in a political union. Yet European militaries are in a woeful state, despite increases in defense spending since 2014. Europe does not just need to spend more on defense; it needs to rationalize and integrate its efforts. But proposals for reforming European defense inevitably run into U.S. opposition, bureaucratic turf wars (particularly between NATO and the EU), parochial national outlooks, and vested commercial and political interests.

As the guarantor of European security, the United States must lead the transformation by insisting on the creation of a strong European pillar of NATO that is capable of defending the continent. Europe would strive to operate as one within NATO, as the alliance would focus on turning European forces into a capable fighting force, with or without the United States. Creating a European pillar within NATO would require empowering the EU, a political and economic union that looks out for broader European interests. The EUs shared currency and central bank provide the potential financial underpinning for the EU to adopt a prominent defense role. The union has legal and institutional leverage to drive national-level compliance and coordination, critical to rationalizing Europes unwieldy defense industrial sector. The goal of the EU is not to conjure a European army but to enable Europe to defend itself.

The EU can take on the role of the primary financier of European defense, filling gaps beyond the capacity of member states, such as procuring air and missile defense, air tankers, and transport. Nothing prohibits the EU from buying military equipment, which could be made available to member states or NATO. For instance, the EU could finance the acquisition of massive stockpiles of munitions, rounds of artillery, and precision-guided missiles (which Europe ran out of during its intervention in Libya). The EU has already played a similar role in Ukraine, providing 2.5 billion euros out of its new lethal assistance fund to backfill the defense budgets of countries supplying arms to Ukraine. In June, the European Commission also announced the formation of a 500 million euro fund to incentivize countries to coordinate their new defense spending, make joint procurements, increase interoperability, and create economies of scale.

These are important initiatives to integrate and rationalize European defense efforts, and the United States should be pressuring the EU to dramatically expand these programs. Although the Biden administration has described itself as the most pro-EU administration ever, it can claim that title only on the grounds of economic cooperation. On defense, it has largely maintained the United States traditional skepticism. It has not actively encouraged EU defense initiatives or called on the EU to expand them. For example, when President Joe Biden attended a European Council Summit in March in the early weeks of the war, he missed a golden opportunity to back a proposal on the table for the EU to borrow funds to invest in defense. If the president had simply told European leaders that if the EU could borrow money for military purposes, just as it did for the COVID-19 pandemic, he could have helped to usher in a new era in European defense. The United States retains immense influence in Europe, especially on defense. If the EU is to play a more prominent defense role, it will need strong U.S. backing.

The question U.S. officials need to ask themselves is whether their goal is to make the United States indispensable to Europe or to make Europe an indispensable partner of the United States. A Europe that can take care of its security will not fracture the alliance, undermine NATO, or prompt a decoupling from the United States. The transatlantic bond will strengthen as Europe strengthens.

Just look at what is happening economically between the United States and the EU. The need for transatlantic cooperation to set the economic rules of the road in the face of a rising China prompted the launching of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. Overall, it has dramatically improved transatlantic relations. A stronger Europe, with capable land, air, and naval forces, would be a boon to the United States and its Asian partners. It would also prompt closer coordination within NATO, as the United States would stop taking Europe for granted.

The real threat to the transatlantic alliance is the status quo. The 25-year U.S.-led effort to prevent the EU from being an independent military actor has been largely successful. But although this has preserved the United States indispensable role, the result is that the state of European defense could hardly be worse. There is also a clear danger that the United States will decide it does not want to be indispensable to Europe anymore. The next president could be an anti-Atlanticist such as Donald Trump or Josh Hawley, the latter of whom voted against Sweden and Finlands NATO membership on August 3. But just as likely is an outcome in which Europe gets demoted, Russia is again wrongly dismissed as a paper tiger, and the transatlantic alliance suffers as its indispensable partner loses interest.

To avert this future, the United States must acknowledge that it wants Europe to be an indispensable partner that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States. Pursuing such a strategy and building a European pillar within NATO would be a generation-long process that will require intensive U.S. engagement, pushing European allies and partners in a new direction. The time to start the transformation is now.

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Europe on Its Own: Why the United States Should Want a Better-Armed EU - Foreign Affairs Magazine

European governments are scrambling to fill underground storage with gas supplies to provide households with enough fuel to keep homes warm during winter.

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Germany's natural gas storage facilities surpassed a fill level of more than 75% this month, two weeks ahead of schedule, as Europe's largest economy scrambles to prepare for the coming winter.

The latest data compiled by industry group Gas Infrastructure Europe shows Germany's gas storage facilities at slightly over 77% full.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government initially planned for gas storage levels to reach 75% by Sept. 1. The next federally mandated targets are 85% by Oct. 1 and 95% by Nov. 1.

European governments are racing to fill underground storage facilities with natural gas supplies in order to have enough fuel to keep homes warm during the coming months.

Russia has drastically reduced natural gas supplies to Europe in recent weeks, with flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany currently operating at just 20% of agreed upon volume.

Moscow blames faulty and delayed equipment. Germany, however, considers the supply cut to be a political maneuver designed to sow European uncertainty and boost energy prices amid the Kremlin's onslaught against Ukraine.

Even if Germany gets through the winter, the problem might come in spring next year, so the uncertainty is there and companies are concerned.

Marcel Fratzscher

President of DIW

"Germany developed a business model that was largely based on dependence on cheap Russian gas and thus also a dependence on a president who disregards international law [and] to whom liberal democracy and its values are declared enemies," Economy Minister Robert Habeck said at a press conference on Monday, according to a translation. "This model has failed, and it is not coming back."

His comments came as Germany's gas market operator, Trading Hub Europe, announced that households nationwide would have to pay almost 500 euros ($507.3) more per year for gas.

The new tax is designed to help utilities cover the cost of replacing Russian supplies, though Germany's government has faced calls to provide further relief for the public.

"All measures, and this is undisputed, have a price," Habeck said. "All measures have consequences and some of them are also impositions, but they lead to us being less susceptible to blackmail and us being able to decide on our energy supply independently of Russia."

Europe's race to save enough gas to get through the colder months comes at a time of skyrocketing prices. The surge in energy costs is driving up household bills, pushing inflation to its highest level in decades and squeezing people's spending power.

Germany, until recently, bought more than half of its gas from Russia. And the government is now battling to shore up winter gas supplies amid fears Moscow could soon turn off the taps completely.

"I think the chances are quite good that Germany will get to 90% storage capacity by the beginning of winter, but that still is not sufficient to really avoid a gas shortage," Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday.

"Even if Germany gets through the winter, the problem might come in spring next year, so the uncertainty is there and companies are concerned," Fratzscher said.

"The uncertainty is poison for the economy. Companies investing less, consumers consuming less and so the result is that we are seeing a massive slowdown of the German economy," he added.

RWE Chief Financial Officer Michael Muller told CNBC's Joumanna Bercetche on Aug. 11 that the firm's gas storage levels stood above 85%.

Muller said the Essen-headquartered company, one of Germany's largest energy providers, was "well on track" to reach the government's target by November.

Analysts told CNBC that Germany has been able to rapidly fill its gas stocks in recent weeks because of a number of factors. These include strong supply from Norway and other European countries, falling demand amid soaring energy prices, businesses switching from gas to other types of fuel, and the government providing more than 15 billion euros in credit lines to replenish storage facilities.

"If you spend a lot of money then it is relatively straightforward to fill the storage of course," Andreas Schroeder, head of energy analytics at ICIS, a commodity intelligence service, told CNBC via telephone.

If the German government "wants to see this as a success, then fine. We will see," Schroeder said. "But Germany is still not faring better than other countries, like France or Italy. They have filled their storage more without paying the huge subsidies."

One reason Germany has found itself with a "strategic disadvantage" compared with other major European economies, Schroeder said, is that Germany's gas storage had previously been partly owned by Gazprom-controlled facilities.

Germany's Rehden natural gas storage facility is seen as crucial to the country's energy security.

Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

This was the case with Germany's huge Rehden storage facility, for example, a site critical to the country's energy security.

"In other countries, [such as] France and Italy, you didn't have this problem at the outset," Schroeder said, adding that he remains skeptical about whether Germany will be able to reach the "quite ambitious" 95% storage level target by November.

"Gas storage is not enough. You need demand reductions as well," Schroeder said.

The European Union agreed last month to reduce natural gas use to offset the prospect of further Russian supply cuts. The draft law is designed to lower demand for gas by 15% from August through to March with voluntary steps.

Mandatory cuts would be triggered for the 27-nation bloc if there aren't enough savings, however.

Zongqiang Luo, gas analyst at energy consultancy Rystad Energy, told CNBC that Germany's position as the biggest consumer of natural gas in Europe means it is tricky to compare Berlin's storage levels to other European countries.

Luo said only France, Spain and Italy were comparable in terms of the scale of their gas consumption, but France's reliance on nuclear production for power generation, Spain's use of LNG import terminals and Spain and Italy's reliance on Algerian gas exports mean they all differ from Germany.

France's gas storage facilities were last seen at nearly 87% full, according to GIE, while Spain and Italy's gas stocks stood at roughly 81% and 77%, respectively.

"So, I will say compared to Germany's storage plan with these three countries, Italy, France and Spain, I will say that so far Germany has done a good job," Luo said.

"But let's see how they are going to fulfill the target for the next two months," he said. "This will be very, very critical for the coming winter."

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Germany has worked hard to shore up winter gas supplies and it's ahead of schedule - CNBC

German exports beyond the European Union fell by 7.6% on the month in July, the Federal Statistics Office said on Monday, marking a weak start to the second half in the engine room of Europe's largest economy.

The decline came after three rises in a row.

The economy stagnated in the second quarter, and finance minister Christian Lindner said this month the economic situation in Germany was deteriorating and the outlook fragile.

Separate official data released on Friday showed German producer prices jumped at the fastest pace on record in July. The economy is stuck in a stranglehold of soaring costs and weakening growth because of the Ukraine war.

The United States remained the most important trading partner for German exporters in July, with exports of goods to the US market rising 14.9% on the year. Exports to China rose 6.1% on the year. Exports to Russia fell 56.0% on the year.

The German economy became more dependent on China in the first half of 2022, with direct investment and its trade deficit reaching new heights, despite political pressure on Berlin to pivot away from Beijing, according to research seen by Reuters.

In April of this year, the president of Germany's Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), Dirk Jandura said a swift end to the current price pressures facing businesses and consumers is "not foreseeable".

News byReuters, edited byESM your source for the latestsupply chainnews. Clicksubscribeto sign up toESM: European Supermarket Magazine.

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German Exports Beyond The EU Slump In July - ESM European Supermarket Magazine

The European Union takes note of the preliminary results of the constitutional referendum held in Tunisia on 25July, for which turnout was low. A broad consensus among the various political forces, including political parties and civil society, is both essential for the success of a process that preserves the democratic acquis and necessary for all the major political and economic reforms Tunisia will undertake. The legitimacy and sustainability of those reforms will depend on it.

The preparations and arrangements for the parliamentary elections scheduled for December should therefore be seen as an opportunity to foster a genuine exchange within the framework of an inclusive national dialogue. As the European Union and the Venice Commission have repeatedly pointed out, that dialogue will be an important condition for establishing a legislative framework which ensures the legitimacy and representativeness of the future parliament. The election of the parliament will be the cornerstone of the return to normal functioning of the countrys institutions, with full respect for democratic principles, in particular the separation of powers, consolidation of the rule of law, pluralism and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Freedom of expression, press freedom, freedom to demonstrate and the other fundamental freedoms are essential values of democratic states to which the European Union attaches particular importance and which must be preserved.

The European Union will continue to follow developments closely, and will stand by the Tunisian people and listen to their needs at this crucial time for the country. The European Union reaffirms that it is ready and willing to provide political support for a successful democratic transition. It will also continue to support the Tunisian people as they respond to the major socio-economic and financial challenges facing the country, which have been aggravated by the impact of the Russian aggression against Ukraine on food and energy security and which call for urgent structural reforms.

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Tunisia: Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the constitutional referendum - Prsidence franaise du Conseil de...

The European Union has committed its member states to reduce their natural gas consumption by 15 percent from next month until March next year. The energy ministers of the 27 EU countries adopted an EU Commission proposal on Tuesday.

The way in which the cuts are implemented is up to the individual states and the targeted savings are voluntary. However, if an acute emergency occurs, mandatory savings targets can also be adopted if at least 15 member states representing 65 percent of the population agree. Originally, the EU Commission wanted to reserve the right to declare an energy emergency, but could not enforce this position.

The austerity decision is being sold as an act of solidarity because all countries, regardless of how much they are affected by possible supply shortfalls, have to make the same savings. The reduction of demand across the EU is an expression of the principle of solidarity enshrined in the EU Treaty, the Commissions text states.

In fact, it is a war measure that was enforced by the EU Commission and the German government with brute force. The aim is to enable Europe to continue the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine for months and years, until Russias military defeat.

Brussels and Berlin fear that resistance to energy scarcity, inflation and horrendous rearmament costs could lead to resistance and that social pressure on governments could jeopardize the EUs cohesion. Therefore, the concentrated power of the EU apparatus is used to push through the austerity measures and to bring all members into line.

Like any war, the war against Russia, driven by the United States and the European powers with billions of dollars in arms, requires unity, discipline, material sacrifice and the suppression of any internal opposition. The massive energy crisis, which has caused the prices of gas and petrol to explode and threatens to lead to a massive energy outage during the coming winter, is a direct result of the war in Ukraine.

Even before the reactionary Russian attack on Ukraine, the commissioning of the completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which, with an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres, could meet 15 percent of the total European demand, was permanently cancelled. Other pipelines, which have been supplying Russian gas to the EU through Ukraine or Belarus for decades, stopped operating due to the war.

Nord Stream 1, which has the same capacity as Nord Stream 2, currently supplies 40 percent of its capacity and only 20 percent from Thursday. Moscow has justified the supply reduction with the necessary maintenance of turbines, some of which fell victim to Western sanctions, and has denied the intention of wanting to stop operations altogether.

The EU has rejected this as an excuse and accused Russia of deliberately trying to use gas as a political weapon. German Economics Minister Robert Habeck accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of playing a perfidious game: he tried to weaken the great support for Ukraine and drive a wedge into German society.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has always been a reliable supporter of Western propaganda, also accused Moscow of terrorizing the West by curbing Nord Stream 1 and inciting an open gas war against united Europe.

These accusations are absurd. They are reminiscent of the burglar who cries Stop the thief! to distract the police. In reality, it is the EU that is pursuing the stated goal of driving Russia into ruin through economic sanctions. According to the official decision, the EU no longer wants to import fossil fuels from Russia by 2027 at the latest. The militaristic tone of the accusations confirms that the EU is not concerned with energy security, but with the instrumentalization of energy policy as a weapon of war.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used all her authority to oblige all EU members to reduce gas consumption. The Christian Democratic Union politician already played a leading role as German Defense Minister in reviving German militarism. In 2014, the government in which von der Leyen was a member supported the right-wing coup in Kiev, which laid the seeds for todays war.

The von der Leyen gas savings plan is based on the controversial Article 122 of the Treaty on European Union, which allows the EU to intervene deeper than usual in the national sovereignty of the member states in emergencies.

Already during the euro crisis, when the EU helped the banks out of the crisis with billions, and forced countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain to make brutal social cuts, it invoked this article. Likewise, after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, when it again made available hundreds of billions for a reconstruction fund in favour of banks and corporations.

This time, however, von der Leyen met with considerable resistance. Countries in the south, which now meet their gas demand from North Africa, were reluctant to agree to a programme that primarily benefits Germany, which is particularly dependent on Russian gas supplies.

The Spanish Minister for the Environment, Teresa Ribera, initially rejected the plan outright. Her country would not make any disproportionate sacrifices. No Spanish family would have to fear cuts in the gas supply in winter, she said, explaining this was because Spain has done its homework and not lived beyond its means.

Like the German government, the Spanish government fully supports the proxy war against Russia. But the arrogance with which the German government faced more heavily indebted countries during the euro crisis and forced them to take drastic austerity measures has not been forgotten.

On Monday, the diplomats of the 27 EU member states negotiated well into the night, until they finally reached a majority agreement thanks to numerous special arrangements. For example, a number of countriesCyprus, Malta and Irelandwhich are not connected to the gas network of other member states, are excluded from the austerity objectives.

In the end, only Hungary voted against the decision to reduce gas consumption. Viktor Orbns government, which maintains good relations with Russian President Putin, is now also rejecting economic sanctions against Russia.

But the centrifugal tendencies in the EU are enormous. In Italy, Mario Draghis government of national unity has also broken up over the question of war. While Draghi unreservedly supported NATOs war course, Silvio Berlusconis right-wing Forza Italia and Lega refused to deliver arms to Ukraine. It is unclear what the government will do after the elections at the end of September.

What welds the ruling class of Europe together is the fear of working class uprisings. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recently declared that if no more gas came from Russia, then we as Germany can no longer provide any support at all for Ukraine, because we are then occupied with popular uprisings.

The Baden-Wrttemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, a member of the Greens like Baerbock, also warned against a split in society, commenting, If we walk into a gas emergency, the centrifugal forces will be great, greater than in the case of the Coronavirus.

The escalation of the war in Ukraine serves not least to direct these internal tensions outwardeven if it leads to a third, nuclear world war.

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European Union demands rationing of natural gas to wage war - WSWS